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Battery dead again .... V7III

Without doubt, that's what happened. But, a good battery should be able to be discharged like that and recover, IMO.

I've been doing this a long while: I used to travel a lot more than I do nowadays ... My bikes with similar size/capacity lead acid batteries would have flat batteries when I returned, but I'd put them on the tender and the next day they were ready to go. I always managed 2-3 years out of a lead-acid battery with exactly this same use model.

One of the downsides of my current living quarters is that the garage has NO power outlets anywhere near where I can park my motorcycle and car on a regular basis ... As I said prior, the closest power outlet is halfway across the vastness of the shared garage for either, in a most inconvenient location. So the notion that I must keep a bike, or the car, on the battery tender all the time is simply not able to be implemented in any practical way.

What's changed between this motorcycle and my prior motorcycles is the fact that the ECU clock is always running, so the battery gets pulled down faster (although I've had prior bikes with perpetual clocks...). The charging system on the V7III is actually more robust and more accurate than on any of my prior bikes. So if the lead acid battery technology has taken a backwards step that's larger than the advances in power efficiency and charging, that's kinda sad. An AGM design cell should be an improvement ...

I'll see through experimentation, I guess. :)
 
The main change in batteries is the current trend to much smaller capacity in Amp Hours. All batteries lose capacity over time, and probably more if deeply discharged.
But while a 30 AH battery can afford to lose 1/3 of its capacity, a 14AH one is on the limit when new, and any loss will be the end of it.

Can you rig up a solar panel anywhere near and use that to keep the battery topped up. This is what I do.
 
In general "things" were much simpler in the 60's.

Some things were, but motorcycle charging systems in the 1960s were truly awful (do you remember the zenar diode regulators on nearly all British bikes?), motorcycle electrical systems in general were simple and crude, and the battery technology of that time was a fair sight more primitive than it became in the '70s and later. The '70s and early '80s were no great shakes either, it was in the late '80s and '90s that things started to get much more sophisticated.

Moto Guzzi, by and large, had some of the better electrical systems of the '70s through the '90s: a fair sight more reliable than many others, with the exception of the handlebar switch gear until the late '80s. There was a particular era of CEV handlebar switch gear from about '88 into the '90s that was actually very nicely made, very ergonomic, and worked extremely well. (I had that same switch gear as OEM equipment on my '90s era Ducati 900SS, 907ie, '89 Moto Guzzi LeMans V, and retrofitted it to my sportified '75 850T as well. It was excellent!)

But it all became obsolete with the incorporation of logic-driven switching and multi-mode operation of various switches as the 21st century dawned...
 
...
Can you rig up a solar panel anywhere near and use that to keep the battery topped up. This is what I do.

That's an interesting thought: there's a window on the side of the garage a few feet where my car is parked that I could rig an unobtrusive solar panel outside of and a short cable drop along a conduit to my parking space. And it's a southerly exposure so it would get enough sunlight year round for a trickle charge, I'm sure.

BUT ... My motorcycle parking spot is all the way over on the other side (north wall, about 150 yards away from my car) of the garage structure where there are no windows (it's actually underground at that end). About twenty yards away is the entry door and stairs up to street level, which is open to the sun, but it's a northern exposure shaded by my building and the condominium complex built above the garage. It would be impossible to put a solar panel there unobtrusively, and I would have to get my building management and the management of the other condominium complex to agree to installing it there, and it would have to be done to code as a result. It's an expensive, unfeasible impracticality.

If I could figure a way to fit the bike down by my car's end of the garage without making getting both vehicles in and out without being a pain the butt, and liable to damage to both, then a solar powered battery charging solution would be feasible. But so far I haven't been able to figure how to park the bike and the car in that location together without it being a royal pain to use either: I'd have to move both every time I want to take the bike out or put it back in, and the car's nose and under-nose streamlining is very low so I can't actually pull in up the to tire bump stop without damaging it (which would make space for the motorcycle..). And there's an ongoing problem in the one space that might be able to fit the bike there in that water in the rainy season seeps through the wall and makes the whole area wet and damp... sometimes a standing puddle of 1 inch depth will be there for a couple of weeks at a time.

There's another area in the garage that is designated for motorcycle parking. This would be ideal because it has the access to a southern exposure for an unobtrusive solar panel and is much better lit than the north end where the bike is currently parked. AND it's actually close enough to the electrical outlet that a 100' extension cord could bring power to the bike when I need to do silly stuff like use a heat gun to remove stickers or plug it into the charger. BUT the space is already full: One of my neighbors keeps his Honda VFR there, and he uses it regularly. The rest of the space is filled by a bike that the owner keeps there, covered and never used, and another bike that is sitting there while extensive litigation on the deceased owner's properties and such is going on (he was murdered in a crime scene four years ago and the whole situation is completely bollixed up and locked in place for an indefinite time to come, it seems).

I've been working these issues for a long time now... Life is challenges, eh? If nothing else, it makes for colorful stories. :D
 
Some things were, but motorcycle charging systems in the 1960s were truly awful (do you remember the zenar diode regulators on nearly all British bikes?), motorcycle electrical systems in general were simple and crude, and the battery technology of that time was a fair sight more primitive than it became in the '70s and later. The '70s and early '80s were no great shakes either, it was in the late '80s and '90s that things started to get much more sophisticated.

Moto Guzzi, by and large, had some of the better electrical systems of the '70s through the '90s: a fair sight more reliable than many others, with the exception of the handlebar switch gear until the late '80s. There was a particular era of CEV handlebar switch gear from about '88 into the '90s that was actually very nicely made, very ergonomic, and worked extremely well. (I had that same switch gear as OEM equipment on my '90s era Ducati 900SS, 907ie, '89 Moto Guzzi LeMans V, and retrofitted it to my sportified '75 850T as well. It was excellent!)

But it all became obsolete with the incorporation of logic-driven switching and multi-mode operation of various switches as the 21st century dawned...
My Lario has an unusual switchgear set up, where the turn signals are a three position switch that goes up for one signal, in the middle for of, and down for the other signal. I always have to look to see which way is up and which way is down. It also has an odd set up for the headlight, including an off position for the headlight.
 
The main change in batteries is the current trend to much smaller capacity in Amp Hours. All batteries lose capacity over time, and probably more if deeply discharged.
But while a 30 AH battery can afford to lose 1/3 of its capacity, a 14AH one is on the limit when new, and any loss will be the end of it. ...

Hmm. My former big-block Guzzis had enormous, automotive sized lead acid batteries in them with 24AH capacity. Of course, the old Bosch automotive starter both those bikes were original equipment with was technology dated from the 1960s and NEEDED all that amperage to crank the engine over. I'd upgraded both of those bike to the much later, much smaller and lighter, much more efficient Valeo starter, and I found that could be used reliably with a 14 AH battery that weighed half as much as the original, with plenty of overhead and power delivery to spare.

The small-block Guzzis from which the V7 descended always came with a much smaller and more power-efficient starter, and always had a 12-14AH battery fitted, as far as I'm aware. Same as Racer.

So I don't know that there's been much notable change in battery capacity, at least in the Guzzis.
 
My Lario has an unusual switchgear set up, where the turn signals are a three position switch that goes up for one signal, in the middle for of, and down for the other signal. I always have to look to see which way is up and which way is down. It also has an odd set up for the headlight, including an off position for the headlight.

Sounds like the Suzuki switch gear that I upgraded my first Ducati 750GT with back in 1975! The original switch gear on that bike was transitional between the pre-75 models and the '75 860GT and later ... it was so bad that the first press of the main light switch caused the entire switch cluster to fall into pieces. I never bothered to try to warranty it, I just ripped the entire harness off the bike, designed my own, and wired it up. :)
 
Sounds like the Suzuki switch gear that I upgraded my first Ducati 750GT with back in 1975! The original switch gear on that bike was transitional between the pre-75 models and the '75 860GT and later ... it was so bad that the first press of the main light switch caused the entire switch cluster to fall into pieces. I never bothered to try to warranty it, I just ripped the entire harness off the bike, designed my own, and wired it up. :)
The Lario setup, while a bit hard to use, seems to be well made and works pretty much as intended. Its only flaw is being hard to remember which way up is and which way down is, invariably requiring the rider to glance at the switchgear when using the turnsignals. Canceling them is also a bit tricky. Aside from that I think they are cool, Also, they would not be easy to replace as they are integrated with the controls.
 
If you don't want to pull the battery connection if the bike sits a couple of weeks, then install a switch on the main fuse. If it needs to sit for a while just flip the switch to drop the power from the battery. Just make sure the switch can handle the load which is most likely 40 amps which is readily available. Your bike may have a lower amperage than the Stelvio. Just need to check the fuse. Can also install a 40 amp relay and then trigger it with whatever you want.

Only issue is you would loose your clock and anything else in memory. I have seen it done for security on cars so a bike would be no different.
 
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The small-block Guzzis from which the V7 descended always came with a much smaller and more power-efficient starter, and always had a 12-14AH battery fitted, as far as I'm aware. Same as Racer.

So I don't know that there's been much notable change in battery capacity, at least in the Guzzis.
But the new range of Guzzi also have the parasitic drain of the ECU. Thus that 14AH battery is really pushed. And though the new starters are more efficient, they still take a huge current, but produce more torque to spin the engine.
 
Canuck1969: disconnecting the battery is no problem for me. And if I know I'm going to be away for more than two-three weeks, I do that. But a battery should be able to be pulled down once or twice and charged back up again without damage, IMO. And this battery is indeed certainly damaged: I checked the static voltage again today and it's already down to 12.35V ... It should be at 12.7V nominally, so it's already drained down a half a volt in just a day. That's too fast, there's a bad cell in it.

Brian: It's a debate that can be unending. As I said before, NOTHING IS NEW HERE ... Older bikes had injection, had clocks, etc—all those parasitic drains—and placed just as big a demand on the battery. A lead acid battery should NOT be dead after four months in service with the use history I've given this one. If it is, and the charging system and connections are good, and it was prepped correctly at the start, there's something defective about the particular battery. That's Occam's Razor at work ... The dealer agrees with me.

But all the debate is now academic for me. I agree with Todd that the lithium batteries are a better solution for my needs. My interest in going with the dealer-supplied AGM was based on cost and deferring the cost of a new lithium battery for a while. Well, I talked to the dealer today: they'll warranty the bad battery when I bring it in to them and give me a store credit for the warranty value. Meanwhile, I've ordered an AG-BS12 battery and lithium charger from GT with fast shipping, will install that myself as soon as it gets here. So Racer should be back up and running with a healthy battery by Tuesday evening.

End of battery issue for me ... until the next time I need a battery for whatever reason. :D
 
A couple of experiences:
I know a dealer who had several premature battery failures; the problem was traced to a new employee who was not properly trained. After adding the acid he decided the water level was too low and added more water. (not saying that that happened to anybody here)

Lithium Ion batteries: I ran a Shorai for four or five years and totally abused it when my stator burned out. Running total loss and jump starting with a running truck, five or six times, to get it home. Charged it with a regular Battery Tender. It was still strong when I sold the bike. I have since switched to Earth-X because it has built electronic circuitry that balances the cells and protects from overcharging and other problems. You can use a Battery Tender without any concerns. Note: Do not use a charger with a de-sulfating mode on any lithium battery.

Dan
 
Follow up: The AG-BS12 battery showed up a day later than expected, then I had too much to do to put it in until Thursday, then too much to do to have time ride until this morning. In the meanwhile, I did a thorough check of the charging system behavior and it seems to be right on the money.

Racer now starts perfectly again. I took it out on a nice 25 mile bimble about the area, runs perfectly too.

As a matter of fact, it runs just a wee bit better than before. On other little 'bimble arounds' like this one today, most of it on surface streets with traffic and lights and all that, in the past there's been this situation where the idle would just jump up a notch to somewhere around 1400 rpm. Then the next time I pulled up to a light, it was back to normal (1250-1350 rpm). No one was able to figure anything wrong and I chalked it up to "oddness from the relatively inexpensive throttle body" and left it at that. Well, it's all gone now. The idle is absolutely stable at 1250 on the clock. No hunting or otherwise moving up or down.

I conjecture that the OEM battery was always bad, and the charging system was trying desperately to charge the battery, making the overall system voltage fluctuate. (I recall briefly testing the OEM battery after it was fully charged and seeing idle voltage up around 14 and 4500 rpm voltage up around 14.5V (... the new battery means idle is dead steady at 13.4V and full charge at 4500 rpm is 13-8-13.9V).
The old fluctuation was probably throwing a sensor or two into a tizzy, resulting in poor signals into the ECU, resulting in the ECU sending out odd commands to the TPS and other systems...

Whatever was causing it, it no longer happens. Really nice. :)
 
No debate. Just facts. I’ve handled well over 75 batteries in the last 4 years. The data was for you.
I just need to stop posting.

hey, before you start ignoring all battery post, I have a quick question.
I'm new to the Guzzi brand, and yes my V7 has left me stranded twice since i purchased it in September (not good Guzzi !)
As winter is fast approaching, i would like to know if there is any issue just leaving the bike without a battery until spring. Does the bike need some minor voltage to keep any memory or CPU settings ?
 
hey, before you start ignoring all battery post, I have a quick question.
I'm new to the Guzzi brand, and yes my V7 has left me stranded twice since i purchased it in September (not good Guzzi !)
As winter is fast approaching, i would like to know if there is any issue just leaving the bike without a battery until spring. Does the bike need some minor voltage to keep any memory or CPU settings ?
No, disconnect and keep in a warm place is what I recommend.
 
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