Post
by speedy231278 » Sat Nov 10, 2012 11:48 am
12.3 is very low, although it will start the bike. I thought it was too low to do that, but during my recent woes I've been measuring everything to death and it seems you have to get to almost 12.0 before either the starter runs out of puff or the solenoid won't throw. However, if it was 12.5 previously, and you started the bike lots of times, and didn't measure it again until the next day, that might possibly not have helped. The voltage not changing between idle and 5K may or may not be significant. One thing I would suggest is that you test the voltages, and then take the bike out for 10-15 mins and get it nice and warm. One issue I have right now is that the battery gets low because when the bike gets warm, the charging system stops working until you leave the bike to cool a bit. As yet, I have no answer, but hopefully come next weekend I shall. It might be the reg/rec packing up at temperature, or possibly something weird going on with the battery or wiring.
When you've finished sorting the battery on the optimiser, if you have the opportunity, leave it off the bike for a good few days and keep measuring the voltage present. I'm not sure if batteries settle down after being charged, as in my experience mine comes off the charger at about 13.2 and then once on the bike drops to 12.8 fairly swiftly and stays there, charging issues aside. Supposedly, a healthy and stable battery loses no more than 0.1-0.3% charge in 24 hours, so once yours has settled (if it actually does that in the first place) measure every day at about the same time. If, for argument's sake, your battery starts at 12.80V, then a week later it should have no worse than 12.78 assuming a .3% discharge rate. It's not hard to calculate what you should have, simply open a spreadsheet programme, enter your initial voltage in cell A1 (use two decimal places), and enter cell two as A1-.3% Then drag the formula down into the subsequent cells for as long as the period you're going to measure. If the measured figure is less than the one in the cell for the particular day, you know the battery is not as strong as it could be.
