Mr Stupid left the key turned on

[fredintoon]

The title says it all.
Put my gear on to take a ride, rolled the rig out of the garage, turned the key on and found that it already was.
Musta been that way for perhaps two days.
The bike is as dead as a doornail and the battery is only a month old.
It's on the charger right now.
Is there any hope for the battery's recovery or am I just fooling myself?

 

[michaelpthompson]

The guy at the auto parts store who tested my battery told me that once it's completely dead, you need to replace it. Then again, he was trying to sell me a new battery. I read someplace that if you run it completely dead a few times, it will stop taking a charge. Can't remember where, so no idea how reliable that source is. Bottom line; charge it up and see what happens, I guess. Good lesson to the rest of us to be vigilant!

 

[angus67]

I had a two month dead battery on a charger for a week. Nothing. Jumper cabled it to a good battery for five minutes, put it back on a tricle charger for one day, then 10 amp charge. Battery is fine. Most chargers wount charge unless there is something to begin with

 

[mrtwowheel]

I've done this trick a few times. Put some jumper cables on the dead battery and a charged battery, hook the charger up to the dead battery, disconnect the jumper cables after a few minutes. This fools the charger into thinking that the dead battery does have enough charge to do its business.

Scott

 

[XSLeo]

Todays smart chargers won't charge a totally dead battery. They need something like 3 volts to charge. If you have an older manual charger it don't care how dead a battery is.
I have and old marine 10 amp charger that has a manual and an automatic setting. In manual it will charge anything. On a totally dead battery I set it to manual then charge for 15 minutes to a half hour then put the bike charger on it.
On the cheap WalMart batteries they don't handle the totally dead recharge thing at all. A more expensive Battery takes that abuse much better.
Leo

 

[angus67]

My dead as a door nail was a full sive car battery in my 67 fairlane. I used a 12 volt gate opener battery to put something in it . 5 minutes later, the little battery was dead, and 5volts showd in the car battery. Charged it up the rest of the way, its been fine since.
Recharged the little battery and threw it back on my minimal wiring chop.
And I wouldn't exactly say my harbor freight charger is smart,
But it nows the difference between a dead dead dead battery, and a battery that just needs a pick me up.

 

[TwoManyXS1Bs]

Kinda relevant:

http://www.xs650.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37195
http://www.xs650.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30218
http://www.xs650.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29429

 

[gggGary]

On a motorcycle I want to trust I 100% would go buy a new battery. $60 for a battery or much more for charging components later.

 

[fredintoon]

Ten hour update:-
procrastination works!
took out my new, sucked flat battery, took the old one that I hadn't gotten around to throwing out yet and put it back in the bike.
Still had power enough to crank the motor over and start the bike.
Meanwhile, my fancyassed new charger refused to recognize the flat battery was hooked up to it so I dragged out my old dumb 1amp trickle charger to see what it would do.
At the 1pm initial hookup the dead battery showed 2.5 Volts.
It's now 10.45pm and it's up to 6.5V
We'll see what tomorrow will bring, eh?

 

[angus67]

Bet you'll be fine.mshorten the life span? Maybe. Mottobatt batteries is all i run. Agm, and higher cca' than spec'ed. Spendy, but worth it

 

[XSLeo]

I just reread your first post. You say you went to turn the key on and found it already on. Might be smart to get in the habit of removing the key after a ride. Most keys don't come out with key on.
This would insure you won't leave the key on again.
Leo

 

[fredintoon]

Hi Leo,
I remember why I forgot to turn it off.
I'd moved the rig to get at the sidecar wiring, turned the key on to power up the running, brake & signal systems to test the new connections then pushed the rig back into it's parking spot.
The bike wasn't running so Mr Stupid didn't think to turn the key off.
Of course you are right, if I habitually pocketed the key instead of leaving it in the ignition whenever the rig was in the garage I'd have had to turn the key off so I could take it out.
Then the key would have been in my pants pocket.
Or in the pocket of pants I wasn't currently wearing.
Or put down someplace else.
Gotta say, I've mislaid several bike keys over the years but this is the first one I've ever left turned on.
BTW, the battery has been on the 1 Amp charger for 22 hours and now reads ~13Volts.
Tomorrow I'll take it off the charger and see how well it'll work my extra turn signal/test lamp.

 

[scabber]

If it is 13V. you might have lucked out.

 

[mrtwowheel]

If it is 13V. you might have lucked out.

I didn't have any doubts.

Scott

 

[XSLeo]

I have a place inside where I hang all my keys. The only keys I don't have hung up are the ones I'm using at the time.
I do this now because over the years I have misplaced keys. Even replaced a few ignition switches because of this.
Leo

 

[fredintoon]

If it is 13V. you might have lucked out.

Hi scabber,
that's why I put the ~ sign in front of the number.
The multi-meter actually read 14.7
I think the meter ain't reading right, eh?
Always effin' somethin', ain't it?
And Leo, having a central place for all one's keys is a good plan.
Remembering to put 'em there is the trick.

 

[Brassneck]

I just salvaged a dead battery this past winter on my other bike... forgot to plug in the trickle charger on it over the winter...failed to check it of course and went out about 3 weeks ago to take it for a ride... low and behold, dead battery. Fearing that it was a lost cause, i bought a new one online but while waiting for delivery, I decided to jump it, then trickle charged it...one week later I had a fully charged at 12.6v. But would it stay that way???

So I did some testing...I hit the starter button, but kept the starter switch off to give it a load for about 6-8 seconds, checked the volts and saw them drop to 9.8...but then slowly came back up on it's own...all the way to 12.5v. So my final test was to leave it off the charger for the night....checked again in the morning, and still 12.5v.

I literally just took it out for the weekend (About 500 miles around the state) and didn't have any issues. So now I have a back-up battery for when this one finally dies...but the good news is that a dead battery can be revived...assuming it's a quality brand, I suppose.

 

[mrtwowheel]

About 40 years ago I had a battery in a RD350 that would not keep a charge. Being short on money I took it to an old guy in town that recycled batteries and resold them for cheap. He didn't have any MC batteries at the time. He put two drops of acid in every cell of my battery, without testing it, and told me to try to charge that battery, didn't charge me anything. That battery lasted me for a couple more years. I haven't tried that again since then, I just buy batteries like buying tires when they wear out.

Scott

 

[member3480]

OK guys I will give up one trick for batteries not older than 5 years and it works. If the battery is a acid battery and you have run it dead and have no life. Go buy at your parts store a acid pack they run around $15.00. Empty out the old acid and replace with new and run the battery like it was new on a trickle charger 2 volts for one hour. New virgin acid will light up the plates. Done it many times on batteries that were as old as 5 years and I have one on my bench that I use for testing harnesses and its 4 years old and has been reborn a year ago. LAST THING IMPORTANT you are dealing with acid SAFTEY FIRST!!!!!

 

[mrtwowheel]

OK guys I will give up one trick for batteries not older than 5 years and it works. If the battery is a acid battery and you have run it dead and have no life. Go buy at your parts store a acid pack they run around $15.00. Empty out the old acid and replace with new and run the battery like it was new on a trickle charger 2 volts for one hour. New virgin acid will light up the plates. Done it many times on batteries that were as old as 5 years and I have one on my bench that I use for testing harnesses and its 4 years old and has been reborn a year ago. LAST THING IMPORTANT you are dealing with acid SAFTEY FIRST!!!!!

Interesting idea.

Scott