How Not to Charge a Battery

The things that we learn.

About ten years ago, I was riding my thumper in rural Massachusetts. It was evening, and it was chilly. I was running the heated grips, aux lights, and probably a Gerbings. I stopped at a coffee shop for a break, then went to start the bike. A solenoid or something clicked, but no start. That's when I realized that I was running too many gadgets all at once: the battery was dead. The good news is that across the street from the coffee shop was an old-fashioned service station that was open, with actual people who knew how to work on vehicles. They lent me a battery-powered jump starter. I got the bike started, then returned their gadget. They wouldn't even let me buy them coffee. I rode home, making sure to let the alternator actually charge the battery. After charging the battery overnight, all was well again.

Hmmm, that reminds me, I should probably look into current offerings for modern aux lighting that put less strain on the alternator for that bike. I've been out of the riding loop since before COVID, and out of the general motorcycle news loop for even longer, so I'm catching up on stuff.

For the past few years the battery in my key-fob for my RT kept going dead every so often. Probably about 2 times a year I was replacing the battery. I couldn't figure it out. why was this happening. I was getting a little irritated. I mentioned it to the guy at Batteries Plus when getting the replacement and he asked how far from the bike did I keep the fob, maybe the fob was trying to communicate with the bike. I said I keep the key in the house and went about my business. when I got home I parked the bike in the garage and walked in the door to the house and hung the key up and realized the key-fob was only about 8 feet from the bike with a wall between. So I guess the key was trying to communicate with bike. I relocated where I hang the key-fob farther away from the garage and amazingly the battery is still good.

The fob is supposed to respond to a signal from the bike when the ignition button is pushed, so being stored near the bike should not matter. That is my understanding of how the system works. We hang our fobs on a wall in the shop about the same distance as you described. I change our batteries once a year and never had one go bad.