Power Banks?

Gez

Gez

Club Member
I noticed at the NE Rallye at Northallerton that several bikes were attached to power banks? to, I assume, just give a trickle charge to the bike battery when parked up for a day or two?
Can someone fill me in re these please? How much? where from? etc.
 
More likely topping up the power bank from bike battery. A power banks going to do bugger all for a harley battery.

Unless its the mini jump starter types.
 
Kind of worrying that bikes at a rally need to be hooked up to a power bank 🤔 are the charging systems or batteries on them that bad 😱 or are they now carrying too much electrickery…..
 
Is there an underground movement paving the way for leccy harleys and pan americans with issues…😂🤣😂🤣
 
Gez said:
I noticed at the NE Rallye at Northallerton that several bikes were attached to power banks? to, I assume, just give a trickle charge to the bike battery when parked up for a day or two?
Can someone fill me in re these please? How much? where from? etc.
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Depends what sort and size of powerbank. A lot of the portable powerbanks that people carry won’t be big enough to jump start a big twin, however even some of the relatively small physical sized ones do have enough power to jump start and are designed to do this. I’ve personally got a Noco GB40 which is plenty man enough to perform several big twin starts in succession and it holds its charge for months on end. I’ve got jumper harnesses permanently wired into my bikes starting circuits to make the job of any required jump start an easy plug and play affair.

Ironically, in the couple of years I’ve had my Noco, I’ve never had occasion to use it on my own bikes, but its been used plenty of times at rallies on Sunday mornings to start other peoples bikes that have batteries fitted which were past their best when they left home on the Friday morning…..

The Noco is usually recharged via 240v mains, however it is possible to charge from a 12v power source using a USB cable and the “USB In” port on the powerpack and I have a switched 12v USB charging port fitted in the underseat storage area on the Pan America for charging the Noco and phones etc.

The Noco can also be used for mobile phone charging etc, but I usually carry a smaller pocket sized powerbank to rallies for that purpose to avoid depleting the jump pack.

HD sell a rebranded version of the Noco GB40, but its about 30% more expensive to buy than the original Noco version.

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Bought my Noco Booster Plus back in March this year having seen a fellow member use one on my bike. We were going on a ride out and having a quick coffee at my place. My H-D had not been ridden for 3 months albeit connected to a battery tender - but that morning the battery was not strong enough to start the motor. Out came the Noco and once connected to my battery started the bike immediately! So impressed I ordered my own via eBay supplier later that day. So far not needed to start my bike since, but has been used to start another mates Sportster.

Now as Mark says, it's multi functional, will charge mobile phones, laptops, has the immense power to start up to a 4 Litre sized engine and once charged can be stored for many months before use. Brilliant bit of kit.

However - it's not a battery tender.
 
I got a cheap (£40 I think) jump start / booster pack/power bank off eBay for my birthday a few weeks ago and chucked it in a saddlebag 'just in case'. Pulled the bike out to go on a remembrance run yesterday morning and despite the bike being on a tender, the battery said No. Clipped the booster pack on and wahey! fired right up. Happy with that :):cool:. It has now earned it's spot in the saddlebag. Need a new battery though :cry:
 
How would you boost charge/start my M8 Low Rider? It's a right faff on to get to the (particularly + ) battery terminals?
 
Gez said:
How would you boost charge/start my M8 Low Rider? It's a right faff on to get to the (particularly + ) battery terminals?
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Red lead to the big nut on top of your starter motor and the black one to an engine bolt is the way I do it. <edit> This isn't going to work on your bike, sorry it's been a while since I had my Sport Glide and I can't recall ever having to jump it. The screwdriver method below is your best bet I guess. When you come to change your battery the YouTube vids are invaluable. It's not difficult, but without the vids I would've been scratching my head and swearing a lot.
 
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Gez said:
How would you boost charge/start my M8 Low Rider? It's a right faff on to get to the (particularly + ) battery terminals?
Click to expand...

The M8 softail chassis is a ball ache to easily jump start. The lowrider and sport glide starter motors aren’t easily accessible to connect the positive lead to the starter and as you say, the battery terminals are virtually inaccessible. Easiest way to jump an M8 lowrider or Sport Glide is to take the seat off, then carefully insert a long shafted screwdriver down from the seat area onto the battery positive terminal and connect the red jump pack lead to the shaft of the screwdriver (make sure screwdriver shaft isn’t touching and seat/frame rails) connect the black jump pack lead to any suitable earth point, and your good to go.

Or, fit a jump start wiring harness like the one I use (photo above)
 
With ease of access and above all safety in mind - fitting a jump start harness has to be the way forward for those inaccessible battery terminals. It's frustrating that these newer variants are designed with such hard to access batteries, same goes for the spark plugs, the tank has to be removed and don't get me going over the marketing BS that 2 spark plugs per cylinder is progress either!
 
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