Battery won't stay charged

[tshirt]

I bought a new battery for my bike a few months ago when I was restoring it. Since I got everything running, the battery has periodically been dead when I go to start the bike. It happens about once every week and a half, with about 5 days of actual riding, around 100-150 miles each time. I haven't narrowed it down to exactly how long between each dead battery, but that's an approximate measurement.

Each time, I throw the trickle charger on it for a few hours and I'm good to go for another several days. When it happens at work, I just push-start it to make the 10-mile drive back home, at which point the battery is still dead a few hours after getting off the bike (it will start up immediately after the ride though).

So, I'm thinking that either it's not getting a charge, or the lights are drawing too much current. All electrical stuff is stock, and I have checked the battery with a meter while engine was on and revving around 3,000rpm. Measured around 14-15V. Not sure what else to look at. Does anyone else have experience with a non-working charging system? The bike starts right up, so I only have the starter cranking briefly around 20 times between one trickle-charge and the next. Any help is appreciated

[Blaine]

Sounds like the bike is not charging.It is common for a magnet to come loose from the flywheel causing a low/no charge sutation.But that usually is quite noisy and noticeable.

[eaglerider]

Easy to check your charging system. Get an inexpensive voltmeter from Radio Shack, harbor Freight, etc, check the voltage on your battery while the engine is running....should be at least 13.8 volts. If low, that is an indication that your charging system is not working properly, or just possibly, your battery is. To make sure it is not the battery, u will need to get it load tested...if the battery tests good, then u need to pull the stator cover to check for broken, missing magnets on the flywheel, and possibly a damaged stator. This happened to me...mine quit charging, checked charging system...zilch...pulled stator cover, missing magnet, and when the magnet shattered, it caught my heavy duty, aftermarket, high output stator, and damaged it. Hope this has not happened to you.

[Jet⚡Black]

My first thought was that you have a wire shorting out on the frame somewhere causing the battery to drain out when it sits. I'd check anywhere that you might have done wiring modifications recently; in some models of bikes the handle bar switch area is usually the culprit for unintended grounding out.

But that by no means discounts any advice from above just something else to check that causes the same thing.