[JJ_TKOB]

My first 12 volt battery died on April 20th 2020. I had the bike less than a month. It didn't die gracefully and it left me stranded on the side of the road.

The Motor Company paid to replace it at my dealership. Dealer did not have it in stock and had to wait over a week for it.

Fast forward to Saturday the 6th of March 2021. I bring my LiveWire in for its 1000 mile service. There is also an open recall for the bike's software. While the dealer is doing the software update the 12 volt battery dies again. In the middle of the update.

My dealer says that The Motor Company is not going to warranty the battery but the dealership will because it has been less than a year. Of course my dealer again does not have the battery in stock so now I am waiting for the new one.

Final issue. The Motor Company told my dealer that they cannot do software updates while charging the 12 volt lithium battery on the 800 mA trickle charger. The dealer needs to get one that does at least 5 amps. They provide the part number for a third party charger because Harley doesn't sell a lithium battery charger that can do the job.

Just sharing my experience.

 

[Eric]

On my side, I ve bought the Optimate Lithium LFP 4S 0.8 Amp charger and equipe my LW with the water proof connector cable delivred with the charger to easly maintain the 12V battery at home.

 

[JJ_TKOB]

On my side, I ve bought the Optimate Lithium LFP 4S 0.8 Amp charger and equipe my LW with the water proof connector cable delivred with the charger to easly maintain the 12V battery at home.

Thank you for your recommendation. I am going to buy one even though I think it is crazy to need one on a motorcycle this advanced.

 

[SpecterNomad]

I've got the "12v Battery Low" message a few times now. I had my dealer take a look the first time and they said it was a false positive caused by the FW not being up to date (which they updated). Last week it happened again and when they looked, the OBC said "No Response." The service manager told me to go charge out front on the DCFC charger and then bring it back to see if it reset on its own (it didn't). So they scheduled for me to come back this week (their tech was on vacay). I rode the bike home after that and parked for the night (didn't charge bc I was at 87%). The next morning I went to check on it and "magically" the error code went away. The way they told me is that the RESS (big battery) charges the 12v battery while riding and when using the L1 charger in the seat, but they didn't have an answer about whether the fast charger does. I'm new here, but if I find anything else out, I'll let you all know.

 

[Frank]

When I had my 1K service two weeks ago - after riding and charging the bike for about 12 weeks (and about 12 charging cycles), the 12v battery died during the service call at the dealer. It was an extended service due to the Oil and Gasket not being in stock (see my post about heads up about 1K service oil and gasket). The dealer replaced my battery with a new one, at no charge, and they have no idea why it went dead and still had not figured it out. I have exclusively charged the bike on my level 1 charger at home for all of the charges leading up to the 1K service. I leave it on the charger all during the week and mostly only ride on weekends. I had never had a battery warning on the bike. Love the bike - riding the cutting edge and all - now I want more info about why a brand new 12v battery would die. If as stated abovec, the 12v only charges during a ride, then a once a week ride wont cut it for battery life - for the long run. I suppose then I need a trickle charger hooked directly up to the 12V battery to be sure its ready to go when I ride (like most any gas bike that are used rarely). I Need to know more about how the LW charges!!

 

[JJ_TKOB]

On my side, I ve bought the Optimate Lithium LFP 4S 0.8 Amp charger and equipe my LW with the water proof connector cable delivred with the charger to easly maintain the 12V battery at home.

Did you install the waterproof connector cable yourself? Any thing I need to know before I hook mine up. I mean usually this would be super simple, but I am concerned about doing this on my LiveWire.

 

[Frank]

Did you install the waterproof connector cable yourself? Any thing I need to know before I hook mine up. I mean usually this would be super simple, but I am concerned about doing this on my LiveWire.

(Excuse my stepping in here) regarding hookups of any kind to the 12V battery -I just had a very effective Denali Soundbomb horn hooked up to my livewire by my dealer - normally the harness wired up directly to the horn wiring and 12V battery, but the dealers LW specialist, informed from HD directly on this topic, was very particular about what and how things should be hooked up to the 12V battery. I am told there is an accessory port which is used to access power from the battery. I need more info on that and if it would apply to a trickle charger going the other way as well. Step in and school me if you have an answer. I have mails into HD customer service to try and guide an official way forward with a trickle charger. Seems that what Eric did is working (Eric did you get info from HD?) After the horn experience, I am waiting for guidance from HD.

 

[Eric]

This is not a confortable location to work .. but the menu is to install this cable delivred with the charger,Rubber protection on the wire, connected to the battery + -, I've no alarm in the battery box, I ve use this rectangle fence for the cable out put throught the cover, ( no cover modif, no place along the original big cable) a loop down to avoid water entrance and cable up with few clips or rubber to stay in place.

 

[JJ_TKOB]

View attachment 550 View attachment 552 View attachment 553 View attachment 554
This is not a confortable location to work .. but the menu is to install this cable delivred with the charger,Rubber protection on the wire, connected to the battery + -, I've no alarm in the battery box, I ve use this rectangle fence for the cable out put throught the cover, ( no cover modif, no place along the original big cable) a loop down to avoid water entrance and cable up with few clips or rubber to stay in place.

Thank you. Did you remove any fuses when you did this work?

 

[JJ_TKOB]

When I had my 1K service two weeks ago - after riding and charging the bike for about 12 weeks (and about 12 charging cycles), the 12v battery died during the service call at the dealer. It was an extended service due to the Oil and Gasket not being in stock (see my post about heads up about 1K service oil and gasket). The dealer replaced my battery with a new one, at no charge, and they have no idea why it went dead and still had not figured it out. I have exclusively charged the bike on my level 1 charger at home for all of the charges leading up to the 1K service. I leave it on the charger all during the week and mostly only ride on weekends. I had never had a battery warning on the bike. Love the bike - riding the cutting edge and all - now I want more info about why a brand new 12v battery would die. If as stated abovec, the 12v only charges during a ride, then a once a week ride wont cut it for battery life - for the long run. I suppose then I need a trickle charger hooked directly up to the 12V battery to be sure its ready to go when I ride (like most any gas bike that are used rarely). I Need to know more about how the LW charges!!

The general theory is that the RESS (big battery) charges the 12V lithium phosphate (little battery). When exactly this occurs is in question. My dealer is almost an hour away from my house. If the RESS was charging the little battery then during that time then the little battery should have been charged when I brought the LiveWire in. I think what happened with my second little battery was that I had a large software update that needed to be done and the dealer had the little battery on a trickle charger. So the little battery dies while they were in the middle of the big update.

 

[Eric]

Thank you. Did you remove any fuses when you did this work?

No, need of removing fuse, simply take care that the negative live wire connector never touch the + battery and opposite for the + live wire cable with the - battery when installing the charger cable.

 

[Frank]

Follow up info from Harley Davidson customer service which I just received: I asked for details on how the livewire charges the 12V battery and if it would be OK to trickle charge it/put it on a tender. Representative (Richard) took my questions, emailed to him and consulted with Livewire experts. Below is the formal response:

First a direct quote in the email from the HD Customer Service representative (Richard):

"You are not supposed to charge the 12 volt on a tender."

Then he attached additional information which I cannot find in the user manual so it is additional information. I have cut and pasted it below:

That is the full extent of information provided from HD.

 

[Eric]

This is very common to have such comment on vehicule manuals, (charging a battery means a bad conception). So no trouble to use a charge for 12V if you are not riding frequently ,with specif for Li-ion battery charger in that case. I thing also the smartphone apps to ask for the LW status is also consuming power even power off.
I m doing the same with my BMW RT with a pb charger because short trip in winter and seat+ hands heating systeme.
With the battery plug it's also easy with a voltmeter to mesure the 12V value.

 

[JJ_TKOB]

Follow up info from Harley Davidson customer service which I just received: I asked for details on how the livewire charges the 12V battery and if it would be OK to trickle charge it/put it on a tender. Representative (Richard) took my questions, emailed to him and consulted with Livewire experts. Below is the formal response:

First a direct quote in the email from the HD Customer Service representative (Richard):

"You are not supposed to charge the 12 volt on a tender."

Then he attached additional information which I cannot find in the user manual so it is additional information. I have cut and pasted it below:

View attachment 562

That is the full extent of information provided from HD.

Thanks for helping us out. I am wondering whether you told the person you were talking to that the charger in question (aka the tender) is designed for Lithium Ion batteries?

The HD dealer definitely hooks one of these up when they install software updates so I can't imagine why it would not be OK for us to do so.

John

It sure would be nice if we had an HD technician in here to answer our questions.

 

[JJ_TKOB]

This is very common to have such comment on vehicule manuals, (charging a battery means a bad conception). So no trouble to use a charge for 12V if you are not riding frequently ,with specif for Li-ion battery charger in that case. I thing also the smartphone apps to ask for the LW status is also consuming power even power off.
I m doing the same with my BMW RT with a pb charger because short trip in winter and seat+ hands heating systeme.
With the battery plug it's also easy with a voltmeter to mesure the 12V value.

Eric,

How long have you been using your charger? Do you only hook it up occasionally or is it hooked up most of the time?

John

 

[JJ_TKOB]

Just adding this here because I keep losing it and I think it is the only picture of the 12 volt LiveWire battery on the internet.

 

[Frank]

Thanks for helping us out. I am wondering whether you told the person you were talking to that the charger in question (aka the tender) is designed for Lithium Ion batteries?

The HD dealer definitely hooks one of these up when they install software updates so I can't imagine why it would not be OK for us to do so.

John

It sure would be nice if we had an HD technician in here to answer our questions.

Yes agreed -how do we get an actual HD guy to participate! They never seem to jump into these forums and help resolve our questions!

I actually shared with the HD rep a picture of and a web link to the recommended charger suggested by Eric in his part of this thread (Optimate Lithium LFP 4S 0.8 Amp charger). I realize that a charger might be used when doing some sort of maintenance or service for software etc. but the question is how that charger is hooked up in that context and how otherwise it might interfere with sensors and other existing digitally controlled operations on the LW. The answer from Harley was not at all clear on any of that.

One difference between the Livewire and other bikes, is that on most (gas driven) bikes there is only one (12V) battery that charges up with energy generated from the motor when the motor is on - and we know there is no charging going on when those gas driven bikes are off and parked (so the tender/charger is wise).

With the Livewire, I asked, but HD did not answer if the main battery on the Livewire was trickle charging the 12V when it sits in the off position and or when it is hooked up to a level 1 or 3 charger. HD generally state that charging is handled by the OBC (on-board-charging). A non-answer really.

I would do not want an external trickle charger/tender, hooked up to the LW, to cause a fault or create false status or interrupt or blow out the mechanisms or function of the intelligent internal charging activities of the OBC - between the main Livewire battery and the 12 volt battery. All we have so far from HD was a statement saying trickle charging was not needed and the OBC takes care of it. I still want to know why my 12V battery died - new bike 12 weeks old. The bike was always either being used on the road or hooked up to a level 1 charger. Makes no sense.

 

[JJ_TKOB]

Yes agreed -how do we get an actual HD guy to participate! They never seem to jump into these forums and help resolve our questions!

I actually shared with the HD rep a picture of and a web link to the recommended charger suggested by Eric in his part of this thread (Optimate Lithium LFP 4S 0.8 Amp charger). I realize that a charger might be used when doing some sort of maintenance or service for software etc. but the question is how that charger is hooked up in that context and how otherwise it might interfere with sensors and other existing digitally controlled operations on the LW. The answer from Harley was not at all clear on any of that.

One difference between the Livewire and other bikes, is that on most (gas driven) bikes there is only one (12V) battery that charges up with energy generated from the motor when the motor is on - and we know there is no charging going on when those gas driven bikes are off and parked (so the tender/charger is wise).

With the Livewire, I asked, but HD did not answer if the main battery on the Livewire was trickle charging the 12V when it sits in the off position and or when it is hooked up to a level 1 or 3 charger. HD generally state that charging is handled by the OBC (on-board-charging). A non-answer really.

I would do not want an external trickle charger/tender, hooked up to the LW, to cause a fault or create false status or interrupt or blow out the mechanisms or function of the intelligent internal charging activities of the OBC - between the main Livewire battery and the 12 volt battery. All we have so far from HD was a statement saying trickle charging was not needed and the OBC takes care of it. I still want to know why my 12V battery died - new bike 12 weeks old. The bike was always either being used on the road or hooked up to a level 1 charger. Makes no sense.

Very good points. I did see that someone recommended disconnecting the battery from the bike while using an external charger on it.

 

[JJ_TKOB]

I did see somewhere that it was recommended to disconnect the 12V battery from the LiveWire before using the external charger. So maybe something like adding the pigtail but also a cutoff switch to disconnect the 12V battery while using the external charger would be best.

 

[Mac Mike]

Just adding this here because I keep losing it and I think it is the only picture of the 12 volt LiveWire battery on the internet.

View attachment 563

I posted the pic of the battery way back in March of 2020. The only purpose of the 12v battery is to turn on the electronics and lights.As stated in this forum many times and many threads the 12v battery is the weak link of the Livewire.