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I have two batteries, one is a regular motorcycle non-sealed lead-acid battery which can't be laid down on its side...and is huge. The other is a small 12V sealed lead-acid battery typically used for those "Emergency Exit" signs you see in stores over the doors. Even though my bike is kick-start only whereby it doesn't require heavy current from a battery to power the starter, I get the impression that that smaller battery can't do me any good as it seems to drain when I'm in stop-and-go traffic (I live in Chicagoland so I encounter traffic a LOT!!!). Once the battery gets too weak, the bike begins idling more roughly and dies often when I'm stopped at traffic lights prompting me to switch off the headlight which helps...but I find this quite irritating. This situation happens whether I use my full-size battery or the small emergency light one...but it just happens more quickly on the smaller battery. Hopefully I'll have a job in a month which will allow me to buy a lithium-ion battery giving me a smaller, lighter battery with greater charge speeds and longer life.

I did the same thing with turning my lights off it helped me too so I then put on a meter to the batt and found my bike was charging at 13.5 no good there's a story on that issue I had in here but changed out my reg /rec and bam but now I'm using a pepboys probstart AGM battery it's all jell and was 50 bucks it lays good on its side with terminals up I also had to redo my armature wiring too

now note now I'm using a new reg/rec solid state component but I'm not using the regulator side of it I'm still running the original reg wired them all directly to stator and battery and the thing charges at 14.8.or .9

Crap...sounds like a lot of work. Re-wiring armature??? Got pics of that operation?

@jvdavidson yea a couple in my albums it can be but just getting setup nice and neat and having patience was the key for me and it's a great bike to work with to, the simplicity of it I love

Yeah so I saw the pics, originally I thought by rewiring it you meant that you stripped out the entire copper wire winding on the thing, and wound the whole deal...looks like you just replaced the leads coming from the gen - soooo much simpler. I've been in that neighborhood on this machine but I didn't see any stripped wiring so I don't know if I need to rewire it. I currently (pun) discharge at idle but at 2,000RPM I'm charging - so it's close. Helluva lot better than my third bike, my damn 1985 Honda Nighthawk 700S - that joker pulls a 10Amp draw on the battery at idle and doesn't charge below 3,500RPM - that is how the thing is built!!! Thus far I've found no remedy. Essentially it's perfectly reliable for long distance riding since you're spending all day far above 3,500RPM, (Rode from Chicago to Salt Lake City then through Rocky Mountain National Park and down to Colorado Springs and back home with no dead battery issues), but I have been up sh**t creek many, many times after riding inner city Chicago and catching a billion lights / traffic - had to push start the P.O.S. Still fun to ride though - fastest bike I own - and the only one about which I can say I rebuilt the motor.

Yea just the armature wiring and as for the copper windings I re dipped them in clear apoxy to seal any nicks if you run your fingers around the windings and feel some roughness I would put a clear resin on them it works

As I would watch my charging while the bike was running I use to see the voltage fluctuating up and down and that's how I found the nicks in the windings were grounding with the oil being splashed on the stator