Don't think I'm loving lithium

[Rockout Rocker Products]

A little history....

New twin power lithium about.... I dunno.... 9 months ago? No issues, bike always starts fine. Sometimes I leave it on the tender, sometimes not. I'm certainly not religious about it.

Over the Christmas holidays I put in a Baker DD7.... bike was off the tender, sitting for about 2 weeks, and probably 3 more before that. OK, my bad I know. So after finishing the Baker install, the bike started OK, cranked a bit slower than usual but OK. Took about a 10 mile test ride & parked it again.

Today the bike got a well earned bath, hosed everything with a flood of water like I always do. While blowing it off with a leaf blower all went dead (I had had the radio on). Rut row. To make matters worse the alarm siren was going off & nothing I could do would stop it. I pulled fuses, relays, everything, it was like the Energizer bunny  Finally I got it to stop & pulled the plug from the siren.

So I figure at this point I blew water into somewhere I shouldn't have. Outer fairing off, unplug, plug, unplug, plug, blow with air, on & on.... nothing. I did notice that the LED on the gauge flashed VINER or something like that once. Got out my volt meter & checked the battery.... 5.6 volts.  So I put the tender on it... probably not more than 1 amp or so. It's one of those NOCO Genius models that has a lithium setting. Let it sit for maybe 15 minutes & tried again.... bike started up! Rode it back into the garage & parked it. Removed the tender & checked the battery voltage... 12.6V.

So now I don't trust the thing.... I don't like the ON/OFF nature of it. May be another Yuasa in my future. 

[kd]

I know you must have checked but it sounds like symptoms of a poor battery cable connection.

[Hossamania]

Did you measure voltage at the battery, or thru the tender plug? I agree with kd, it does have the symptom of a loose battery connection.

[Rockout Rocker Products]

I know you must have checked but it sounds like symptoms of a poor battery cable connection.

Did you measure voltage at the battery, or thru the tender plug? I agree with kd, it does have the symptom of a loose battery connection.

I measured it at the fusebox and the tender lead. It was getting late & I was just happy to get the beast into the garage before the rain starts, I'm going to dig deeper tomorrow.

[doctorevil]

Rocket i talked to battery electrical engineer at sema about lithium batteries for harleys. He explained to me the harley stator produces a bad ac ripple effect inherit by design. the ripple effect causes the battery to overheat because the rectifier cannot shunt the dc voltage properly. this causes the cathode anode to prematurely oxidize.

[doctorevil]

He also explained this is why lithium batterys are not to be used in airplanes with magnetos.

[wfolarry]

I bought an Antigravity battery at the PRI show. This new design is to prevent things from happening like you described. I won't know if it works for a few months though. It's snowing here. 
https://shop.antigravitybatteries.com/products/starter-batteries/restart-oem/atx20-rs/

[Rockout Rocker Products]

Yeah, I haven't gotten things apart yet to check cables but I think it's just a lithium thing. If I had thought clearly.... I had an Antigravity jump starter in the trunk & their pigtail lead hooked up to the battery, could have jumped it easily.

Just odd to have all or nothing instead of the slow march to click.... click....click.

[kd]

I bought an Antigravity battery at the PRI show. This new design is to prevent things from happening like you described. I won't know if it works for a few months though. It's snowing here. 
https://shop.antigravitybatteries.com/products/starter-batteries/restart-oem/atx20-rs/

Larry, I always stop for a chat with Scott (president) at SEMA.  I was going to opt in myself but I think I'll wait for the results on the version with the remote control jump start feature.  IMO Antigravity is possibly the leader in lithium batteries for use in Harley big twins and performance applications.  I have been following development  by discussing it with Scott each year over the last 5 or 6 years.  We have exchanged lots of ideas.  They have overcome most if not all of the issues plaguing their use in our world. In my experience, their warranty and service is superb.  This new jump start version overcomes the previous problems of parasitic discharge from security systems and Lojac anti theft devices by preventing full discharge if left unattended for extended periods. As you know, a typical problem with lithium batteries is trying to rescue them after running flat.  It will kill a high dollar lithium battery and render it useless.

[tmwmoose]

Because of my health my Twin Power has sat dormant  for 5 months. I put it on the battery charger @ 12.2 and walked away not expecting anything . Well I came back and it shows a full charge hmmm OK I'll give it a try and spin the motor over it did surprised me!

[kd]

Because of my health my Twin Power has sat dormant  for 5 months. I put it on the battery charger @ 12.2 and walked away not expecting anything . Well I came back and it shows a full charge hmmm OK I'll give it a try and spin the motor over it did surprised me!

Do you have security or Lojac tracking?

[Ohio HD]

Yeah, I haven't gotten things apart yet to check cables but I think it's just a lithium thing. If I had thought clearly.... I had an Antigravity jump starter in the trunk & their pigtail lead hooked up to the battery, could have jumped it easily.

Just odd to have all or nothing instead of the slow march to click.... click....click.

As Larry mentioned a minute ago in his domain, travel limiters are a big asset in a motor cranking over. I run them in my 124", use a standard AGM OEM rated battery, it fires off every time, hot or cold. I do use a tender this time of the year when I'm not riding. Not saying there isn't benefit to a lithium, just that I don't have the need.

Limiters will also be in my 117" when I get to it.

[Deye76]

The Battery Tender LI battery I have comes with a battery management system, what that is supposed to do is protect the battery from operating outside it's safe operating area, & monitoring it's state. It's supposed to protect from overcharging, over discharge, over current, short circuit, high or low temperature, non active mode self discharging. If any of these things occur the battery shuts down to prevent damage to the battery. To activate the battery, press the button on the pig tail for the charger/maintainer. It's 480CCA, spins my 113" with ease. My routine, no matter if it's a LI or a AGM when I pull into the garage I plug the tender in. If it rains for a month, battery should be ready to go.

[No Cents]

  you guys made me go out to the barn and check my lithium battery again. I put the maintainer on it and it took less than 10 seconds for it to say it was fully charged. 
  My bike had sat for three solid weeks, but I was finally able to get it out four days ago when it hit 60* around here. So I decided to ride it into town to run some errands I needed to do. I maybe put a total of 20 miles on it. I made four different stops and it fired up each time like the plugs were out of it. So far with two seasons on my lithium battery...I have zero complaints.
   

[Rockout Rocker Products]

OK,  took the bike off the tender after overnight charge. Had it on acc for a couple of hours playing the radio while I detailed things. Checked the voltage (acc still on)... 12.88v.
It's a lithium thing. 

[kd]

  you guys made me go out to the barn and check my lithium battery again. I put the maintainer on it and it took less than 10 seconds for it to say it was fully charged. 
  My bike had sat for three solid weeks, but I was finally able to get it out four days ago when it hit 60* around here. So I decided to ride it into town to run some errands I needed to do. I maybe put a total of 20 miles on it. I made four different stops and it fired up each time like the plugs were out of it. So far with two seasons on my lithium battery...I have zero complaints.
   

Do you have a security system Ray?

[Deye76]

" My bike had sat for three solid weeks,"

Why would you let it sit without a maintainer on it?  Even if my garage was heated continuously, I'd have a tender on it.         

[tmwmoose]

Because of my health my Twin Power has sat dormant  for 5 months. I put it on the battery charger @ 12.2 and walked away not expecting anything . Well I came back and it shows a full charge hmmm OK I'll give it a try and spin the motor over it did surprised me!

Do you have security or Lojac tracking?

No it does not






No it does not

[kd]

Because of my health my Twin Power has sat dormant  for 5 months. I put it on the battery charger @ 12.2 and walked away not expecting anything . Well I came back and it shows a full charge hmmm OK I'll give it a try and spin the motor over it did surprised me!

Do you have security or Lojac tracking?



No it does not

Scott told me that the reason they took so long coming to market with a battery they would actually recommend for the big twin touring platform is that many of them had these devices causing parasitic drain and when they were not ridden often enough to combat the discharge rate there were problems. They felt they would get a bad name for their product and it wasn't worth the trouble.  The new family of Jump Starts solve this problem.

[IronMike113]

My lithium has gone dead,because I didn't put the charger on it while out of town,I also have a security system,and a amp installed, The old AGM battery seemed to hold up a lot better with out the tender,and this was first hand Experience,not something I read about,,,,,,,,,

[No Cents]

  kd...yes it has the factory security system on it.
It's got that little red light on the dash that flashes every few seconds.

[boooby1744]

I have the Optimate 4s, throw it on every 4 weeks.

[jmorton10]

I have a lithium batt in my 124" RK.  I have the parasitic factory alarm.

I use a dedicated lithium charger/tender on it every few weeks (especially in weather like we are having right now.  It was 12° here this morning)

I'm not sure how long I've had it but I think this is year 4 & it still starts my 124 before I can get my thumb off the button.

~John

[PoorUB]

Well, great! It has been maybe a month since my 2016 Limited was on the battery tender so last night I plugged it in when I left the garage. I never looked at it until today and it is just blinking red, not charging. The security light on the dash was still blinking. but the tender never fired up. I checked battery voltage with my Fluke meter and zip-zero-nadda, so it is probably dead. I hooked up a automatic charger, 2 amp max and it wouldn't fire up either so I hooked a second battery in parallel for a few minutes and got the charger to run. It has been on for a couple hours and I just checked, but it don't look good. If it don't come out of it, I probably won't trust this one after this. Even if it does charge I think it is time for a Yuasa. I'm not sold on the Lithium battery either, at least not for the price.

[ecir50]

My twin power that I bought after reading post here didn't last me a few months. Bike never sat up just went out to ride one day and it was 0 volts wtf. Went to autozone and picked a agm like used in past. Surprisingly never had a problem with a autozone battery.