MOTORCYCLES

Motorcycle batteries vary by brand. Choosing motorcycle batteries involves several important factors. You need to know a good bit about your bike in order to purchase a motorcycle battery.

Motorcycle batteries vary by engine size on any particular motorcycle. Motorcycle engines range in size and are measure by cc. A small engine could be a 260cc for example, where as a larger engine size can be 1200cc. The higher the number, the more powerful the engine.

Motorcycle batteries are specifically designed for specific brands. If you drive a BMW motorcycle, you will purchase a different motorcycle battery that if you drove a Harley-Davidson.

Motorcycle batteries can be purchased in several different ways. Standard type is a “spillable” battery that requires dry shipment. The acid must be purchased locally in order to activate the battery. The acid is called electrolyte, which is sulfuric acid, diluted by water. This must be added only to a dry shipped battery. Normally, acid is not needed to be added to a battery. Once a battery is purchased, only approved water should be added.

Another way batteries can be purchased is sealed maintenance free or Sealed MF.Sealed MF is a sealed maintenance free battery that comes ready to install and is “non-spillable”. Other options when purchasing motorcycles batteries include high performance, AGM types, and Odyssey.

All motorcycle batteries are lead acid batteries. There are completely recyclable and should never be thrown away with regular waste. Motorcycles are easy to check charge with a voltmeter.

Angela Oliver writes for BatteryWeb at http://batteryweb.com/ Please visit the site at http://batteryweb.com/motorcycles.cfm for some of the greatest deals on all your motorcycle battery needs.

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How are Motorcycle Batteries Rated?

The amp/hour (AH) capacity is the basis for rating motorcycle batteries. For example, a 12AH battery can produce one amp of current flow for 12 hours, or two amps for six hours. In order to calculate the amount of time needed to use up a fully charged motorcycle battery by turning the lights on, we have to take power in watts, and divide it by voltage, which gives us the current draw in Amps. Therefore, a 72 watts beam and tail together, divided by 12 volts equals a 6-amp draw. So in 2 hours, the 12AH battery is dead.

Checking Motorcycle Battery:

If you decide to check if your new motorcycle battery is done correctly, follow this actual factory-recommended service procedure.

If the battery is not a maintenance-free type which doesn’t have a vent tube, unwrap the battery, unkink the vent tube and snip about a half-inch off the end. Fill it with electrolyte midway (between the high and low level markings on the case) and leave it undisturbed for one or two hours. Remember, the battery will still be at only 65% of full charge at this point. Add electrolyte again if required.

If your battery is a refillable lead-antimony type, it should be charged at one-third of its rated capacity in amp/hours for four to five hours to get it to full charge. Maintenance-free type battery should be charged with a constant-current charger that can drive the charge with as much as 16.9 volts. This should be closely supervised so as not to exceed full charge.

Next, recheck the electrolyte level and add water if required. Let the battery cool so the case contracts enough to fit into its typically tight little holder. Run the new breather tube, if the battery comes along with one, carefully through the original factory routing.

Things to Remember when Charging the Battery:

1. First of all, it is important to remember that Red is positive and Black is negative in order to avoid any accidents such as short-circuits and nasty shocks.

2. The charger should be compatible with the motorcycle battery, and give a greater output than the battery voltage but not too high.

3. Make sure the connections are clean and the electrolyte is at the upper level, and don’t fill the cells up to the very top of the battery.

4. You can either use an optimizer on the battery which can effectively switch off the battery when it’s charged and prevents overheating, or disconnect it manually.

5. It is recommended to put your battery on charge every two or three weeks.

6. An upper and lower level battery should have all the cells on the upper level, not over and never under the lower level.

7. For topping off the low cells, use only distilled water.

8. The minimum charge for a new batter should be at least for 8 hours.

9. If you have a dry battery, fill the cells slowly and leave the battery for around half an hour.

http://batteries-hq.com/ Batteries HQ: everything you need to know about batteries.

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What would you do without them? Seriously, if every single battery of every single type were suddenly zapped out of every single thing that it operated, what would any of us do?

Laptop computers, without a doubt, are the lifeblood of many a businessperson today. Portable, convenient, they allow us to work on the run and do more business. Laptop batteries are essential to keep this resource working, as it should.

The precursor to the laptop as we know it today was introduced by IBM back in 1986 and was called “The PC Convertible”. It weighed five and a half kilograms and cost around $3500.00.

As laptop computers have evolved, so too have laptop batteries.

The first type of battery used in laptops was Nickel- Cadmium (NiCad). These can still be found in some older laptops. Their lifespan between recharges is about two hours, however, this decreases with each recharge. Also, if a NiCad laptop battery is charged for too long it may explode.

The next type of laptop battery used was Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH). These laptop batteries last longer than NiCad batteries but their total lifespan is shorter.

The current standard laptop battery is the Li-ion battery. As well as being light and having a long life span they can also be randomly charged and won’t overheat if charged for too long. Being thinner, the Li-ion battery is ideal as a notebook battery and can last for between 950 and 1200 recharges.

Perhaps even more crucial to our business life as well as our personal life is the cell phone. There are also three different types of cell phone batteries:

Lithium-ion Batteries: these are the newest type of cell phone battery and, while having certain advantages over the older NIMH and NICD batteries, care must still be taken to ensure they perform at their best. For example, a new lithium-ion battery should be “conditioned”. What this basically means is that for the battery’s first three charge cycles, fully charge the battery overnight and allow it to fully discharge before charging it again. This will increase the life and effectiveness of the cell phone battery.

NIMH Batteries: These batteries also should be conditioned in the same way as a Lithium-ion battery. It is important to remember
that extensive overcharging (i.e.: on a battery charger for more than twenty-four hours) can damage these cell phone batteries.

NICD Batteries: These are the oldest type of cell phone battery and, as is the case with the laptop computer, are less reliable than the newer types.

Okay, so we know we’d be sunk without our laptops and cell phones. But what about the car? Cars have batteries too. Perhaps you ride a Harley Davidson - not without a motorcycle battery! It’s interesting to think where we’d be if the afore-mentioned “zapping episode” took place. We know that our forefathers coped without batteries but could we?

Here’s a challenge: For one whole day leave everything containing a battery alone. No driving or riding, no cell phone or computer, completely “battery-bereft”. At the end of the day you’ll either feel tranquil and centred, at total peace with your surroundings or a nervous wreck, climbing the walls.

Which will you be?

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