Re: [St] Hmm... toasty! ...and battery woes

[Eoin Kirwan <eoinkirwan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat 29 Nov 2008, Martin Fay wrote:


> Even with the short distances you're commuting I would expect everything to
> be fine using dipped lights and the heated grips.
> High beams and the PIAA flamethrowers would certianly cause issues as you
> say.

The pair of PIAAs definitely do. They're 55 or 60 watts each so it's like 
doubling the lighting load. Great on back roads at night but need to be used 
with caution in city traffic (when filtering I'm in first gear at 1200-1500 
revs, alternator output is low, but the spots are great for alerting possible 
lane changers to my approach. I keep them off otherwise.)

I turn the grips fully off at least 5 minutes before the end of each ride.

High beams get hardly any use as I'm always on lit roads. The change from 
55 -> 60 watts per side is not much difference, anyway.

The double-dip mod costs 55 watts but I definitely want to keep that.

I'm actually starting to think that the biggest electrical saving I could make 
would be fitting LED stop lamps. 42 watts is a reasonable load, it happens at 
idle, and I can spend up to 10 minutes of a 25 minute commute stopped at 
traffic lights. If stopped on level ground, and not last in the queue, I try 
not to use the brakes.

My commute is mostly in second gear, 50 and 60 km/h speed limits (31/37mph) 
and with several well-known radar gun locations along the way.


> I can only suspect that it's a combination of the cold weather and an aging
> battery (FI bikes are fussy about batteries)

Even when the battery was too low to turn the starter, the fuel pump could be 
heard pressurising, and it did start on a push, so I had a spark too. I'm not 
going to blame the FI. If the cranking speed had not been so low, it would 
have started. When this happened, the bike had run for only 3 miles since 
startup, with heated grips on full and going slowly at low revs in very heavy 
traffic, including quite a few stops at idle with brake lights on. The 
alternator just had no chance to replenish what the starter had used up, and 
given my pattern of use of the bike and the voltmeter readings I've been 
getting over the last week, I suspect the battery was never getting above 
about 50% charged.


> and occasional use of the 
> spots in city traffic. My suggestion would be one of these
> http://www.odysseyfactory.com/ if they're available for the Trumpet.

Well, if you mean their batteries and not their chargers, the Yuasa 
replacement battery I have is already AGM and maintenance free and claims 
extra cranking amps etc. None of that is any good if you are not putting in 
the energy that you take out of it. Also the efficiency of charging a 
lead-acid battery is about 50%, so you have to put in twice as many amp-hours 
as you use up.

As regards chargers, I got one in Lidl for ten euro which is OK to leave 
connected all the time through the accessory socket, I will do this each 
weekend until the summer. (Charging current last night was 500mA, it's now 
25mA.) If I had a longer commute, or less heavy traffic, or a weekend run, 
I'm certain I wouldn't need to do this. A motorway junction is being 
constructed near where I live (has been for the last year) and the resultant 
tailbacks are very hard to avoid. The alternative routes would delay me even 
more, and I'd rather use a charger than needlessly lengthen my commute. No 
time for fun runs at the weekend unfortunately, either :(


Eoin

'04 ST955i
_______________________________________________
Triumph Sprint ST/RS mailing list
Send list posts to ST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Change your list options at www.Triumphnet.com