1983 kawasaki kz440 starting problem

First, no battery, regardless of car or motorcycle, or aircraft, should be charged at more than 2 amps. That came out last year or two. Look it up. Automatic chargers pump in way too much current in the beginning and then drop voltage as the battery demands less. This destroys the plates. If your battery is sealed, and you did not have it on a charger that shut off when full, you could have trickled too much current, damaging the battery, you are then only measuring the surface voltage.. That Voltage you measure is the Voltage of the battery but tells you nothing of the current it is able to delivery. On non sealed batteries you would use a Specific Gravity Tester to know exactly where you battery is at. If all works out, or you are convinced that all works out, remove and check the grounding strap for the negative battery terminal, especially if it is mounted on the engine. The reason for this is the manufacturers at that time relied on the threads in the case to ground the battery, and that end of the battery strap was bolted to a painted surface. A corroded ground bolt could cause no ground, even though everything seems fine. Remove the bolt, if it is rusted, you could clean it with a wire brush, the grind the surface on the engine where the ground strap sits so that it sits on bare aluminum. Use dielectric grease to prevent corrosion, or spray that area with a battery terminal sealer. You can wire any same amperage fuse , even with alligator clips, for diagnostic purposes.

It really is essential to know how much the battery voltage drops when you try and start it. That test is essential.Of course, if it is completely dead and you have voltage, get out the Ohm meter and start following leads, make sure you have continuity across the fuses, and all the wires going to it. I know of nothing on any motorcycle that is put on by any manufacturer to make a motorcycle go completely dead.

It's called "Surface Voltage", there is not enough current in the "Surface Voltage" to light anything. It's important to learn 'Ohm's Law" so you can better understand the relationship between voltage, current and resistance. Only a specific gravity tester can tell you the state of the battery, each plate. In a sealed battery you do not have that option, so you must use a very specialized battery tender for such batteries. You can't use just any charger, as if it keeps pumping a small current into the battery, you will burn it out. If you do this in a conventional battery, you lose electrolyte, which you replace with distilled water. I've been using the same cheap Walmart battery for 5 years in my GS750ES Suzuki because I am meticulous about how I store and charge it, cycling it the battery tender between 3 batteries like clockwork any minding the electrolyte level. I have never had any corrosion problem, I make sure the overflow tube goes way past the swing arm, and that takes care of that. I get every penny's worth out of my batteries. Specific Gravity Testers are cheap too.

Without a diode, you could be pumping energy n and pumping it out. That's far too low of a wattage to charge a batery, which new studies show should be charged a 1.5 volts preferably. When the target is reached, the tender shuts off, only coming back down with the voltage drops. The method you are using would work if you had more wattage, and a battery sensing unit on the end. Without the sensing unit, you are either cycling the unit with charges and discharges, though I think at the wattage you describe, you would actually lose more, and if you add more panels, without a sensing unit, you will bake your batteries. Tenders are pretty cheap, it's the better way to go. If you are off the grid completely, then you run an inverter from 12V to 120v to run the battery tender. Easier just to plug a tender into the wall. The one I have has a piece you attach to the bike, and just plug the tender into that, you need not remove the battery. You still should check the fluid levels though. IMHO.

The fact that it says scooter battery makes me wonder if it can charge a much higher amperage battery. I can understand wanting tograb free energy, if you were going that route, I'd suggest a small windmill attached to a seep cycle battery, that attached to a DC to DC power regulator, to plug you charger into. In all honesty, it's kind of a convulated method if your on the grid to go through such extremes. If you are extremely off the grid, then I'd go the windmill with larger Solar Panel route, tied to a battery bank, and have a battery tender wired into it. I'd use Deep Cycle batteries as they can hold onto amps far longer than conventional batteries. The one in my motor home is 10 years old, and works great. If the main battery goes flat, I just hit a switch to change over to the deep cycle to start the motor home, then start the 4000 watt generator, and I can charge the main battery (if on the road) or run the generator, and get to someplace to get a conventional battery. I lost my alternator once, and using the generator was able to use the Deep cycle to charge the main battery, and drive for an hour to get to a shop, where I was able to fix a broken harness attachment to the alternator.

Your being penny wise here. All of this, and you can't just get on your bike and ride. That's the bottom line for me, having the bike readily available. Otherwise I must answer to "She who must be obeyed".

The discharge current on the charger in the previous link goes up to 5 amps. That's over double the high limit for battery charging. I posted in another thread that 1.5 amps is the recommended charging rate, so as not to burn out the panels, i wrote down the wrong number, it's 1.8 amps. There is actually a formula that depends on the battery's total amperage and how tall it is (stratification) This is for new battery. After much research it was found that automatic chargers which let the battery draw what it can, sometimes starting at 10 amps, shortens the life of the battery. 2 amps is what is become the commercial standard, but if you look at the better charging systems, they are at 1.8 amps. There is an equation for charging based on battery size and ambient temperature. It's on the 2nd link below.

Don't take my word on it, research it. I found this stuff out around 3 years ago, and have noticed that all the batteries I have since purchased, even when I let run dead, charge to full capacity, and seem to hold on to the CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) much better. I notice this starting the vehicles in 10 degree and single degree digits. I stick to two amps for charging my batteries. My Motorhome has a built in charger on the inverter, so I just keep the Motorhome plugged in. The battery is 8 years old now, and works great. Proper charging reduces sulfide, the killer of all batteries.

It does take longer with the lower amps, but battery life is vastly improved. I don't charge anything at 10 amps anymore, unless it's so dead I can get a charging start, then I blast it with 10 amps for a few minutes to establish polarity. I have noticed that some of my automatic battery chargers will show 90% charge when set to auto, but when set to 2 amps, it then reads 75% charged, and this is within the same unit. So companies are selling chargers that have different battery states at different levels of amperage. To me, that's really poor engineering. IMHO.

Interesting articles: Battery Charging Tutorial | ChargingChargers.com

Complete Guide On How To Charge A Lead Acid Battery - Power Sonic (if you apply Ohm's Law to this, on some instances, you come up with some pretty low amperage charging)

I don't like how the possibility of fire with Lithium batteries can be so easily set off. I've pulled some older small ones out of old Laptops, that I fully charged. Now, yes, this sounds, and is stupid, but I pierced it in the center with a couple of holes using an Ice Pick. Many that thing lit up. I had it outside on my hard pan driveway, but wow, and pouring water on it just made it worse.

So for now, Ill stay with the old tried and true batteries I cn see degrade. The Lithium one in my SSpine has been helping a Nerve Stimulator ease pain in my back for 8 years, and is still going strong. That unit costs $187,500 bucks, 8 years ago. They cost more now.

This has a very special inductive charger. Your bike, it's technology, I would keep all the technologies within the same period. On the other hand, if you have money to burn, and great interest, go for it. You live only once.

You can have 13.8 Volts, but it's only a surface charge. You need to check amperage. The best way with a liquid type battery is a Specific Gravity Tester. That will tell you the condition of each cell, it's amazing how many times I see a bike battery that's totally fine except for once cell. It will still start the bike, but you have one or two shots at it.

On AGM type batteries, you would have to get a meter that checks amps, usually these aren't cheap. Mine only goes up to 10 amps. Amps is the indicator of a batteries health. Batteries should be charged ideally at 1.8 amps. Lots of 2 amp chargers out there, but more 1.8 amp ones are appearing. Automatic battery chargers blast the battery with too much current and shorten the life of the battery.


Great article at Revzilla about batteries: How to test a motorcycle battery - RevZilla


Specific Gravity gauge: