Charging voltage too high now

The other day some dummy(who shall remain nameless) left my ignition on. It was on for less than 2 hrs, but end result was a stone dead battery. Wound up trying to jump it from my car battery. First attempt bike started right up and immediately died as soon as I removed the jumper cables. Second attempt did the same thing even though I held the throttle at high idle. Third attempt I let the bike idle for about 3 minutes before disconnecting the jumper cables and that worked. I rode the bike for about 40 minutes and shut her down. She started right back up and has been ok since except that now I'm charging at a constant 15 to 15.5 volts almost pegging the needle.

Even though I can leave the bike for 2-3 days and it still starts, I'm pretty sure I probably will need a new battery. My question is do I run the risk of damaging my charging circuit if I continue to run the bike as is? I'm in the hole right now and wont have any extra funds for probably another 2-3 weeks.

Aloha...Mike

well a alt { stator} is not a batt charger its there to maintain the charge of the batt . so as soon as the battery is low the regulator full fields the stator ! SLOWLY FULLY! charge the battery and see if the regulator comes back to normal if not a batt and regulator is in order! big mistake is thinking a alt is a genarator . alternator alternates current and voltage as needed ! therefore when a battery is really low you put a tremendos load on the stator. and kill it!

Hopefully you won't have to do it again,but a little heads up about boosting the bike with your car....don't have the car engine running,a car alternator puts out at least double the amperage as your 40amp bike alt and could quickly fry the stator and regulator...

My battery gauge on my 09 is always at 14.5 volts. allways has been. That's not an amp gauge. If your going by the gauge on the bike I'd say it's normal considering you started with a dead battery

Yeah I know better than to do it with a running car. I tried to charge the battery first with a charger, my charger has 3 led's, yellow for charging, green for charged and red for trouble. The trouble light was still on after 20 minutes of trying to charge. Which is why I used the jumper cables.

Ty.....Mike

BP I did this like 2 weeks ago and have run the bike now for at least 5 hrs (not continous). I can park the bike and go out 2-3 days later and it starts right up without any assistance. Do you think I still need to try and charge the battery further with a charger? Is it possible the voltmeter is high because of a bad cell in the battery? The way I'm thinking is if the battery was ok to begin with it should have taken a charge from the battery charger when I first tried to charge it, and even though it seems ok now I'm hoping something is still wrong with the battery which is in turn causing higher voltage readings on the voltmeter.

Thank you....Mike

Are you using a multimeter/VOM to check the volts or just going by the gauge on the bike?? Don't trust the bike gauge to be accurate....

load test the battery after a full carge . then you know for sure the batt is good or bad

BP I've got one of those automotive battery load testers from snap on, you think I'm ok with that one?

dont see why not just load it to the proper cranking amps . it should work great

very informative post

Yeah, I agree...TY FLHT

Ok I got a new battery and charging voltage has dropped to 14.34....I can live with that. The old battery was definetly on its way out. After full charge under load it could only put out about 384 CCA. New one puts out almost double that 600+ CCA

Also just installed my BAL laydown smoked taillight. Waiting for the sun to go to sleep so I can see the full affect. Visually the light looks great. My bike is vivid black so the light looks right at home.

Aloha...Mike

Perfect charge voltage ! Can't ask for anything better than that !good job glad you got it fixed

I am with u

OK lets see if this works...also have video just not sure how to post it.

Aloha...Mike

Yah, that's good and bright. Nice job.