Out again this morning to start the bike. It dropped NOT to 34, but to 41 last night. Weather man needs to get a real job. I began my starting ritual: pretty much just like before. When I attempted to start the bike, the voltage would drop into some pretty low numbers (like 8.5 or so), but then it slowly rose back up to 12.4 or so after I let off the starter... over the course of perhaps 20 seconds. On the second attempt to start the bike, with perhaps 20 or 30 seconds in between each attempt, the voltage recovered, it crept back up to 12.5, the third: up to 12.6, the third, a little higher, and so on until it reached about 12.8 on the 6th attempt. That was when it started. As before, each time I tried to start the bike, it failed to do so, but the battery was waking up.
Watching the voyage slowly creep back up after each attempt to start the bike taught me something about these batteries. While I'm standing there watching the voltage creep back up, 11.8, 11.9, 12.0, 12.1 and so on, I notice that the higher the voltage goes, the longer it takes to "get" there. When the battery reaches a point where voltage doesn't seem to want to creep any higher (at about 20-30 seconds after each attempt to start) I go ahead and hit the starter again. No use waiting any longer if the voltage isn't going to go any higher, I'm thinking.
Gary
darksider #44