Baja Designs Battery Packs

[slimydog]

Anyone else having a problem with these things overcharging/dying?

My buddy killed his riding without his light on, so I kept my light on, and it still melted!

My tail light was burned out, but still, running the headlight should have kept the pack from overcharging you would think.

I guess I should disconnect the stator wires when motocrossing during daylight hours...

any thoughts?

also anything special about these battery packs? Couldn't I just wire 10 AA nicads in series and be good to go?

[sirthumpalot]

If it's hooked to an alternator or generator (I assume you have a lighting coil on your bike?) then be sure you're using a voltage regulator.

[MotoGreg]

Why do you need the battery pack anyways? All that is for is a technicality with the law that says a motorcycle should be able to have the tailight left on for 15 minutes without the engine running incase you need to leave it sitting on the side of the road at night. I've been riding street bikes forever and I've never had a cop ask if my tailight would stay on without the engine running.

[fershy]

Sounds like your voltage regulator is shot. I'd hook up a voltage tester to the leads and see what the bike is putting out while it is running.

Replace that cheesey battery pack with a gel cell from Powersonic. A PS 1208 or PS 1212 would do the trick. Nice and compact too.

http://powersonic.com/powersonic12vsla.cfm

fershy

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: fershy ]

[big_G]

* doh *

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: big_G ]

[Rich_in_Orlando]

The Baja Designs (BD) battery and voltage regulator died on my '99 WR last year after about a year of use. It looked like the battery consisted of 8 ni-cad AA batteries in series. On their website, they are rated at 0.8 ah but mine had a label showing 0.7 ah. I think they sell them for about $40. I wanted a battery that I could charge with my Battery Tender so I went to the local battery shop and bought a 1.3 ah sealed lead-acid battery that's only marginally larger than the BD for $17! It fits in the same place in the airbox, using the same BD bracket. I just had to mount it at an angle instead of parallel to the ground like the BD battery was mounted. It looks like this, except mine is rated at 1.3 ah (thanks, fershy, for the link):

I also got a new regulator/rectifier from BD for about $40. The people at BD told me that it wouldn't work with the other battery, but they're wrong. The battery stays charged just like it was made for it. The light now stays bright all the time and the horn even work consistently.

[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: Rich in Orlando ]

[MotoGreg]

Ok, maybe I need to modify what I posted yesterday. I just so happens that this a very timely matter for me because I took all the lights off my bike over a year ago and only rode it for MX. I'm right now in the process of putting it back to street form and today I put the lights on and hooked everything up except for the Nicad battery which came apart a while back. Well, I hooked everything up, started it up and everything worked great except the lights are very dim at idle because there is no battery and the coil charges very little at idle. Anyway, I took it for a few laps around the parking lot, came back and the lights don't work. I switched to the high beam and it came on but the ones I had on when I was riding don't work now. I didn't get a chance to check it out yet but I imagine that when I hit high rpm it produced too much juice and blew out the bulbs, that's probably why my battery melted as well. I'm going to go to an electronics shop tomorrow, get a new battery. Then I'll hook up my voltmeter and see if I have an overcharging problem due to a bad voltage regulator.

[MotoGreg]

Wow, look at this huge chart to diagnose motorcycle charging systems!

[big_G]

Hmmm...haven't melted mine yet, but I'm too damn employed right now to try very hard.

I imagine if you crack the heatshrink open, you'll find 8 ni-cad's in series (not 10...unless you want a 15-volt batt.).

This would probably be quite simple to rebuild/replace, but I'd trace down the cause of your problem first, otherwise you're gonna meltdown all over again. The voltage regulator sounds like a likely suspect.

Or just ditch it altogether like Motogreg said. If your like me, the cop will be much more interested on why your "streetbike" has knobby's.

Good luck.

[SandLunatic]

My battery pack also fried because of not running the headlights and the thing overcharged according to the tech. I talked to. Really nice of them the put the info in the directions huh? I asked about it being a warranty thing since it's not stated in their manuel to constantly run the lights and got a "NO". He said put a capasitor in it so it won't overcharge and it will save me 20 dollers over a new battery, just so happens that they have one. So now my headlight shines according to my rpm. So now I want the battery pack back, now I guess the 20 I saved (that I shouldn't have had to pay because of their POS directions that they knew would be a problem with the battery) is really going to cost an additional 40 which equals 60. DO NOT BUY FROM BAJA DESIGNS. Of course I wrote a letter and e-mail with no response so their customer service works as good as my dead battery.