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 My battery keeps running down in my X9 500. Had a new battery replaced and the regulator replaced, but it still runs down if I'm caught for any length of time in slow moving traffic. Anyone else had this problem? 

I can hook the battery up to a charger to keep the battery in good condition, but this is a pain with a Givi top box, as this has to be dismantled to get into the battery compartment. Is there any way of modifying it to put in an external battery charging connection that would allow me to charge the battery without accessing the battery compartment?

First of all welcome to Scooter Community Stuart.

There's obviously a reason why your battery keeps discharging. You probably need to sort that out first. You can get a pair of battery leads that stay on your battery in-situ and the ends can hang underneath the fairing somewhere where you can access them easily when you need to.

Just 2 questions. Do I understand that you already own a charger? Where abouts do you live?

 Hi Pegasus,

I live in Brisbane. I've had the scooter at the garage twice. First time at the garage they blamed a loose battery connection. Second time they replaced the regulator (which I assume is the same as an alternator on a car?). The battery is only 3 months old. Prior to replacing the regulator a friend put a voltmeter across it and it was charging (but not much) on idle. So I thought that replacing the regulator would fix it. However last week I was in stop/start traffic for about one and a half hours: when I got home the battery was flat. It only seems to run down in slow traffic, as though it still isn't charging sufficiently on idle. On a longer, higher speed journey the battery seems better.

In have a charger, one of the reasonably sophisticated ones that automatically channge to avoid overcharging, and since the last flattening I keep it attached to keep the battery charged up. I've seen Optimate chargers advertised on the web with "permanent" connections. Are they any good?

Cheers

Stuart

I must admit I'm not a guru on battery chargers but it sounds like I've got the same charger as you have. Didn't yours come with the extra wires that you can attach to your battery permanently so you don't have to access the battery charger all the time? If you don't, you should be able to get some from *** Smith or Tandys or maybe your nearest scooter shop.

I know the X9 has many more electronic gismos than the X8 so maybe one of these is draining your battery.

 If you luck out on the extra battery wires, I think I've got a spare set at home that I can probably mail you.

See how you go. You may just have a dud battery which of course is annoying. 

I've just bought a new battery charger that has permanant external leads, and I now have it attached. I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on the battery fora while and see if I can figure out why it loses charge.