Battery Parasite By Bashan (Read 6,433 times)

[Bashan]

My Fashion's battery tends to run down over a week's inactivity to the point it's difficult to start. Some attribute this to a poor charging system on CF Motos but I disagree. I think the problem is a battery parasite probably in the LED dashboard. Scooters with an alarm system have problems with this as well. Here's how you check to see if you have a drain on your battery while the scooter is off.

Unhook the red cable from your battery and attach the black probe of your multimeter to it. Then hook the red lead of your multi to the red terminal of the battery:

This may seem counterintuitive but electrons are negative and actually flow towards the red positive terminal and into the battery. By putting the black probe of the multi on the red cable and the red probe on the red terminal the electrons flow in the proper direction:

Here's a picture of my test leads hooked up as above:

Here is what the multi showed set to miiliamps with the scooter's key off:

The only reference I could find was for car and truck batteries and the consensus seemed to be that a 10ma draw was acceptable. Obviously on my smaller scooter battery this is too much draw down. This is a $90.00 Batteries Plus AGM so I'm certain it's not the battery. Also, if I disconnect the cable the battery will stay hot for weeks. I was wondering if anybody had some thoughts on this issue. Rich

[Alleyoop]

I agree, now mine has a clock and date built in and is always drawing with key off but it still has enough juice to start the trike even after 2 weeks sitting without starting. But the battery has gone down that I know because just for chuckles once in a while i will put the Tender Junior on and it indicates it is 80 percent but fully charges it in about 30 minutes.

So with that said THOSE ARE SOME COOL Diagrams
Alleyoop

[bobf]

No challenge to your thoughts at all.

Since I don't often get to ride I just went and bought a nice Deltran battery tender at the nearby ACE hardware store. So I never have to worry about that long term failure. My year old scoot is now up to 69 miles. I have had a series of distractions including a interstate move and two medical episodes that included narcotic drugs, no riding time. Soon hope to get more riding time again. This past week I added 9 miles to the odometer.
.

[terrilee]

i have neither a clock,
or alarm, ditched that piece of junk 3 days after getting Chrissy.

other than when working on her to find magneto problem,
i have never used a trickle charger
got one--its been used 4-5-6 times in over 2 yrs.
like brand new,

[justbuggin]

hey alley the clock has its on battery like a watch battery you can start disconnecting def things until you find what is drawing on the battery lights ,horn, and such

[cookees]

Rich.... that's interesting. We have had this appear on the occasional Fashion over the past 3 years.

Up to now, we've always attributed this to the cheap TET battery that CFMOTO supplies with their scoots.

I'll pass this on to Mike out in the garage.

[Alleyoop]

Apr 9, 2012 0:27:53 GMT -6 justbuggin said:

hey alley the clock has its on battery like a watch battery you can start disconnecting def things until you find what is drawing on the battery lights ,horn, and such

My Clock&Date Display gets its juice from the battery it does NOT have its own battery.
Alleyoop

[justbuggin]

well the one on my bike does you have to take the gauge cluster apart to get to it

[Bashan]

Apr 9, 2012 18:56:44 GMT -6 cookees said:

Up to now, we've always attributed this to the cheap TET battery that CFMOTO supplies with their scoots.

I think the battery that came with it was just fine. I thought the same thing and swapped it for the core at Batteries Plus. But the new $90.00 battery did the same thing! I should have did the parasite test first. Rich

[kz1000st]

I would have just sprayed the scooter with Raid. I hear the bugs down south are pretty ferocious.

[Bashan]

Apr 10, 2012 10:24:18 GMT -6 kz1000st said:

I hear the bugs down south are pretty ferocious.

Are you kidding me?! These things are all over down here:

I...am...not...kidding. And no, that is NOT my hand! Eeeeeeee-YUK!

[jct842]

That is big enough to go in a hotdog bun...........no I won't be doing a taste test! john

[Bashan]

Good grief John that's gross! Don't you have those critters? You're just a few hundred miles to the left of me. Rich

[Bashan]

Cookees and Mike, the tech maven, suggested that I try unhooking the rectifier and redo the drain test. This is very valid in that faulty diodes in a rectifier can leak votage and drain batteries, So I unplugged the rectifier and put it on the mA setting:

As you can see I'm still getting the drain. I'm thinking it's in the nest of diodes lurking in the LCD display. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that yet. Rich

[nulldevice]

Try checking out the starter solenoid for resistance across the big terminals. It should indicate an open circuit. Be sure to zero your meter.

Rather than mess around with your scooter rectifier/regulator and LCD display wiring, I suggest you put a battery disconnect switch on your scooter.