Battery maintenance Archives

Tips for Battery Maintenance Featuring OptiMate Smart Chargers

DO NOT take the battery for granted.
The only sure and safe way is to use a smart charger.
We’ve also put together a collection of OptiMate smart chargers you can consider.

We’ve previously published articles on how a motorcycle battery work and why they die (eventually). Let’s get down to battery maintenance in this instalment, plus a collection of OptiMate smart chargers.

Read: Motorcycle Battery: How it Works

Read: Motorcycle Battery: Why Does it Die?

Honestly, my biggest worry is always about a dead battery whenever I ride. It’s a big hassle and even downright scary when you’re stranded in the middle of somewhere in the middle of the night. Next to a cemetery.

First and foremost, check the battery’s terminals. Make sure that the connectors don’t move about and that there are no deposits on them. Greenish copper sulfate may build up on the positive terminal, while a whitish sulfate can accumulate on the negative terminal (usually due to undercharging).

If there are, disconnect the battery – remove the negative connector first, followed by the positive side – and take it out of the bike. Then, use a toothbrush and scrub off the corroded material with some lemon juice or baking soda. Wash off with water and let dry.

CHARGING

Wish I could tell you otherwise but there’s no other better way to maintain your battery other than to use a smart charger. As we’ve mentioned before, the motorcycle’s charging system may not necessarily be the perfect charging system. Even if it is, you still need to maintain the battery at its optimum voltage once you stop the bike.

Charging a battery takes several steps with different voltages and amps, depending on its age and condition. This is where a smart charger does it all.

No, we’re not trying to hawk random stuff.

ENTER OPTIMATE

Among the chargers that I trust the most are OptiMate, made by the Belgian company TecMate. TecMate specializes only in battery chargers for all applications including powersports, cars, boats, commercial vehicles for over 20 years.

We know that there are many other chargers in the market, and many are amazingly cheap. But you need to ask yourself about why it’s so. Touch wood, using the wrong charger may not damage your bike’s battery or electrical systems but it may also not do any real good for the battery.

I’ve personally used a cheap charger which just kept pumping in the juice (overcharging) although the battery’s reached its optimum voltage (12.4 V). In the end, my battery warped out of shape. Am thankful that it didn’t explode!

An OptiMate, on the other hand, stops charging when the battery’s fully charged and then starts again as the volts start to drop. Just plug it in and leave it on.

The higher-end OptiMate 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 have desulfation features. They do this by introducing electrical pulses to break the sulfur coating the cells and turn the electrolyte back to being acidic, rather than being more water. From there, these chargers will take further steps to charge and maintain the battery in the proper way. Heck, they even know what type of battery you’re using!

Included in each kit are two types of cables: The standard terminal clips and SAE-81 connector. The latter attaches permanently to the battery terminals, leaving the connector on the bike, and you don’t have to remove the seat or bodywork everytime you charge the battery. It also has a 15A fuse to protect against power surges.

Granted, a battery will die later in its life but at least the OptiMate chargers will test the condition of the battery and inform you. If the condition LED doesn’t turn green at all, it means it’s time for a new battery.

At least you don’t get stranded at night next to a cemetery…

NOTE

DO NOT charge a LiFePO4 (lithium) battery with a standard lead-acid charger. The OptiMate 4S Lithium is designed specifically for lithium batteries.
DO NOT use a standard charger if your bike uses CAN-BUS electrical and electronics wiring looms and connectors. Please use the OptiMate 4 CAN-BUS for that purpose.

WHERE TO BUY

You can take a look and buy an OptiMate smart charger in our BikesRepublic.com e-commerce site.

Please click >>> HERE <<< to visit the page.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate 2.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate 3 Dual Bank.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate 4 CAN-BUS.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate 4S Lithium.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate 6 Ampmatic.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate 7 Select.

Also available are USB chargers that plug into the 12 mm DIN power socket on certain bikes.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate O-105 Dual Output USB charger with 90-degree elbow.

Please click >>> HERE <<< for the OptiMate O-115 Dual Output USB charger.

OptiMate also offers a whole range of professional grade cables. You can always use them for your other motorcycles (for example).

Motorcycle Battery: Why Does it Die?

A motorcycle battery doesn’t last forever.
But what causes it to die?
We touch on why a battery degrades over time.

We touched on the basics about the motorcycle battery previously.

But rather than writing on battery maintenance alone, we feel that information on how a battery degrades gives a clearer picture on the type of maintenance required. Another note: We are covering lead acid batteries here as they are the most common compared to lithium-ion and lithium-iron-phosphate (LiFePO4). Regardless if your battery is “maintenance free” or otherwise, it’s considered a lead acid type as long as it’s filled with acid (as in sulfuric acid) as the electrolyte.

How does a battery work?

Here’s a recap on how a battery produces electrical power:

The electrolyte solution contains charged ions, made up of sulphate (negatively charged) and hydrogen (positively charged).
Placing an electrical load – starter motor, ECU, headlights, etc. – causes the sulphate ions to travel to the battery’s negative plates.
The ions react with the plates’ active material to release electrons.
These excess electrons move through the negative side of the battery to any device attached.
The electrons travel back into the battery through the positive side.
The movement of electrons is the battery’s direct current, measured in Ampere (A).
The electrons then attach themselves to the positive plates.

How does a battery discharge?

At the same time, the sulfuric acid breaks down.
It means the electrolyte becomes less acid and more water.
Lead sulphate coats the battery plates in each battery cell.
The coated plates have less surface area to produce electrical energy.
It causes the production of current to drop over time.
If discharging continues, more lead sulphate is deposited on the plates.
Eventually, the chemical process that produces current stops.
A battery may not recover despite how long it’s charge if there’s heavy sulfation.

Self-discharge

All batteries self-discharge over their lifetime, even if they’re not attached to any circuit or load.
Sulfation occurs as long as the battery’s state of charge is below 100%.
The rate depends on battery type and ambient temperature.
Sulfation occurs if the battery is overcharged, undercharged or left discharged for just a few days.
Smaller lead acid batteries like those in motorcycles sulphate faster.
Using or storing batteries above 24 ^oC (75 ^oF) accelerates self-discharge and increases sulfation.
The discharge and sulfation rate doubles with the increase of every 10 ^o

What are the reasons for self-discharge?

Short trips i.e. within 25 to 30 km may not build enough charge.
So is occasional use i.e. once or twice a week.
Parasitic discharge i.e. motorcycle’s electronics that don’t fully turn off.
Problems in the bike’s electrical system.
Problems with the charging coil (stator).

We would like to add here that a motorcycle’s charging system may not charge the battery the way it likes to be charged. This could lead to certain plates being undercharged resulting in sulfation and dead cells, eventually.

What does all this mean?

This is why batteries do not last very long in our climate. A survey in conducted in the United States showed that 85% of batteries do not last up to 4 years, and the best case was just below 3 years.

It must be charged sufficiently to prevent it from dropping below 12.4 Volts.

What do we need to do then?

So, batteries aren’t exactly “maintenance free” and plug-and-play as we’d like, hence proper battery maintenance must be carried out. But first, consider fitting a voltmeter on your bike for you to keep an eye on the bike’s charging rate and battery’s health.

Keeping your battery charged up avoids that hassle of the bike refusing to start. Imagine if happens at night when all the shops are closed or you’re kilometres away from the nearest town. Worse still, you need to fork out some emergency cash.

While we can’t disagree that replacing the battery every two years solves this problem, I’ve personally used my batteries more than 3 years before replacing them, thus saving me a lot of money in the long run. I did this by using a smart charger.

A smart charger which can evaluate the battery’s state and carry out the appropriate charging strategy/strategies. These chargers pump in a certain amount of Amperage to reverse the sulfation, get it up to full capacity and finally maintain that capacity with a trickle charge.

We’ll stop here for this instalment. We’ll look at battery maintenance and smart chargers in detail in the next article.

Bikesrepublic