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2012 NC700X electrical issue

AK64

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I cranked up the bike this morning, started immediately, rode ~10 miles and stalled at a traffic light. ( I think I stalled it, hadn’t had coffee yet — before 5:00 AM). When I tried to start it again, it behaved as if the battery was very low — barely turned over the engine before the starter quit turning and the relay clicked. I took the battery to O’Riley,s and it checked out good, a little under charged — probably from many attempts to start. After I put the battery back in and rode home, I checked the battery voltage, 12.67, and the charging voltage, 14.4 at 5000 rpm; this is in spec according to the service manual. The terminal connections were tight when I pulled the battery. The ground connection to the engine was secure as well. I know these bikes get touchy when the battery voltage gets low, but this is not acceptable. Has anyone had a similar problem? I haven’t checked for parasitic loads yet, but since the bike started right up after sitting for 5 days I figured it shouldn’t have been drained much. Close to 30k miles on the bike, bought it used with 18k miles on it.
 
On the battery itself.........we have discussed sudden death in batteries numerous times. Sudden death failure can on internal short or open in the battery itself. It’s possible that a battery issue can be intermittent until it’s not and it fails to come back to life.

The other stall in traffic problem .......others report they hit the engine kill switch by accident.
 
6 year old battery? Probably has lost much of it's reserve capacity and it's time is near.
Second that. My experience is that if you suspect issues with a 5+ year old battery, start by getting a new one or you will spend time troubleshooting, having further issues, until you need to change it anyway.
 
12.65 V means that your battery can hold about 60% of its named capacity. Have in mind that the useful capacity of a lead acid battery is about the 50% of the named capacity (the actual value depends on the engine but that’s the rule of thumb. Some are starting harder, some easier). Bellow that the battery doesn’t have the necessary power to start an engine.

Also be sure that the above measurement has been taken the right way: 1. Disconnect the battery from the bike, 2. Fully charge it, 3. Let it rest for at least 2 hours, 4. Measure the voltage (open circuit voltage), 5. Do a load test (the OCV is only indicative of the battery status).

I guess it will be lower than 12.65 V and at 6 years it must be really near the end of its life.

Take a look at Yuasa Techical Manual for more details...
 
As I recall... "Beemerphile" had a rather long post about the battery and even installed a monitoring circuit in the bottom of the frunk to compensate for this seemingly random event.

His post is [HERE].

'used the "site search" method as follows


  • went to google search
  • typed in "site:h^^ps://www.nc700-forum.com beemerphile pondered"
  • got the correct article in one shot with those two memorable keywords.

NB: the ^^ is there to keep the board from translating it into something else. change that back to TT for your search
and use your own keywords... you can use more than two by putting spaces between them.
 
Last edited:
I should have mentioned in the original post that it’s not the original battery; it’s a Parts Unlimited battery, YTZ12S. I replaced it today with a Yuasa. We’ll see how it does.
 
As I recall... "Beemerphile" had a rather long post about the battery and even installed a monitoring circuit in the bottom of the frunk to compensate for this seemingly random event.

His post is [HERE].

'used the "site search" method as follows


  • went to google search
  • typed in "site:h^^ps://www.nc700-forum.com beemerphile pondered"
  • got the correct article in one shot with those two memorable keywords.

NB: the ^^ is there to keep the board from translating it into something else. change that back to TT for your search
and use your own keywords... you can use more than two by putting spaces between them.
Excellent post by beemerphile.
 
Ensure your connections are clean and corrosion free. Heat is much harder on batteries. The NC700X battery is in a hot spot plus if it is really hot out and in traffic without a lot of airflow this affects the battery capacity.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 
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