I have a couple of batterys I put up for the winter (lawn mower and boat) and periodically trickle charge them over the winter. I have never had a problem with the battery going bad. As already mentioned, must be the battery, charger, or both.

 

A cold snap will kill a battery before you can say "jump"
If the water is low in the battery and you use a maintenance charger it will develop more heat, which will cook off more water, etc etc.

If I lived in the US in a cold area I'd take my battery out of the bike, and keep it in the house ....................

 

Mike does your charger desulphate ??? as in have a recondition function

Some batteries, depending on the battery and charger used will sulphate
when left on.

 

I kinda thought that myself. It is a "maintainer" so I figured it shouldn't have over charged it. But then again it was on & off the maintainer for for almost 3 months. Regardless it was smoked lol

Think you hit it on the head..... Its only a 1.5 amp, but after 3 months I think I just cooked it.

Not sure Sprocky it doesn't say anywhere on it. I was looking for a reason to go with the style that has the in-line break away plug so I don't have to remove the seat. Guess I have a reason now.

 

Mike ....use an optimate 3 ...has all the good functions like battery recondition (aka desulphate) and have the breakaway plug ( as you call it)
running down and cable tied to the rear left peg with a weather proof cover
...which came with it ......I'd highly recommend one.

If ya end up having to get a new battery grab one of these .... great insurance.......leave mine on it any time she not out on the road.

use a regular cheap old lead acid battery......switch it out every 18 months

 

Fully agree with Sprocky - the Optimate 3 is the way to go.

 

Yep, I've heard the optimate 3 is a good charger.

However, I don't get this:

I have a regular die hard wet/cheap battery in my bike, and it's going on almost 3yrs. I use a standard 1.5A trickle charger/tender with float that was like $20. (but $65 shipped for the optimate 3 on fleabay doesn't seem too bad at all).

I don't always use the tender, though. Hell, it sat a good bit of last winter without it....

Speaking of batteries, I just ordered a new AGM earlier today. Gonna be sweeeet!

 

Well my experience with some I've had has been 24 months tops....maybe it cuz of the
cold or whatever ....wtf knows

I pullem out at 18 but then never spent more than 25 bucks on a bike battery either !

 

Yep, at $25 a battery who cares. I think I paid $53 for the die hard that's in there now.

However, I just paid $65 shipped for a motobatt and I think it's gonna prove well worth it. The reviews were real good.

 

Michael,
I'm glad you put this post up. I've just finished rebuilding my engine and got the bike back together again but have had the battery issues you described.
It's been about three months since she's been off road. The battery was taken off the bike and stored indoors out of the cold. I've charged it up a couple of times on a standard 1.5A trickle charger and it seems to have had enough oomph to crank the engine over OK but as with all rebuilds you need to start and stop to make final adjustments and I found that after even one successful start the battery simply didn't have enough grunt to do it again even though it would still turn the engine at a fair lick.
This was proven by simply hooking it up to the car battery and it'd fire up straight away.
I went out and bought a new Yuasa yesterday, (£55.00) and am about to go out and stick it on. I'll let you know later if she now starts every time.
I don't know how old my existing battery is as it came with the bike.
One thing I can add to this thread though in support of needing the battery in tip top condition is that when I had all the plugs out to test the sparks I had the battery hooked up to the car and the sparks were much stronger than with out the car battery even though the cranking speed didn't sound much different with the plugs out.
When the plugs were back in the cranking speed was markedly different with or without the hook up.
The low speed idling thing- again with the battery on its own after she'd warmed up I had the same thing. Attach the jump leads and there was a noticable rise in RPM to where the idle should be. Take em off and the revs would drop a couple of hundred.
The idle screw will make no difference to how she runs except (as Sprok said) change the idle set point. Clockwise to increase RPM and visa versa.
Anyway there's no dumb **** prizes for trying are there? Hmmm.... actually I can think of a few things I've done that would win some silverware....
Hope you're enjoying your refurbished ride now! I sure as **** am.