batteries in general

["Leatherbiker" <Leatherbiker@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

As you may know, I'm not the kind of guy who minds making a fool of himself,
so at the risk of seeming stupid, I'll pass on some information that I
picked up this afternoon at a local bike shop concerning batteries and
chargers.

I'm the guy who has had trouble starting the bike and thought it might be
the fault of the battery. It may well be that, but I have to admit that it
may not.

I went in to buy a new bat. charger today, as my Bosch is now 15 years old
and probably knackered. He asked what kind of battery I have, and said if I
had a sealed one, I needed one of the new type machines, also known as
battery doctors (or minders). That didn't faze me, till I heard the price -
£45. Seemed a bit much to me.
However, he pointed out that it was not only inadvisable to use a normal
charger but highly dangerous, as the sealed bat.s can explode when the
recharged cells start giving off hydrogen ions and there's no where for the
bubbles to escape. In which case, I consider myself lucky, as that is
precisely what I was doing about a week ago!

Tell me if I'm wrong, but does the Triumph manual (skimpy as it is) actually
mention this little detail anywhere? If so, it passed me by when I read the
section on batteries.

More to the point, is it correct? Anyway, I'll try with the new doctor and
see how that goes, as the battery is only outputting 11.6 V at the moment,
which, as several people have pointed out, indicated that some of the cells
might be damaged.
It's going into Jack's tomorrow anyway, but I'm curious.

Tim





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