If this post triggers a TLTR (too long to read) reaction, apologies...
About two weeks ago, with my recently acquired 'therapy bike', a pristine '14 R12RT previously owned by a NC State Trooper Motor Officer, I completed a short trip from DC Metro area to Charleston, WV for a week. No mechanical issues while there, but as I was departing WV, the bike would not start. I suspected the bike may have sat a little too long (about 4 days) without being ridden (I was attending a Special Forces Assoc. Convention). I was able to look up that a low battery may 'come alive' if left alone for a bit. Within 30 minutes, all was well. About an hour or so on the road, mostly on cruise control, I had an opportunity to use my recently installed Denali SoundBomb horn while saying 'hello' to a driver on their phone and cutting into my lane. Immediately after the short horn blast, the Cruise Control switched off and the speedo needle moved erratically + ABS / ASC warning lights began to flash. I remembered reading that a low battery can cause these symptoms. I suspect the draw from the Denali SoundBomb (It uses a 30 AMP fuse) caused the erratic electrical behavior. I proceeded to continue down the road and turned off my USB tunes and did not use Cruise Control for the remaining 250+ miles. The bike continued to intermittently repeat the behavior, but less frequently. I was able to finish my 350+ mile ride that day without any major issues, although I took only one off-bike break, but left the bike running. Thanks to my AirHawk 2, my butt did not complain, much.
Fast forward to this past week, the bike exhibited similar behavior... Surely running the bike daily would not draw a battery down, right?
This AM, I ran the GS911 in Autoscan mode, no ABS/ASC error codes. The only error code was the 'flapper' one that I was promptly told (by a 'senior BMW rider') to ignore..
But wait, there's more.. At this point I started to run into dead ends online and on this forum. If it was an ABS issue, I should have gotten some codes, right? Same with ASC, right? So here I am, sitting on my couch, frustrated at myself (and the bike) typing up this post, hoping to crowdsource a solution. But just as I was about to hit 'submit this thread', I seemed to recall that when I installed the Denali SoundBomb the day prior to the WV trip, I thought(!) I had properly tightened the battery posts down... Turns out the (-) was fine, but when I checked the (+), it wasn't quite as tight as I would have hoped...
So there you have it, another fine example of what happens when you don't totally go over all of your work, in this case = battery posts...
To be fair, that same day I installed the Denali SoundBlast, I also undertook installing the IlliumWorks Engine and Case Guards, configured the GS911 to work on my Mac (HINT: Use Parallels + WIN10), plus a few other touring farkles. But before the horn could be installed, I had to nug thru (technical term) if I really needed a new EzCAN or could I just simply reuse the Clearwater CANopener 3 and instead directly tie the Denali horn to the existing BMW horn connection. Turns out, you can! Saved myself a few hundred by returning the EzCAN. All of this in about 90+F weather... So just maybe, I was a bit tired at the end of a long day?!? No excuses, just sharing how I may have overlooked tightening the (+) battery post...
I'm sure I'll get hazed for sharing my woes, but I hope others will learn from my 'experience' and instead apply it to their own 'wisdom'. "Experience is what you learn from you own mistakes, wisdom is learning from other people's experiences"
About two weeks ago, with my recently acquired 'therapy bike', a pristine '14 R12RT previously owned by a NC State Trooper Motor Officer, I completed a short trip from DC Metro area to Charleston, WV for a week. No mechanical issues while there, but as I was departing WV, the bike would not start. I suspected the bike may have sat a little too long (about 4 days) without being ridden (I was attending a Special Forces Assoc. Convention). I was able to look up that a low battery may 'come alive' if left alone for a bit. Within 30 minutes, all was well. About an hour or so on the road, mostly on cruise control, I had an opportunity to use my recently installed Denali SoundBomb horn while saying 'hello' to a driver on their phone and cutting into my lane. Immediately after the short horn blast, the Cruise Control switched off and the speedo needle moved erratically + ABS / ASC warning lights began to flash. I remembered reading that a low battery can cause these symptoms. I suspect the draw from the Denali SoundBomb (It uses a 30 AMP fuse) caused the erratic electrical behavior. I proceeded to continue down the road and turned off my USB tunes and did not use Cruise Control for the remaining 250+ miles. The bike continued to intermittently repeat the behavior, but less frequently. I was able to finish my 350+ mile ride that day without any major issues, although I took only one off-bike break, but left the bike running. Thanks to my AirHawk 2, my butt did not complain, much.
Fast forward to this past week, the bike exhibited similar behavior... Surely running the bike daily would not draw a battery down, right?
This AM, I ran the GS911 in Autoscan mode, no ABS/ASC error codes. The only error code was the 'flapper' one that I was promptly told (by a 'senior BMW rider') to ignore..
But wait, there's more.. At this point I started to run into dead ends online and on this forum. If it was an ABS issue, I should have gotten some codes, right? Same with ASC, right? So here I am, sitting on my couch, frustrated at myself (and the bike) typing up this post, hoping to crowdsource a solution. But just as I was about to hit 'submit this thread', I seemed to recall that when I installed the Denali SoundBomb the day prior to the WV trip, I thought(!) I had properly tightened the battery posts down... Turns out the (-) was fine, but when I checked the (+), it wasn't quite as tight as I would have hoped...
So there you have it, another fine example of what happens when you don't totally go over all of your work, in this case = battery posts...
To be fair, that same day I installed the Denali SoundBlast, I also undertook installing the IlliumWorks Engine and Case Guards, configured the GS911 to work on my Mac (HINT: Use Parallels + WIN10), plus a few other touring farkles. But before the horn could be installed, I had to nug thru (technical term) if I really needed a new EzCAN or could I just simply reuse the Clearwater CANopener 3 and instead directly tie the Denali horn to the existing BMW horn connection. Turns out, you can! Saved myself a few hundred by returning the EzCAN. All of this in about 90+F weather... So just maybe, I was a bit tired at the end of a long day?!? No excuses, just sharing how I may have overlooked tightening the (+) battery post...
I'm sure I'll get hazed for sharing my woes, but I hope others will learn from my 'experience' and instead apply it to their own 'wisdom'. "Experience is what you learn from you own mistakes, wisdom is learning from other people's experiences"
