[Crab]

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I needed a new battery this spring and replaced the juicy one with a Gel Battery. Now I seem to be having minor charging drops at lower rpm. Never had this problem before the battery swap. Anyone else do this to their 83 1100 aspy???

 

[Silicon Sam]

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You don't want to use a gel battery, you need an AGM battery.

Got a link to the one you got?

 

[newday777]

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Might be your charging system. Did you do the check tests for it?

 

[Crab]

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Yep, the charging system seems to be fine. It meets the higher end spec. If you let the bike idle for awhile the volt meter will drop. At 1300 it will run up to 14 volts. Never had a problem till after installation of the Gel

 

[neoracer]

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you might want to have the battery tested,bought a couple years ago and a cell went bad soon after i purchased them,including one while i was on a trip to chicago

 

[peterbilt]

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we have used the gel batteries on our semis they didnt work well 1200 bucks for 4 batteries thats alot of money the standerd acid/lead battery is about 70ish bucks each

the problem was with them they just wouldnt fully charge off of a standard alternator, we ended up installing special alternators that had 3 stages of charging so they would actually trickle charge the batteries its complicated but the alterantors cost 1400bucks each they wanted to throw away the money i think the whole system of gel batteries and all that is worthless, a standard lead/acid battery will last you 2-4 yrs depending if its servicable or not the gel battery will last you 4yrs give or take i think the cost of a gel battery is overrated, but to each thier own

 

[Silicon Sam]

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This article talks about the differences...

http://www.batterystuff.com/kb/articles/battery-articles/gel-vs-agm.html

I use Gel batteries all the time in alarm panels, but you're right, they are not for bikes unless you modify the charging system. AGM is basically a lead acid, but without the pool of acid shloshing around inside the case. My new bike came with a Yuasa battery.

 

[sandcastcb750]

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First, use a voltmeter to find out if the voltage on your panel is really correct.

Maybe a gel battery is not good for a bike. I bought a sealed bike battery but they all seen to die after 4 years. I think the vibration kills them.

 

[peterbilt]

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sand its a combination of heat, vibration, under or over charging and dirty connections that kill a battery its a snowball effect but still 4 yrs out of a 90ish dollar battery isnt bad about 20-25bucks a year is what it really cost