Newbie again: Battery Tender never shows "green-charged"?

[silvermane]

I've had the bike now for a few weeks and as all my bikes I keep a Battery Tender hooked up keeping my battery fresh daily.  I've been noticing though that the Kawi is the only bike that the charging light stays red only, never changing to green like all my others?  Maybe this charger is going bad?  So I've switched a few times and still same results.  Is there something running continuously that keeps a drawl on the battery or?  Any ideas?

[VirginiaJim]

Stock, these bikes don't have much of a current draw.  At least that's with the 08/09s.  I don't use a tender of any sort on mine and never had an issue with the battery.  Do you have any powered farkles drawing any power?

[BMahar]

  I also keep a Battery Tender on my 2011 Concourse and the red light stays on for a short period of time but then the green comes on.  Check for a draw on the battery or perhaps a loose connection.
 Brent

[So Cal Joe]

I also use one and it goes to green in a few minutes. Try your tender on another battery, the unit might be bad.

[Shoe]

Have you checked the polarity?

[fmwhit]

My battery is several years old and tender goes green after a short period.  Do you have the tender connected directly to the battery terminals??  If not there could be some resistance in the charging path.

Good Luck,
Fred

[Locol]

You inspired me to hook up my tender pigtales and plug in the charger on my new bike. It took the tender about 3 mins. to turn green. This is the same amount of time it took on my old Uly. Something is up if yours is not turning green.

[lt1]

How do you have the battery tender hooked to the battery?  You are aware that the cigar outlet is switch through the key, right?

[silvermane]

Yikes!  You guys got me worried now   I'm using the alligator clips that came with the unit until I hook up the permanent battery connection.  I've hooked up the red to the red terminal I can see and the black negative to the negative leg shown in the owner's manual for charging.  You are right, all my other bikes change to green in just a few minutes/hours.  Oh boy :/

[jqram35]

Made me go look mine is green..

[ZedHed]

My charger takes about an hour or more to turn green if it hasn't been hooked up for more than a week.  Recent Murph's AGM battery -- my other bikes can sit for months and the charger turns green in just a few minutes.  I have always suspected that there is a parasitic drain on the battery.  There are no farkles on my electrical system either.

[silvermane]

I've tried all four of my tenders, and none of them ever turn green on the connie.  They turn green on the other three bikes bikes within an hour though.  Uhg!  The only electric mod is really not a mod, I have a dual-outlet adapter in the cigar outlet.  I've double checked it and it only is powered when "on".  I would just drop the tender but for decades I've gotten at least twice the life on ever battery.  Also, understanding how a battery works with this technology is a win-win.  Now to figure out why I can't get a full charge......................................

[gPink]

Have you disconnected the battery from the bike,both pos and neg and tried the charger to determine if the battery will charge?

[Conrad]

Just wondering, have you put a meter on the battery to see what the voltage is?

[JamminJere]

+1 from gpink and conrad....  You need to get the battery out of the bike, see what the voltage is, and see if it will charge to green by itself to determine if the problem is withe the bike putting a drain on the battery... Or just a bad battery with a bad cell... If the voltage of the battery after charging is around 10.8 V you have a bad cell in it..

JJ

[silvermane]

Good idea!  I just bought the bike and haven't touched the battery.  I do know when I ride it says 14.3.  I'll check and clean and protect my terminals.  I need to install terminal block anyway, after I check the battery issue...

[gPink]

14.3 means your charging system is working but not battery condition. Let us know what you find.

[Gumby]

14.3 means your charging system is working but not battery condition.

That's good to know.

[maxtog]

+1 from gpink and conrad....  You need to get the battery out of the bike, see what the voltage is, and see if it will charge to green by itself to determine if the problem is withe the bike putting a drain on the battery...

Well, you don't have to take it off the bike (or disconnect it) to check the resting voltage condition.  Just charge the bike "fully" (or as much as it will take), start the bike, turn it off, wait 5 min, and take a reading anywhere accessible, but WITH THE IGNITION AND ALL LIGHTS OFF. 

If you want to test if the bike is putting a parasitic resting drain on the battery, the only way to test that is to use a multimeter on milliamps setting, make sure bike IS OFF, disconnect one pole of the battery,  then connect one lead of the meter to the disconnected battery pole and the other to the disconnected bike lead.  This will show the current drain.  It should be extremely low, like in the 10mA range or less (I don't know exactly what the maximum would be considered acceptable on the Concours).

I do know when I ride it says 14.3.

As gpink said, the voltage reading from the display is mostly meaningless.  That is the condition of the battery PLUS the alternator PLUS the voltage regulator in the alternator vs. all the current load from everything sucking power.  Think of is as an "overall health of the RUNNING electrical system".   But that reading says almost nothing about the condition of just the battery, alone.

[gPink]

Well, you don't have to take it off the bike to check the resting voltage condition.  Just charge the bike "fully" (or as much as it will take), start the bike, turn it off, wait 5 min, and take a reading anywhere accessible, but WITH THE IGNITION AND ALL LIGHTS OFF. 

If the battery is still connected to the bike you would still have the possibility of a parasitic draw and not know for sure if the battery is bad. ?