Battery Draw

Trying to figure out why I ended up with a completely dead battery. Went on vacation for 2 weeks with a fully juiced up battery on the FJR. Had 3 bikes & a truck to keep charged while I was gone & only had 2 trickle chargers, so opted for my truck & my dirt bike that rarely get used anyways. Both my street bikes stayed off any chargers. Got back & my RS fired right up. The FJR was deader than a door nail. The only electrical accessories I've added are my Kristas & a dual-port USB connector. I'm pretty sure the Kristas wouldn't be drawing anything but can anyone tell me if the USB connector would be drawing a little voltage while the bike is shut off? Both are connected directly to my battery.

if a usb power converter (adapter) is attached to power, yes it draws power. Every 'brick' attached to your A/C at home draws power whether it's charging your phone, or powering your modem 24/7

but its only a wee bit if there's not something wrong with it.

A load of 5 mA will take 200 hours or about 8 days to drain 1 Ah from the battery. That's about 2 to 5% of a typical car batteries maximum capacity. So even if you left that connected for a year it would probably take not more than about 1/2 of the battery's capacity. as you start a car far more frequently than that it should not be a problem.

How old is your battery?

You might want to charge it to full capacity and test it under a load.

Fly Bye said:

How old is your battery?

Click to expand...

He marked that he has a 2014 FJR...so I'm pretty sure a year old or less.

The only electrical accessories I've added are my Kristas & a dual-port USB connector.

Click to expand...

Try taking them off and see if the issue goes away. Time and again we've learned on the forum add-on stuff doesn't always go as planned. If it does resolved, try and put back one at a time and see which it might be. Then reconsider how you wire that particular project. (i.e. don't wire directly to the battery, but a relayed source with the ignition on, different USB connector from a different source, etc.)

The BurnsMoto site has this statement:

Note: When this charger is connected directly to the battery it will draw a very small amount of power (milliAmps). Over time it may drain the battery. We recommend to connect it to a switched power source.

Click to expand...

However, I wouldn't have expected that to drain the battery in a few weeks.
You didn't leave it in the "Park" position, did you? That will really flatten the battery.

I have the same issue with my '13. I disconnect both my RD and GPS and it still goes dead in 2 weeks. I keep my tender connected now.

Need to install the usb unit on a switched fuzeblock... had the same problem, fuzeblock fixed my problem

bigjohnsd said:

I have the same issue with my '13. I disconnect both my RD and GPS and it still goes dead in 2 weeks. I keep my tender connected now.

Click to expand...

If there is speculation about the quiescent current draw of the Gen 3, I can sort that out with Fred W the next time he has Red's battery exposed. Just a few seconds with a clamp on amp probe and all will be told. Unless Fred wants to imagineer something with a shunt resistor himself.

Edit: Never mind, I believe mcatrophy has already got it covered and found the quiescent current of his Gen 3 was in the single milliamps range.

If someone has a Gen 3 with a short battery life while sitting unused, there may be something wrong worth looking into.

Had the same thing happen on my GenII when I left an SAE to USB converter connected for a week. You can measure a slow drop easily in a day with a voltmeter. Disconnect it when not in use for short term. Get it wired to switched power for long term.

ionbeam said:

....Edit: Never mind, I believe mcatrophy has already got it covered and found the quiescent current of his Gen 3 was in the single milliamps range.

...

Click to expand...

Well under 1mA, see here.

Never did care for hooking things up directly to the battery anyways. I'm sure the USB charger was the culprit but also surprised that it drained it so quickly. I'll definatley be installing a fuzeblock & keeping it on a tender when I'm not riding. My Kristas are installed per their instructions through a switched relay so that shouldn't be an issue and no, I didn't leave my park lights on Mac. Not sure exactly how old the battery is as they shipped my bike from UT to AZ when I purchased it, so it may have started off weak if it sat for several months without being run. I only have 2500 miles on the bike. It's not a daily runner for me.

Well the USB thing made things worse when the battery was getting closer to toast......

Gotta put the battery on a tester to get a load on it to see how how much life you got left in it.....

mcatrophy said:

ionbeam said:

....

Edit: Never mind, I believe mcatrophy has already got it covered and found the quiescent current of his Gen 3 was in the single milliamps range.

...

Click to expand...

Well under 1mA, see here.

Click to expand...

Looking at the post one sees following the link, it appears the "off" measurement was 2 mA. This would equate to 500 hours (almost 3 weeks) to drain 1 Ah, though, so it ain't much.
I've had occasion to leave my '13 sitting for 3 weeks untouched a couple of times. It's never been on a tender. It has no unswitched loads on it other than the built-in stuff. No problem at all starting it. FWIW it has an EarthX Li-Fe battery in it, but I doubt that's a factor.

Just ordered a Rowe PDM60 today so I should be able to clean things up with that. I think this is why Stanley is always telling me that electronics are 'the work of the devil' and why he is always out riding while I'm in the garage f'ing with mine. Truth is, I enjoy tinkering with it almost as much as riding it. OK, that's a damn lie, but I do enjoy installing the accessories on these bikes.<br /><br />After leaving my battery on the trickle charger for 2 days, it is back up to full charge but I still need to do a load test on it as everyone is suggesting to see if it will retain a charge.

RichDoyle said:

mcatrophy said:

ionbeam said:

....Edit: Never mind, I believe mcatrophy has already got it covered and found the quiescent current of his Gen 3 was in the single milliamps range.

...

Click to expand...

Well under 1mA, see here.

Click to expand...

Looking at the post one sees following the link, it appears the "off" measurement was 2 mA. This would equate to 500 hours (almost 3 weeks) to drain 1 A, though, so it ain't much. ...

Click to expand...

The current drops to less than that. If you look at the second picture in that post, this was the current after the bike had stood for a couple of days, measuring less than the sensitivity of my (crap) meter of 10uA.

I suspect the "higher" current after switching off was because of Yamaha's immobiliser that's fitted to my (UK) bike. The immobiliser changes mode after 24 hours in some way - at least, its LED flashes for the first 24 hours and not after that.

Ps. Just to be pedantic (wot, me?), the lost capacity is measured in ampere hours, not amps, so "... to drain 1 AH ...".

mcatrophy said:

RichDoyle said:

mcatrophy said:

ionbeam said:

....Edit: Never mind, I believe mcatrophy has already got it covered and found the quiescent current of his Gen 3 was in the single milliamps range.

...

Click to expand...

Well under 1mA, see here.

Click to expand...

Looking at the post one sees following the link, it appears the "off" measurement was 2 mA. This would equate to 500 hours (almost 3 weeks) to drain 1 A, though, so it ain't much. ...

Click to expand...

The current drops to less than that. If you look at the second picture in that post, this was the current after the bike had stood for a couple of days, measuring less than the sensitivity of my (crap) meter of 10uA.

I suspect the "higher" current after switching off was because of Yamaha's immobiliser that's fitted to my (UK) bike. The immobiliser changes mode after 24 hours in some way - at least, its LED flashes for the first 24 hours and not after that.

Ps. Just to be pedantic (wot, me?), the lost capacity is measured in ampere hours, not amps, so "... to drain 1 AH ...".

Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed I did make that sloppy entry of amps instead of amp-hours. And now I see the <.01ma entry - missed that.

If you think about it, the amount of current the bike should draw when shut off (farkling and self-discharge aside) could conceivably be no more than a battery-powered wristwatch. Just enough to hold some counters and run the clock. And how long does a wristwatch battery last?

I'm no expert, but I've bought brand new batteries that had problems....