free website stats program Battery Discharge | Harley Davidson Forums

Battery Discharge

I

israguard

Active Member
Hi everyone,
Recently while at dealership. The gemntleman who was doing the delivery presentation told me that whenever the bike is left on the sidestand, and the sidestand is on a cement/tiled floor, the battery discharges much more quickly.

He said that at the Dealership they ensure that the sidestands are placed on a piece of wood or that round rubber disk HD sell.

Is there any truth to this or a myth ?

Rgds, Shawn
 
Wow. One I never thought of before. Electricity does go to ground so it is a pretty good question (although it sounds like baloney at first0... :newsmile042:
 
Cement is a very good conductor...remember as a kid touching the metal chassis of a 3M tape machine...could feel the tingle in my bar feet when I touched it. Actually in SoCal many houses are on a cement slab...a copper rod is embedded in it and grounds the utility service box.

As for discharging your motorcycle...nope, the leakage path is generally your alarm system, and perhaps stator/regulator leakage, etc which should be less that a couple milliamps (1000ths of an amp). There was a post that showed how much leakage current each branch ckt drains...have to use Search tab to find the thread!
 
Urban Legend, tho a Battery goes through charge dis charge states all its life the best insurance here would to be to pull the main fuse as many dealers do OR keep them on a maintainer which we al know they will not do
 
Depends on the amount of moisture in the concrete as to it's conductivity. But don't think it's an issue to battery discharge. Now if you drove a ground round 6 feet into the earth and parked the stand on top of the rod, that could bump it up.

Fact is (unless you put a maintainer on the battery ) it will discharge some even with nothing hooked to it. If you ride often none of this is an issue.

If you park you bike for long periods it needs a battery tender. Make sure it's rated for AGM batteries. (Absorbed Glass Mat). Some tenders (like some sold at Harbor Freight) will not work with AGM batteries (like Harley batteries) and they will say so right on it.

Do not confuse a tender with a trickle charger. A tender has intelligent circuitry to turn off (stop charging) when full charge is reached, and then monitor the state of charge and start up again when it drops. An ordinary trickle charger with no shut can (after extended periods) over charge the battery and lessen the plate life.
 
Years ago when I had boating as a hobby, I had the pleasure to take several Coast Guard Auxilliary courses . I recall at one of the courses, an instructor mentioning that for winter storage of your outboard battery, don't put it on a concrete floor, or if you had to , put a block of wood under it as the concrete tended to discharge the battery. Don't know the veracity of that statement, but I always did what they suggested. Interesting question, though.
 
The4opps1 said:
Years ago when I had boating as a hobby, I had the pleasure to take several Coast Guard Auxilliary courses . I recall at one of the courses, an instructor mentioning that for winter storage of your outboard battery, don't put it on a concrete floor, or if you had to , put a block of wood under it as the concrete tended to discharge the battery. Don't know the veracity of that statement, but I always did what they suggested. Interesting question, though.
Click to expand...

We were told the same thing as kids but that scenario no longer applies due to highly insulative case material that batteries are made out of now days.

Early on the cases were made of a material that had a lower resistance level. And even back then it still depended on the amount of moisture in the concrete since concrete has no iron minerals in it. It's only sand, limestone aggregates (or sometimes river rock) mixed with volcanic pumice ash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top