Battery Replacement

Since I got my VFR a year ago and since I have no documentation on service work performed, I decided to change the battery. I am a firm believer in replacing batteries before they leave you sit. I had been having problems with my dash clock. It was losing time at an alarming rate but I chalked that up to just a shitty OEM dash clocks. I took the battery to the guys I work with and got an immediate "what do ya want to replace a good battery for?" They condescended to put the battery on the test meter and sure enough it showed 12.5 volts but tested bad under load. Long story short, I replaced the battery and now the clock is fine. I wonder if maybe a lot of charging and R/R problems are not initially stared because of bad batteries?

 

I did the exact opposite I replaced the R/R not even questioning the battery as I just acquired the bike
as these are known to fail I just said CHANGE IT

 

I replaced the R/R, the battery and installed the VFRNess. I am taking no chances with electrical issues if I can help it. I really do think that dying batteries could put undue stress on a charging system that is not too robust in the first place. You know, you said you were having the dealer do a bunch of service work as a bench mark. I feel this way about batteries Now I know when the battery was installed and how many miles are on it. Before I had no idea.

 

maybe after all the money I have spent I will pull the battery and check the date once I get her back
that's a pretty Cheap and easy thing to replace

 

Changing the R/R is never a bad thing, since anyone who's spent any time on a VFR (or reading about it) knows the R/R is doomed to fail. But there's no doubt owners should check their battery as well. In the thread we've come to know as "the Drill", it does say the first thing to do is charge the battery overnight and get it load tested.

 

No way would I let the dealer do it.

 

You may wanna deal with the connector between the Stator and RR, mine burned out a new Stator and had a go at the third before it was removed.

 

I think the VFRNess deals with this issue although I might be mistaken.

 

I don't believe the VFRNess does. The VFRNess plugs in-line between the RR and the bike's main harness, the RR/Stator had their own independent wires and connector. The RR/Stator connector is under-gauged and mine, part of a brand new OEM RR, burned out an also brand new after-market stator less than 30 minutes after I got the bike back. The Honda tech, watching for trouble this time, caught the wires from Stator #3 (OEM this time) heating up the minute he started the bike before any damage happened. The problem was solved by cutting off the connector and twist/soldering the Stator/RR wires to each other, a solution the the shop Googled after they and Honda Corp finally ran out of WAGs. Take a look around, you'll find stories a'plenty of others with my exact issue.

Here's the Mods schematic from my '05, hope it helps...

 

So you just hard wired around the stator connector?

 

Batteries have a set life. The standard agm lead acid battery in the vfr has a life of about 3yrs. After this it can go bad at any time. Mean while as it goes bad it take more current and longer to charge. This stresses the r/r and the connectors causing a failure. If its a connector failure then the r/r tends to short out or get too hot fighting the extra resistance in the circuit. This chain of events can cause the stator to overheat thus shortening its life dramaticly. The r/r input can fail due to high load and short the stator which causes immediate failure of the effected stator winding.

The short of this is that it can all be prevented by maintaining critical parts before failure, and the battery is critical to the whole electrical system.

And for the record, a volt meter can not tell if a battery is good or not. The battery must be tested to a percentage of depth of discharge at voltage loss. This is a complicated and time consuming process with a fair bit of math involved.

 

The Honda shop flat-out cut off what was left of the thing, with severe overload-caused thermal damage, and soldered the wires to each other. If I ever need to replace the Stator or RR again I WILL replace the connector with high load marine grade bullet connectors.

 

Now that's what I am talking about but didn't know how to say. I wounder how many the R/R problems are not first started by a battery that is drawing too much load. I had smiler electrical issues, years ago, om a Datsun F10 I was driving. The electrical system was so balanced in its design that a load any one component could knock out several more. I think the VFR is like this.

 

The datsun f10 had a regulator on the fire wall, similar concept to how our bikes work but the rectifiers in the datsun were in the alternator.

On this type of system you can also cause issues by not drawing enough of a load. This is because the regulator is not much more than a variable shunt to frame. It switches from shorted to frame to not shorted so fast that the net effect is a multiple of the resistance in the ce junction. Mosfet systems work exactly the same way but use different circuitry to accomplish it. I personally would like to see SCR technology used but the cost to such a system is fairly expensive.

Warning to everyone: your mutlimeter is only capable of measuring up to 10A of current. To measure more current, special shunts (precision resistors of extreme low value) are required. Then you must measure the voltage across the shunt and using the known values and some math figure out the current flowing. (This is how all ammeters actually work, but they come precalibrated)

Now to more meat:

You cant blame the battery solely. Besides determined life cycle, batteries can be forced to go bad due to under charge and overcharge. Undercharge causes sulfication by electro-crystalization. This is the process of electroplating sulfur from the acid to the lead plates. This differs from the chemical sulfation that is supposed to happen.
Overcharge releases too much hydrogen too fast for the chemical exchange/bonding to happen properly. This allows the sulfur to left hanging in solution to bond with the hydrogen and float out (depletion) or to bond in a chain with oxygen and create sulfur dioxide. This is sulfication, sulfur dioxide takes huge amounts of current to break the chemical bonds to resolutate the sulfur back into h2s04. This large current in rush causes the battery to get extremely hot. So anything smaller than a locomotive battery should not be considered for recovery.

Lead acid batteries should be charges at 14.2 volts until 80% charge is reached and then at 13.8v until 95% charge and dropped to 12.8 for float and maintenance charge. The last 5% takes the longest to charge and can take up to 8 times longer than the 15% before it. Problem, our bikes put out 13.8 to 14.8v at whatever the battery can take for amperage. This is very hard on batteries as they get bulk charged but never properly topped up. This causes excessive gassing and loss of water. Other battery technologies have their own issues.

Now add to the mess connectors that are prone to corrosion, under sized for the load and placed in a hot wet environment. Thats a recipe for failure, now bake and see how long it takes to burn something.

 

Zen, how does/will my Shorai lithium battery hold up in this environment? Obviously time will tell but I'm curious if you have any knowledge with the Lithium based batteries.
John

 

putting on a battery tender-is a great idea. I put my tender on just before I run the bike. And then I start with a 100% charged battery-takes the load off the charging system and the battery too.:strawberry:

 

I am looking for one of those battery tenders with the long cord too.

 

Your battery tender doesnt get the chance to do anything. Natural resistance in the battery causes the battery to self discharge. So if its not being charged its always being discharged. Overnight 10 to 14 hrs, you can loose as much as 8% of total battery capacity. Your tender is a 2a cycle charger, it floats the battery to full over a long time. So a 100ah battery with 8% depleted will take about 4.5 hrs to recharge back to full. Best to put it on at night and charge it all night. This will help keep your battery healthy.

Lithium batterys:

These are constant voltage batteries. They output at a near constant voltage up to 85% capacity. Problem is they just die when depleted, so no warning of impending failure.
Automotive/industrial (same thing) lithium batteries have a charge controller embedded in the battery casing. Since these batteries require the individual cells to be charged individually there is another point of failure. Further complicate the issue with a narrow operation range of 65F to 90F (chemical limit). Temperature below 65F and the battery looses capacity, same for over temp but with a twist. Amphours drop but available current rises, this is due to thermal runaway which can erode the internal cell barrier. A cell is constructed of a pocket with a barrier down the middle. The two lithium based chemicals are each on there own side of the barrier and never the two shall meet.
Take this example: a lead acid battery (any type), if a cell shorts out, the battery voltge drops, the battery gets hot on that cell during the initial failure, may boil away the water in the cell and thats it. A lithium battery on the other hand is more active in the failures. The two chemicals can not meet. They dont mix well and tend to be violent towards each other. So if a hole in a barrier happens then you get Chernobyl in a battery. And that analogy isnt far off, as the cell heats up it effects the cells next to it causing them to heat up and create their own holes. Once the initial cell ruptures it ruptures the next cells as they are also hot by this point. As more cells rupture more chemicals mix and we get a runaway reaction leading to explosion. All because these two chemicals require a barrier less than the thickness of cling wrap to allow electrons to pass. As a stationary technology they are safe, reliable but have a low cycle life. As a mobile technology, well electric cars have very good containment for them and tend to look to nimh type batteries for production cars.

If compairing against a lead acid agm battery, they are only slightly lighter. Most lead acid battery weight is the liquid acid, go with agm (absorbed glass matt) and only a few ounces of acid are used and is kept in suspension in the glass matt.