At what point do you guys give up on the late model dyna batteries?
I unwittingly left the ignition on last week dumped the bike under the cover, went out yesterday to move it to make way out for the ol ladys sporster and hey i noticed ignition switched to on....
I stuck it on a trickle charge since yesterday morning and got no lights on the charging unit at all at first but now after 24hrs i am getting the signal that flashes between a red and amber but still no life at all from the bike??
Could the battery have done itself in?
Cheers Guys
R

 

If you have to ask it is most likely time for a new one. The wife left her battery on like that and we jsut went and got a new one. Of course the bike was several years old at the time.

 

Thanks,your probably right, i think i may have been trying to clutch at a few straws..

Dya reckon it is just a straight switch or should I expect anything else problematic once I get the thing live again, I havnt had this problem in a very long time...you can probably tell!!
Cheers
R

 

Straight swap on the battery. Simple as can be.

 

The battery will almost certainly be toast, but a bigger problem could be a damaged coil. Some types of coil don't like being left on with no load being drawn from the secondary windings, in this state the primary windings can burn out. As I say it depends on the type of coil. I'm not familiar enough with what is fitted to the Harleys to make a prediction but it's something you should be aware of if the bike is reluctant to fire up after you've installed a new battery.

Let's know how you go on

Derv

 

Once your battery has been dead that long, a trickle charge has absolutely no chance to bring it back. Only slightly better chance with an 'intelligent' higher amperage charger.

Has nothing to do with it being a late model Dyna battery..

 

I'll second that, once you've drained it lower than the roadstripes on the highway, then forget about the trickle charge, I'd throw the next stage up at 10amps at it for at least an hour and look at the needle, absolutely no deflection is gonna be a bad sign saying that mother just ain't gonna take any more lovin from the battery chargin oven. If your lucky it'll start bouncing the needle trying to take a hint of a charge then slowly the needle will move over to taking the charge. If not, then time for a new one...

 

Sometimes a charger needs to see a little voltage in the battery before it will begin charging. Sounds silly but true. You can jump the dead battery with a good one, then hook up the charger, then disconnect the jumpers. Or try a different charger that doesn't care whether the battery is dead.

 

Not silly, but factual. The intelligent chargers check to see if the battery is shorted first before throwing current to it. Below a certain voltage, determined by the mfg of the charger, it will assume 'short', and stop there.

Although I'd be careful about trying to fool it into charging.... tho again, if you have an intelligent charger, it will detect something is not right, and stop... hopefully.

 

If the headlight is on and you walk away, the bike is telling you something, "the key is on", expensive lesson learned.