Max volts the charging system can take?
 

Hi All,

Thought I would post this here since it has the most traffic. I have pretty much smoked another battery trying to start my Apollo 250 with what I thought was just a dirty carb but really turned out to be a faulty CDI.

This was a relatively expensive Kenitik lithium battery. This may be a stupid question so please bare with me with since my knowledge on motorcycle electrical is lacking.

Could I theoretically use one of my Dewalt 20v 5ah packs as the battery with out smoking the whole thing?

Electrical components can typically take more than the rated volts but I am unsure here. I have seen these packs used to jump start cars.

short answer is no... theres too much voltage for the system, and i highly doubt that the pack have the amperage to reliably crank the motor... i would be afraid of smoking both the cdi, and the battery pack...

Not a good idea but at least you were smart enough to ask. ;) No question is a dumb question.

Thanks gentlemen!

You can diasy chain a car battery to the bike battery with jumpers to boost the starting amps. Just don't have the car running. I had to do that with my Hawk when my firat battery took a crap.

Does the hawk not have a kickstarter for moments like this?

It does, but depending on how weak/dead the battery is, it may not want to kick over. At least not very easily. If it was just low because he left the lights on, but otherwise still a good battery, then it would probably kick over. If the battery is literally dead, or has too much internal resistance to it, then it won't quite generate enough power to start, or stay running at the very least. I have worn myself out in that situation trying to get the bike going.

In truth, I have had way better luck bump starting a dead Hawk than kick starting one.

It's an Apollo RX250 which has a CB motor and absolutely has a kickstart. However, and i don't know if its just my bike, but kick starting this thing is a nightmare.

I am your average guy goes to the gym etc. and this thing tries to take off my leg off every time I give a go, probably due to the no compression release.

Even the starter struggles once it gets to the compression stroke, to the point I have to let off the and retry or it will just stall and fry something. That's how I fried my first battery!

That sounds to me like the battery was already weak to begin with. I have higher than normal compression on my bike and the YTZ7S style battery I have will crank it over just fine without stalling, except when it has a weak charge.

Yeah except it has always behaved this way even with brand new batterys.

Not sure why, I went as far as to upgrade the cable to the stater with 10 gauge and got a new solenoid. There was no change.

my battery was dead for 8 months. kick started every day no problem.

did you upgrade the ground and battery cables to the starter solenoid and starter as well? it could be a bad cable there causing high resistance, or a bad connection causing high resistance...

I did using 10 gauge cable. That was one of the first things I did after reading up on it here. I'll try to take a video of it once I get it started.

10 is a bit light for the starter application, its rated for up to 85a for under 4ft runs, if i were doing a battery cable on my bike, i would go 8ga minimum, probably 6, given i have easy access to all sizes of wire working at a small engine shop ( i have several feet of 4-8ga in my tool box...LOL)

8 ga would bump you up to 150a handling... that may well be the issue right there, along with double checking your grounds are good and clean, and TIGHT on all cables....

as others have mentioned make sure your connections and your ground cable are good ....the stock ones are so so often.... and I also found on my TBR seven the stock battery was hardly sufficient so I purchased a new one