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Thread: Connectors or soldered connections?

  1. #11
    Senior Member Cooter's Avatar
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    I've had this for years:http://www.homedepot.com/p/Weller-10...0PKS/100085564

    It's a small Weller soldering gun, with low (100w) and high (140w). It's plenty small enough for 18Ga. wires and there's no waiting for the tip to heat up.

    I also use this crafty thing as my 3rd hand:788080.jpg

    You can make your own by crimping alligator clips on a short piece of coat hanger or other bendy-but-stiff-metal. I don't actually adjust it a lot. I just bent it in a 'U' shape and use it to hold each of the tinned wires I'm going to connect. Works great!

  2. #12
    Senior Member Chicknstripn's Avatar
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    Awesome feedback guys.
    Appreciate it!

  3. #13
    Senior Member Chicknstripn's Avatar
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    Wanted to give you guys an update.
    I did a little thinking and the answer to my problem was in my first post. I had said that my iron kept cooling down too much every time I touched my soldering wire to it. Turns out I was using a soldering wire that was too thick and has too high a melting point for the tools and work I'm doing. I switched to a thinner wire. I also insured I cleaned my iron thoroughly between connections. Before I knew I was soldering like a pro! Well, at least I felt like I was. Until I tried to test my connections!
    Flipped the key switch to the on position and NO gauge sweep, NO trip meter or OD. The oil light did come on and so did the nuetral light. I thought I'd switch the key off, wiggle some junk, check fuses and try again. This time NOTHING!
    I had just started the bike last week and everything was functional.
    So, I decided to test my battery and I literally got NOTHING. Thinking that maybe I was using my multimeter incorrectly I reached for my 12v test light. After hooking the alligator clip to the negative battery terminal, I stuck the probed light portion into the positive terminal and NOTHING.
    So now I'm left wondering why my 2year old lithium ion battery, that started my bike up just fine last week, decided to take a dirt nap. I'm also wondering if I did something during my professional soldering job to kill said battery. Mind you, the battery WAS NOT HOOKED UP while I was working on the electrical. There are also NO blown fuses in the fuse box.
    I'm going to go over all my wire work just for the sake of my sanity.

    Any guidance or tips from the electical gurus would be greatly appreciated. I'm at a loss until I replace the battery.
    It's also not taking a charge. So, definitely something wrong with it.

    If anyone is wondering what kind of battery it is it's a starkpower lithium ultra start. Model # SP-12V18-US4

  4. #14
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    I have noticed with my power tools that use lithium batteries, when they get low on charge they just stop working instead of just running slow when low on charge like the tools with NiCd batteries. Not sure if it is the same with lithium bike batteries. When I looked into getting a lithium battery for my off road bike, I was told they require different tenders and chargers than regular batteries, which is why I didn't get one. Were you charging your battery with the correct charger?

  5. #15
    Senior Member Chicknstripn's Avatar
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    Yeah. My battery came with it own specific charger. Don't know what happened to the battery between last week and this week but it won't take a charge anymore. Had it on the charger overnight and it won't show more than 5v on the multimeter.
    Not even enough juice to power my test light.

  6. #16
    Senior Member Cooter's Avatar
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    Li-ion power tools have a shut-off feature to save the battery. Li-ion does NOT like to be less than 80% charged. Hybrid cars do the same, but I think it's more like 60%.

    Unless the battery itself has that protection feature built in (I don't know, but I think not), It sounds like it either went bad or got drained past the point of no return somehow. If it's charger won't charge it...time for a new one.

    My local 'Batteries and More' store actually knows quit a bit about batteries, Shocker! Maybe ask someone at one of those stores?

  7. #17
    Senior Member Chicknstripn's Avatar
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    I was thinking the same as you as far as the batteries and more idea.

    This specific battery does have discharge protection and overcharge protection circuitry.
    I'm thinking something has gone hay wire with those internals.

    The battery was not in the bike while I was doing my wiring work and yet on closer inspection of the battery something cause the battery to melt on the lower left corner below the positive terminal. I had the battery mounted so this area was close to the grounding point in the subframe. However, I'm pretty sure the ground was not touching the battery.
    Anyway, I'm dissapointed the battery has to be replaced after a little more than two years.

    I'm currently looking for a small, yet cheap AGM with at least 250CCA
    Found one made by a company named renagade. Might go for that since it's about the same size as my lithium its replacing


    Last edited by Chicknstripn; 04-21-2016 at 08:55 PM.

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