My what a big crank...(herding pixies) No Charge, dead battery

[rb70383]

Of course this thing left me stranded. Dead battery. Odd thing When I finally paid attention to the signs she was giving me.... I decided to pull over and disconnect the headlight to save what little electrons I had left. That idea worked till implemented. Pulled over threw it in neutral, release clutch bike dies. WTF?? Bad neutral switch as well, Add it to the shopping cart...


OK so the real story....

Few months ago, the 'Bolt started to give me the sleepy start button. Gotta hit it once to wake the switch up, then again to actually crank it over. Started to notice the lights pulsing as well. About a week goes by and thought to my self, self, that headlight looks a little dim. Nah, maybe just compared to the street lights....?

Bored on my weekend take the bike for a loop through the mountains. Nogo, as it got dark noticed the light was even more non-existant. Around then, dash quit working. Ok fine I'll listen now. Turn around then get the idea to unplug the headlight......

Yes the bike gave me plenty of warning signs. Totally my fault. Wait, its never my fault Dam Bike!!

So get it home and throw the battery on charge. Jump online for some quickies on no charging. Common theme on bad charging systems, is a bad battery. Hmmm research batteries.....didn't need those brain cells after surviving that rabbit hole. I'm starting to get feeling in my frontal lobe again.

After I pulled the battery off charge, it had a whopping 9V!! After a day it was down to under 8V. "According to my math (7.69/12)*100 =64% of battery life......."


After that and as well as pulling out the FSM, I get to testing, Stator winding test.
Dig into the front pulley nest, All the windings are good.
Well now I need a box of pixies.

Ordered a Big Crank as per Lunatic.

Got the pixies, did the rest of tests, Bleed current passed. Only test that didn't 'pass' is the mA draw. I'm 1.5 mA. limit is 1.0mA IAW the manual.

Aside from that, which I'm wondering if having to deal with a bad battery may have hurt the regulator? Charging V is in spec. cant remember values off hand.

Now with the new battery, that V twin is beat into starting. I could drive the bike off the starter. I must have had 'poor' batteries all before

Interesting thing, my idea on how and why, is this system is a shunt style, so it discharges extra through to ground. I had at least one cell bad, as I bet that was recruiting all the pixies and not letting any other cells have any.

All in all, thanks to everyone that has helped before. I normally search old threads before asking my stupid questions. Not always however
Funny how the troubleshooting on here, kinda mimics the manual. #confused
Again the recommendation for the big crank battery!! Now I need a battery for the EBR, I swear their teaming up on me.


So not really a help me thread, more of one of those instances, where someone fixes their bike and no one is the wiser. We do have a small community and keeping it tight is how we will survive. Soon we'll be those old weird people that still drive model T's. Maybe not said enough, but thanks to all as I don't even know how many little tidbits I pick up lurking through the threads. And when I don't know what something is offhand its automatically a flywheel.

As said these bikes are simple, between the forums, I hate book of faces, and the manuals we should keep these things going. Especially since they can 3D print in metal now....