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Help with battery/flat battery issue

bic_bicknell

bic_bicknell

2017-10-08 18:26:00 UTC

Bit of advice urgently needed as I have a flat battery (again) and need to get to a meeting tomorrow urgently.

This is my relatively new battery I put in to replace the Shorai one and I confess I haven't ridden the Superduke for two weeks so it's in good order, just lost its punch due to non use and the alarm draining it over time. Bike is stored at my lock up where there is no power so I cannot just charge the battery up as I would if it was at home.

My usual option (which I have done a few times for various reasons) is to push the bastard the two miles to my house and then charge up over night. Because of the hard to access battery I have a trickle charge cable wired in with easy access under the tank. This is a Halfords maintenance charger as shown in the link below.

I'm shit with anything electrical (really a dunce) but I have had this thought which I need to ask about and many of you out there will be able to tell me if this idea is OK.

I really, don't want to push the bike two miles and neither do I really don't want to have to take off the belly-pan and remove the battery to get it home as I just don't have time tomorrow. So my question is can I just go to Halfords, buy a really cheap car battery - pre charged, and then use the cables from the maintenance charger to jump start the bike in the morning?

The maintenance kit comes with another cable that plugs into the lead with the same male/female connector. It has clips on the other end that are for when you just want to charge up a battery when it's not in a bike. So can I just reverse this cable and clip this onto my new charged battery, plug the connector into my bike lead under the tank and jump the bike? I started getting concerned because I can't work out whether I need to still clip the RED/positive clip to the positive terminal on the battery or whether I need to reverse this and clip the Black clip to the battery.

What will happen if I connect the new battery through the leads the wrong way round?

Will I permanently damage something and if so what?

Is it better to just cut the lead that I use coming from the transformer and wire this to the new battery? But even then I do not know which side of the lead (and more importantly male/female connector) is positive or negative.

Any help or comments appreciated!!

Thanks in advance.











https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=halfo ... QyqjQLPbVM:

bic_bicknell

bic_bicknell

2017-10-08 18:45:00 UTC

Oh, another thing,

My charger has much thicker wires than the one shown in the link. They're quite beefy, not a thick as jump lead cable but way thicker than these.

WHO?

WHO?

2017-10-08 23:20:00 UTC

With all of your battery issues....have you thought about a solar trickle charger?

RichUK

RichUK

2017-10-09 07:27:00 UTC

Post missing.

bic_bicknell

bic_bicknell

2017-10-09 12:57:00 UTC

As No.47 linked to.
Use your bikes' battery to power up the ECU & FI but connect the remote battery to the starter solenoid and to the starter motor chassis earth. That way the start motor will mainly be drawing from the remote battery.

Don't connect through the charger lead as it isn't man enough. It'll just blow the charge line fuse (if there is one) or get the wires very hot.

Sarasota_Steve

Sarasota_Steve

2017-10-09 17:01:00 UTC

Ha ha!

I just found that out (blowing the fuse on the trickle charge lead)

Once that happened I realised that the bloody fuse is buried in the wiring underneath the belly pan so I was going to have to take that off anyways. So I decided to push the fooking bike the few miles home and just replace the fuse and use the trickle charger I have over night.

All done now and bike on charge outside the house but it cost me a wasted trip to Halfords, a wasted investment in a jump start kit, an hour long push through Bristol and a 60 unite strip down to replace a 10 amp fuse.

I fooking hate the KTM Superduke battery issue and what you have to do to fix the situation.

Of course I never had this problem over the last 11 years of ownership because I rode it every day. But now I don't and the problems start.

I don't ride it as much now because, to be honest, the Kawasaki 750 triple is far more fun so it gets all my attention now.

No. 47

No. 47

2017-10-09 17:49:00 UTC

Bic,
HAve you thought of getting one of these ?

You can keep it charged at home, take it with you when you go to get the bike.

It's small and it packs a punch.

SpeedyR

SpeedyR

2017-10-10 03:58:00 UTC

Post missing.

No. 47

No. 47

2017-11-09 20:33:00 UTC

Bic - just bought one of these - https://www.amazon.co.uk/DBPOWER-Portab ... B01MT1AACJ - appears to be best in class, well designed and comes as a neatly cased package as well.