Not Quite Ready! Last Minute Problem

I packed up the bike Wednesday night.   I had finished the packing and decided to start the bike up and make sure all was ready.

The electrical system was completely dead.  No sign of life.  Something had discharged the battery since it was last started on Sunday.  I put the battery tender on for the night to begin restoring the charge.

This morning the battery was still stone cold dead.  Drove the car to work.

This evening Mick and I put our mechanic's hats on and went to work.

1.)  Battery tender quick connect line had a blown 3 amp fuse.

2.)  Initially, the radio circuit appeared to be increasing the amp draw on the battery charger approx. 1 amp, well above the 5 milliamp max allowable.

3.) We tracked the leak to the radio.  All wires leading to the radio appeared ok.

4.) As the battery regained its charge, to approx. 10 volts level, the amp leakage test indicated only a total 0.9 milliamps (good) with the radio circuit connected, and approx. 0.8 when it was disconnected.  We don't know if this is normal, but no other circuit resulted in a fluctuation in amp draw.
Regardless, we were unable to find the higher 1 amp draw noticed when the battery was very weak.


We have two theories:

1.)  Battery tender connections were not completely covered with the cap when I washed the bike, and it shorted against a metal surface on the bike long enough to discharge the battery, eventually blowing the 3 amp fuse.

2.)  The radio has a "short" in the solid state circuitry that is intermittently strong enough to pull enough amps to discharge the battery over several days.


The plan:

Since we will be riding every day, it is likely the battery will still have sufficient charge to start the bike each morning.  The bike's charging system appears to be working fine when the bike is running.

If in the morning this proves not the be the case, we'll jump the bike to get it started, and remove the radio fuse each subsequent night to eliminate the discharge.

The battery tender quick connect has been removed, and if the battery requires charging, I'll connect directly to the battery terminals located behind the front wheel.

Got the battery charger on all tonight.  If I have juice in the morning . . .

I think we're ready to go!!!