roger 04 rt
New member
After getting to the bottom of a slow starting problem (inadequately charged PC680, here ) on my R1150RT last Fall I monitored the state of charge of the PC680 battery throughout our long, cold winter. If I remove the Kisan it stayed well charged with a once a month top-up of the battery. However once the Kisan is installed, the battery loses almost 10% charge per week.
(This drain is compounded by the PC680's lower than stock battery capacity (16 amp-hours vs 19 AH stock). It's a great battery but at 0 degrees centigrade Odyssey specs a charging voltage of 15.5 volts and a maintenance charge of 14.4 volts. This is over 1 volt higher than the R1150's alternator and more than a volt higher than many battery trickle charges output. And I'm not crazy about leaving the charger connected when I'm not around. So a smaller PC680 battery and a 3X higher drain Kisan flasher aren't a great combination.)
The Kisan Signal Minder which is installed on my R1150 adds a significant current drain with the key off but the battery connected. The R1150's total key-off drain on the battery in stock configuration is 2.5 mA. With the Kisan installed the key-off drain is 3 times as high, about 7.5 mA. It may not seem like a lot but it adds up to about a 15% discharge of the battery over 10 days.
I finally got tired of having to pull the Kisan or recharge the battery if I travelled so I modified the SM-5 today to cut its key-off power to ZERO.
The problem is that the Kisan connects directly to the battery on its pin 2 (but also has a connection to the Load Relief relay on its pin 1) so that it can operate the Hazard Flasher lights with the key off. I don't need the key-off-hazard-flasher function so I opened up the Kisan, cut pin 2 internally, jumpered that connection to pin 1 (photo below). The current drain of the Kisan is now 0 mA with the key off and the PC680 can sit connected for a week and only lose 2-3% of its charge. Total time for the modification was about 15 minutes.
RB
(This drain is compounded by the PC680's lower than stock battery capacity (16 amp-hours vs 19 AH stock). It's a great battery but at 0 degrees centigrade Odyssey specs a charging voltage of 15.5 volts and a maintenance charge of 14.4 volts. This is over 1 volt higher than the R1150's alternator and more than a volt higher than many battery trickle charges output. And I'm not crazy about leaving the charger connected when I'm not around. So a smaller PC680 battery and a 3X higher drain Kisan flasher aren't a great combination.)
The Kisan Signal Minder which is installed on my R1150 adds a significant current drain with the key off but the battery connected. The R1150's total key-off drain on the battery in stock configuration is 2.5 mA. With the Kisan installed the key-off drain is 3 times as high, about 7.5 mA. It may not seem like a lot but it adds up to about a 15% discharge of the battery over 10 days.
I finally got tired of having to pull the Kisan or recharge the battery if I travelled so I modified the SM-5 today to cut its key-off power to ZERO.
The problem is that the Kisan connects directly to the battery on its pin 2 (but also has a connection to the Load Relief relay on its pin 1) so that it can operate the Hazard Flasher lights with the key off. I don't need the key-off-hazard-flasher function so I opened up the Kisan, cut pin 2 internally, jumpered that connection to pin 1 (photo below). The current drain of the Kisan is now 0 mA with the key off and the PC680 can sit connected for a week and only lose 2-3% of its charge. Total time for the modification was about 15 minutes.
RB
