Motorcycle Battery

Motorcycle batteries
A 12-volt motorcycle battery contains six cells and is made up of a plastic case. Every cell has a set of positive and negative plates dipped in dilute sulphuric acid solution. This solution is called as an electrolyte. The voltage of each cell is 2.1 volts when completely charged. These six cells are joined together to create a fully charged battery of nearly 12.6 volts. A motorcycle battery uses an electrochemical reaction to transform chemical energy to electrical energy. Some of these batteries have the following features:

• maintenance-free
• zero corrosion
• sealed design
• very low self-discharge rate
• no liquid
• extra heavy duty terminal design
• very low self-discharge rate
• absorbed glass mat technology
• resists vibration damage

Motorcycle batteries are generally very small in size. A charge of 1% is lost per day even if nothing is done. The ideal way is to use 1 Ampere or smaller trickle charger. Most motorcycle batteries can't take a high rate of charge that a 6 or 10 Ampere charges provides. A usual rule is that a battery cannot be charged to more than 1/20th of the rated capacity. A big motorcycle battery is maxed out by a 2 Ampere charger. The temperature of a battery should not exceed 112 degrees.

Battery charger
This device is used to put energy in a cell or rechargeable battery by coercing an electric current through it. The technology and capacity of the battery being charged decides the charge current. There are four types of battery chargers:

Simple : This works by connecting a constant DC power source to the battery being charged. The simple charger does not change the output based on time or the charge of the battery. This simplicity indicates that a simple charger is inexpensive, however there is tradeoff in quality. A simple charger takes long time to charge a battery to avoid extreme over-charging. A battery when left in a simple charger for a long time will be annihilated because of over-charging.

Timer-based : The output of a timer charger is stopped after a decided time. Timer chargers were the most usual type for high-capacity Ni-Cd cells. Frequently, it happens that a timer charger and a set of batteries could be purchased as a bundle and the charger time was set to suit the batteries. If the batteries of lower capacity were charged then these would be overcharged. If batteries of high capacity were charged, then these would be partly charged. If batteries of lower capacity were charged, then these would be overcharged. In case batteries of high capacity, they are only partly charged. If the trend of battery technology increases capacity year after year, an old timer charger partly charges the new batteries.

Intelligent : Output current is dependent on the battery's state. An intelligent charger may control the battery's voltage, temperature and/or time under charge so that the optimum charge current at that instant. Charging is terminated when voltage, temperature and/or time shows that the battery is fully charged. For Ni-Cd and NiMH batteries, the voltage over the battery rises slowly in the charging process till the battery is fully charged. After this, the voltage decreases and this indicates to an intelligent charger that the battery is fully charged.

Fast : This makes use of control circuitry in the batteries being charged to quickly charge the batteries without destroying the cells elements. Many such chargers have a cooling fan to maintain the temperature under control.

USB-based : It is possible to use a USB cable as a power source for recharging batteries. Products include chargers devised to charge standard NiMH cells.

Properties of batteries

• Maximum durability : corrosion-resistant cast alloy grid plates
• Extremely long service life expectation : resilient, robust construction when subjected to very tough conditons
• Robust top quality design : used for casing, plate and connectors provides high resistance to vibration, shock loads, raising life expectancy under the severest of conditions
• High starting performance : high electrical valves that exceed the demanding DIN standard benchmark