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This lockdown has left most of our vehicles stranded in the garages. The long time spent there has resulted in dead batteries.


My Royal Enfield Himalayan (2018) had an awesome start this year. I rode it all the way to Nepal and back in January. February saw an impromptu trip to Davengere.

Mid March the lockdown was announced and my bike was stuck at home.
In May I tried to start it but the battery had drained. I jump started the bike and rode for a couple of minutes.
June came and the battery was again down. I checked the voltage before I started it and again after riding for a couple of minutes. The very low readings were a clear indicator that this batter was beyond recovery.

Yesterday I removed the battery and took it to the battery shop. Bought a new Amaron. The exact same spec. Came back home. Tested the new battery with my multimeter. Perfect.

Fixed it in the slot. The installation is a royal pain as the battery is heavy and the opening very small. Finally managed to jam it into the correct place and wired it up. As soon as the wires touched the terminals, I knew I had messed it up.
The wires were crossed. the positive terminal was connected to the negative wire and the negative terminal to the positive. Immediately removed it all and fixed it correctly. But of course I knew this will have repercussions.

The bike switched on and I immediately rode it to the battery shop. They did not even look at the bike. Asked me to go over to a mechanic. I went to a nearby shop. He referred me to a Bike Electrical shop about 10 kilometres away.

I decided to ride over. Less than 5 mins had elapsed and the low battery indicator on my console lit up.

The electrical repair guy was all smiles. He wanted me to leave my bike for a couple of days, while he will check the issue.

No Thanks!

I rode back home.
About 2 kilometres before my apartment, the bike started jerking.
One kilometre left and all the lights went off.
800m left and the bike died.

I sat by the roadside wondering what to do and started pushing it. The approach to my apartment has a steep incline. Luckily a neighbor was out jogging and he helped me push it up the incline. From there I sat on the bike, slotted the gear and it switched on.
Reached my parking with the bike still on.
Left it there with no idea what to do.

Messaged Jaggu and Kiran and they both asked me to check the fuse.

So I did that today morning.
The fuse for the charging system had blown. Replaced it with the spare.

Bike is back and running and I just did a 35 kilometre run without any issues.

My learning. If you ever work on the battery and get a new one. Draw a huge red circle or put a sticker so that the mistake is not so easy to make.
Most important thing however is to not connect any wires without checking them at least a couple of times.

I was very lucky that nothing major went wrong.

Batteries shapes and sizes are standardised, so it's ridiculous that terminal positions are not! So many batteries have very poorly marked polarities and I don't blame you for making a mistake.

You were lucky that it was only a blown fuse. I think modern ECU Do have polarity reversal protection.

I've faced this inverted terminals issue with several bikes and cars and in some cases, because I got stuck with the battery, I have had to extend the battery cables. A real pain in the behind!

This was also one of the reasons.
The old battery and this one were exactly opposite to each other. I did not realize it when I put it just like the old one and connected the wires.
:Frustrati:Frustrati

When buying a Battery, we normally look up AH rating only. There is more to it. If the position of Poles - represented by alphabet L or R is taken care of, this mistake can be avoided.
Note and remember the following

L and R indicate the position of the positive pole on the battery when YOU face the battery i.e. with respect to you and NOT the car. So you are looking at the front of the battery with the terminal poles closest to you. So, a L for example means "Positive Front Left" in relation to the battery.

I'm surprised you have enough cable length, most of my motorcycles were made by stingy manufacturers it seems as even repositioning the battery was a challenge. :D

Jokes apart, I just looked up how the Himalayan's battery is positioned and I'd be surprised if you got it Right the first time, cause I'd definitely mess it up tying to get the starter relay etc out of the way, insert it in reverse and bolt terminals on with the chassis in the way of direct sight.

Anyhow I'm glad that all went well in the end, a thumb rule to follow here is that, the moment you experience electrical failure the first line of action is to inspect the fuses, it should be your natural response to such situations, for two main reasons;

1. If its the main fuse that's gone kaput, you may be able to push start the motorcycle but your electricals would be running off the charging system which fluctuates charge bases on revs(the capacitor attached to the RR can only do so much) which has an adverse effect on the electronic components of the motorcycle. Hence why manufacturers recommend not running a motorcycle without a battery in place i.e same effect as with the main fuse blown.



2. If the main fuse is blown, then you get symptoms similar to the battery/charging system failing and if you take it to a conniving mechanic, he would happily fleece you, it is embarrassing but I have been fleeced by once such guy into replacing a perfectly fine battery during my early days of riding, fortunately I insisted on keeping the old battery and it is only when I went to claim warranty did I realize what had happened. :Frustrati

Regards,
A.P.

Been following your posts for quite some time... My points

1) how will the cable lengths matter irrespective of the polarity? If the user had checked the polarity am sure he would have not got the connections wrong.

2) Guess the main fuse is there for that same reason else it would have not gone kaput

3) true once the main fuse goes bad the system will definitely depends on the charging ability, this has been in force right from the days of CB ignition systems but the CDI was different. Today's generation of digital CDI requisites a strong working battery. Plus it takes a heavy toll on the regulator/alternator in today's world

True about user error part, but then again seeing how its placed on the Himalayan swapping battery isn't an easy job like its on other bikes with just a latch or like in the Bajaj's where its literally just a rubber band holding the battery in place.

Reference to cable length was made cause in most bikes the cable length is too short i.e if you're getting the same battery then it is hard to get the polarity wrong and if you're getting one with mirror polarity then you simply cannot hook up the battery right. This was a concern faced with the ZMA and some other bikes when getting after market batteries.

Depends.

Normally a fuse does not blow when faced with reverse polarity as its merely a fuse. What manufactures have done as a fail safe is add a diode parallel to the circuit such that its shorts to ground and blows the main fuse when the battery is connected in reverse polarity, in turn saving the more sensitive electricals.

The reason I said this depends is because this only works if the fail-safe is present, else you have a dead ECU, hence why it is advisable to confirm Polarity before attaching terminals i.e when connecting; first connect positive followed by negative, i.e the opposite of when removing a battery.

There is a notable difference in severity.

In the case of Points and AC CDI ignition, the power to fire is taken from the source coil/primary coil i.e the firing is completely independent of the battery. They are not even part of the same circuit, completely independent.

In the case of DC CDI, the power is drawn directly from the battery, the only reason some DC CDI motorcycles are able to fire at all without battery is due to the capacitor attached to the battery, but that has its limits. Cause anything Digital is not comfortable with fluctuating current.

As for toll on RR and Stator, this is mostly the result of people not bothering to inspect their batteries or change it periodically at the least. Cause a dead battery puts consistent load on the RR Unit and Stator and it is just a matter of time before one fails, the same can be confirmed by connecting a capacitor parallel to a dying battery, the moment its connected to the leads the electricals start to perform brilliantly.

Hope that answers all queries.

Cheers,
A.P.

The following incident dates back to 2017.

My friend and family are heading out of Chennai early morning one Sunday, fill up diesel in their Endeavour AT, and after the fill, the car wouldn't crank. They try jump starting it with another battery but because of reversed polarity, horns go off monentarily and then silence

I get a call at 5 am for help. I tell them I can help only after 10am as I'd need fuses.

They call someone known close by, give them the key, hire a taxi and leave the car at the bunk.

I wait for my spare parts guy to open, then take half a dozen fuses of various specs and go.

On reaching I find the following :

1. The AT lever indicator on the dash is stuck in N irrespective of whichever position the gear is actually in.

2. Switch on the ignition and some lights on the dash are off

I checked all fuses and found the main 80A fuse (the one with the long legs which is also bolted) to have blown; replace that, jump start the car with my 95D26L battery, and all was well.

When jump starting , Its always Positive to positive and negative of donor battery to metallic part of the dead car / bike. Check this thread.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techn...attery-14.html

i melted my jumper wires doing positive to positive and negative to negative. TBH i havn't tried it out on bikes.

Technically , there should be no problem if you reverse the polarities of battery since the circuit gets completed either ways. However , if you do change the polarities, you need to also change the polarity of the charging circuit and many a times its difficult with pre fabricated wire harness. As @bblost pointed out, its better to mark a Big red dot or just tape a red insulation tape on the wires which was connected to positive.

To their credit, battery manufacturers mark + and - on the batteries.

This is what happened.



So to resolve this, I inserted the battery in the opposite direction.
Since it was just a few cms, the cable reached the correct terminals without any issue.

A common mistake if one is not careful. With electricals always be slow, careful (double-check) while removing and refitting any terminal or coupler. If there are no identification marking or signs make your own notes.

As far as batteries go, always double-check old Vs new. As pointed out earlier, it is not just size and AH ratings. There are more important things like terminal type, orientation, and sometimes even battery placement, esp with newer expensive bikes that might have the battery in a laid down position. In such cases type of battery egs lead acid, VRLA, AGM also do matter. So always check your manual for the right replacements and do not blindly go by what the shop sells. One of the reasons why I prefer to order online, where you can select the right replacement.

Anyways valuable lesson and a very useful thread.

ps: make the polarity marking clearly visible on battery so that a smart know it byhearts mechanic wouldn't reinsert the battery the wrong way around and blow another fuse. :)

Being a superbike mech, I keep seeing this happen quite often. Thank god for some industry standards, almost all manufacturers give you a safety fuse for reverse polarity. Not just the polarity, the sequence in which you connect and disconnect the battery terminals can save you from trouble.

General rule of thumb :

Disconnecting the terminals - Negative terminal followed by positive terminal.
Connecting the terminals - Positive terminal followed by Negative terminal.

This way, you will avoid any risk of the spanners touching the body which also acts as ground ( -ve ) and resulting in a shot.

I had a similar experience with my dad's splendor. The battery was removed from the bike during the lockdown and after it ended, I was placing the battery back.
Now Splendor wires (2003 model) had a green wire and a red wire of equal length. Swapping these two accidentally can be done easily. And that's what I did (accidentally). Attached the wires to the wrong terminals.
First thing that I found weird was that the terminals were sparking way too much when I was trying to attach them to the battery. Unable to understand, I tightened up the bolts and only seconds later I found the battery getting a bit warm. Immediately opened up the terminals only to find out that the terminals had developed a black burn. The wires were warm too. Thankfully there was nothing significant and the bike started without any fuss. Also the charging system worked as intended. I guess since it is a relatively old bike with almost no electronic fuss(not even electric starter) therefore there wasn't any significant damage.
The battery was from Powerzone 2.5Ah.

Abhishek.

I keep removing and fixing batteries as a we use 1 battery for 2 cars since we use these 2 cars only once in a while.

For this I remember the usual circuit deal that Negative is to be grounded and if at all (dont get it since I have done it soo many times) I have confusion then I look at the wire which is grounded and that is the one which will goto the Negative terminal.