A friend has a Bayliss Replica 1098R which needed a new battery. Since he works offshore and bike sits for long periods unused, I suggested he buy a Lithium Iron-Phosphate battery as a replacement and he duly bought a Shorai. Now when he fitted the bike started no bother but when he took it out and had ridden a mile or two the dash started acting funny and he had no headlights nor indicators. After stopping and restarting it showed BATT HI which means the voltage as higher than 16V !! Thinking he might have a problem with the regulator we fitted the standard Yuasa YB12BS off my bike and started the bike. I measured 14.4V across the battery after it had run for a minute or so and the dash wasn't complaining. Unfortunately I didn't note what voltage it was displaying but I don't think it was significantly different from what I measured across the battery. We then swapped the Yuasa for the Shorai and tried again. This time after a minute or so with the BATT display selected on the dash it was flashing 15V, yet the voltage reading across the battery was 14.34V which is well within the normal charging range. Has anyone got any ideas what's going on? Why is the dash reading 0.7V higher than the battery voltage? This one has me puzzled.
No idea about the voltage but what I will say is be careful with the Shorai battery and especially the charger. I had one fitted to my 1098 which caught fire.
Lithium batteries are pretty dodgy IMO......quite a dangerous material. Mind you my new Yuasa conventional battery is puzzling me........My battery monitor says it's OK, but it used to show an overcharge occasionally when the headlight wasn't on. It's not doing it now.......so perhaps cold weather affects the reg/rec charge or seeing as how the bike has had a couple of soakings recently, maybe I should check the reg/rec connections and earth point.
