Battery Safety !

[Stick]

With all this battery talk, I forgot to mention some IMPORTANT SAFETY PRECAUTIONS:

1) Ditch the wedding ring and other jewelry when working on or near batteries. Under certain conditions, if you over swing your wrench and your ring happens to be between the wrench and chassis, you’ll have a kilowatt heater on your finger. You’ll be branded for life, maybe even lose the digit. Or the massive current might blow the top right off the battery. Can U say acid trip? Ya, right to your damn garden hose…
2) The “-“ terminal. First to break, last to make. When you’re removing connections on your battery. This keeps the likeyhood of #1 from occurring to a minimum. (This assumes a – gnd. System, like our DUCs from the late 70s onward.)
3) Hydrogen! Remember the Hindenburg? Lead-acid batteries liberate H2 when they’re charging or discharging. So, no smoking!!, and try to minimize any sparking near the battery. Positive venting batteries have a slight advantage, assuming the tube is intact. But all you need is one mistake, and you’re paying a trip back to the garden hose, you hoser! This is true when connecting or removing jump starting cables. I tend to take a deep breath and blow across the top of my battery to disperse any lingering H2. All it takes is the right combo of H2 and ambient air, spark, and “pop” (or BANG!). It happened to my cousin who’s a knowledgeable auto mechanic (he’s aware of this issue, yet it still made him a hoser).

I’m sure there are others, like never carry an auto battery up against your clothing (your jeans will disintegrate after the 1st washing), but these are my “top 3”.

[Stick]

Here’s a cheap voltmeter…

Try looking at the beam your headlight sheds…works better at night, and against a light colored garage door… At an idle (about 1000rpm), your battery is actually discharging a bit. If you move the RPM up to about 3000, the light should become brighter a bit. You’re seeing a result of the voltage going from about 12V to about 13.5V. This is normal.

BTW, your DUC and most “small engine” bikes like to run up around 4000 RPM. Mine seems to smooth out at these RPM’s. My old R100RS “other brand” bike was similar. It’s voltmeter was never topped out until the bike was ridden at 3600 rpm or more. Don’t feel obligated to shift into 6th gear all the time. Many trips on my secondary-road commute to work, I rarely get it into 6th gear. These ain’t Jap. 4 cyl. bikes, and they need to be driven uniquely. Good new is that at least we never have to worry about valve float!


Battery “tenders”:
I do not place 100% faith in these. I had one (a nice Sears brand) hooked to my garden tractor, and the battery still went south. I prefer to “top up” the battery(ies) once a day using a simple trickle-charger, or one of these tenders. I do this using a 24hr. timer and it comes on once a day for 1 or 2 hours. I’ve had very good results over the years doing this…