Year old battery, dead

MargeS

I should be getting longer than 1 year out of a battery, right?

If the bike is left up for 2/3 days, the battery dies. There must be something drawing on the battery, but where do I start?

sleepysniper

Regulator/Rectifier or Stator might be goosed. What bike is it?

MargeS

10 year old Monster 695

CJhaughey

Have you got a multimeter?
If you haven't then get one, you don't need a flash job, just a cheapie will do.
Turn bike off and disconnect the negative terminal and put the meter as a link between earth and negative battery terminal.
read the number and record it.
Then pull fuses from the fusebox until the number changes. That will indicate which circuit is causing the problem.

Del2005

What is the average journey time? A lot of short trips will kill a battery, they need about 10 minutes to recover from starting. Do you have an alarm?

rustynutz

It could be a number of things, I always keep my bike on a battery tender when its not in use for periods longer than a week. I usually have 2-3 bikes in my shed at any one time over the past 10 years and I haven't had to buy a single battery for them. For your particular problem I would guess the regulator/rectifier https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kDx3zgOLShY this is a guide to check it, Ducati are known to have issues with them, is the bike doing anything else unusual like lights flickering or not working?

RAIMEIS

Hello,

My post might not be adequate here but I would like to say about battery AND motorbike:

Take a Li-Ion one. It is a bit more expensive but really great value.
Google it and you will find the major supplier of this battery type.

Benefits:
- Lighten your motorbike it is not even the quarter of the weight of the standard battery.
- Really robust, I have mine since 6 years. The standard battery died after 3 years and a half.
- My bike always starts as a charm even if not used for months.

serious3

Reg rec won't drain your battery it just won't charge it if it's goosed, 13.5v to 14.5v across the terminals at 3000rpm is what you need to see. L twins and vee twins need a lot of amps to spin them, if your doing lots of short journeys then it won't recover enough charge. Try the tip above to see what circuits drawing power (if any) if that checks out then get the battery tested. Oh and fit another heavy earth between battery and engine along with the biggest amperage quality solenoid you can get. Ducatis need as much help as possible starting.

MargeS

I did as CJhaughey suggested (well the other half did, he knows more about electrical stuff). The fuel injection fuse was the only one that caused a voltage drop.
I do a 50 mile return run every day on open N road (so 100kph for 90% of it). The bike starts up fine every morning as long as the bike isn't left unused for 2/3 days.
I have a trickle charger (Oxford) and on the last recharge it said that the battery was in a Weak condition. The battery is one year old as I only put it in the bike around the 10th of May 2015.

I think at this point it's beyond me, so it's off to the mechanic.

Zascar

Is the battery nackered? Might be time for a new one. Motorbike batteries dont like being left empty. Buy it in batterywrold or similar and keep the receipt!