Trickle charge type question

[Phill P]

Soooo, as some of you may be aware I recently........ongoing had a problem with a dead battery after a winter layup, anyways to cut a long story short it appears to be the regulator. I kinda jumped the gun prior to this and ordered up a nice new yuasa ytx 14h bs. Now my bike lives in a garage with its younger brother a 2006 mk2 focus st.....xr5 to some of you.
It's a weekend toy so spends much time doing nothing. For the past 5 years it's battery a been trickle topped up with a solar panel on the roof of the garage, this has worked really well, it goes through a solar panel controller which regulates its power.
Do you think this would be ok to run on the bike, bearing I mind a bike battery is a tad smaller.

Cheers everyone 

[KiwiCol]

Hi Phil, yes it's absolutely fine to add the bike battery to the same circuit as your car one. 

I have basically that set up in one of my sheds, there's no power in there, so I have a large 12v battery which runs some LED interior lights.  This battery is charged by a 100w solar panel via a MPPT controller (that works the light supply) I added additional cable off the battery connection & routed it to 2 x quad farm bikes.  I have a permanent connection on the bikes (discretely tucked out of sight) and just plug them in & leave them, they're always fully charged & in good condition as the controller regulates the charge to them.

It's a good setup & I'm pleased with what I've done, so I'm happy to recommend it to you too.

[Hooli]

I can't see it being a problem. If you want to be sure, check the max output of the solar controller against the max charge rate of the battery (normally printed on the side). I'd be surprised if it was a problem unless your panel is the size of the roof though.

[Phill P]

Excellent news chaps, I will indeed check the ratings just incase.
Solar panel is 50 Watts with a 5 amp solar controller.

[Hooli]

From the Yuasa website, charging rate is 1.2amp. Having said that, my traditional bike charger is 6amp so I'd say you'd be fine.

https://www.yuasa.co.uk/batteries/motorcycle-power-sport/high-performance-maintenance-free/ytx14h-bs.html

[Phill P]

From the Yuasa website, charging rate is 1.2amp. Having said that, my traditional bike charger is 6amp so I'd say you'd be fine.

https://www.yuasa.co.uk/batteries/motorcycle-power-sport/high-performance-maintenance-free/ytx14h-bs.html

Cheers for that, the solar charger is intelligent so I believe backs off and shuts down when it's full, but I will try it out on the old battery first and monitor it.