Seca 750 Parasitic Draw on Battery

Bike has been running very well and no probs until yesterday. I came out of the store after a couple hours and my battery was dead and very warm to the touch. Got it jumped and back home.

Removed battery and let it sit overnight it didn't lose any voltage nor did it get warm. it took a charge....

Installed the battery with my volt meter between the ground and it's leaking about .5 to .75 volts.

Connected both terminals and started the bike and i'm getting about 13.7v from the alternator.

Checked for lose wires et...

What is the likely cause of a parasitic battery drain?

Where should I start?

 

Do you have any aftermarket electronics on the bike? alarm? gps etc...?

 

NO.... all stock.

 

Original fusebox?

 

Me personally i would pull the fuses one by one except main to see if you can isolate the drain. The drain can easily be a bad relay; ignition, or solenoid. If everything is OEM and the wiring was never altered than there is a slim chance the issue is at the handle bars unless that diode block in the headlight malfunctioned.

With that said there are only a few components that directly draw off the battery.

 

You would not check parasitic drain using the voltage scale. This should be done with the meter set up in the current mode, and even then most DMM's are only good for 10 amps, so some care is needed or you will risk damage to the DMM. Another way to check is to just look for small sparks when you hook up the negative cable. On the initial touch there may be a very small spark, but if you repeat several times you should not see any more sparking.

That is on the low side if you had revved the motor to above 2K or so, should be 14.5 +/- .3v.

If the bike is stock, then the ignition switch will remove the battery positive from all but the main fuse, wiring, and Rect/Reg. It is possible for the Rect/Reg to fail and drain the battery if the rectifier diodes have been compromised.

How old is the battery? Batteries can develop defects causing them to drain.

 

The Fuses have been replaced with new-style fuses. haven't had any problem with them.

I'll check that today. I'm now thinking that it could be my ignition on switch at the handlebars. I can't remember if it was in the off position when i tested for a voltage leak.

Yes, that's what I realized. So my alternator or voltage regulator may be part of the problem.

is that the 30amp fuse? the fuses were replaced with new-style.

I don't think it's the battery because it doesn't discharge when removed from the bike...... i have not totally ruled it out though. need to do more tests.

What I'm going to try today is to see if there is a voltage leak with the ignition switch in the off position. If not I will pull each fuse and check for a leak. If it's not the ignition switch then i'm leaning toward the voltage regulator.

Thanks for the replies.

 

I don't have an amps feature on my multimeter. I set the meter to 20v and connected the neg battery terminal to ground. it should not read any voltage with the ignition off, right? it reads about .6v.

 

have you ohmed out the charging system ?
have you inspected the brushes and cleaned the copper rings.
cleaned your grounds?
done a diode check on the regulator?

I think the .6 volts is a reading from the diode in the regulator

 

Parasitic battery drain is most likely caused by a failing voltage regulator. Even though it still works and gives you almost enough voltage (13.7) the internal diodes are grounding and draining your battery. There is a test procedure in the service manual using your ohm meter, find it and check it out.
You could also unplug the regulator overnight and see if the battery has drained or not.

 

That would be strange on a "multi" meter, but there are so many brands made today.

So neg lead disconnected on the battery. Meter placed from battery neg to neg cable? This is creating an open circuit, and now the voltage reading you are going to get is dependent upon the input impedance of the meter. I tried two different one's, the Fluke meter compared to a cheapo Harbor Freight. The Fluke read .57V, the Harbor Freight read 40 mV. I know the Fluke has an input impedance of around 10 megohms, which equates to .057 uamps, or virtually nothing as far as battery drain. I have no clue what the Harbor Freight input impedance is.

So, point is that trying to use voltage is not the best way to evaluate drain on the battery.

+1 on MLEW's post, keeping it simply.

 

thanks that's very interesting.....

Today i checked all of my connections, recharged fully my battery and I left it installed to see if it warms up from draining as it did the other day. It's fine... what i THINK may have happened is that when I parked, I could have turned my key lock too far to the left and turned on my taillight ( I still don't understand the utility of this feature) or the switch could have malfunctioned allowing for the drain. I'm going to see if it starts tomorrow but I think it will.

thanks to all for responding.

 

it is a park light for when you find yourself on the side of the road at night people can see you with out the drain on the headlight

 

Well, that's what i thought but it's really inefficient. It'd be so much better all around if the turn signals just flashed.

 

The flasher draws anough amps on its own that you get more running time with the lights just staying on steady.