Going batteryless / PMA Upgrade

Other than the guy you talked about I have heard of no other setups for a battery-less bike. If you really want to do it you may just have to try something yourself and post what you come up with

 

some good info in this thread about possibly adapting the 650 kit to the 400:
http://www.xs400.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9740&highlight=pma&page=3

good place to pick up the ball and run with it

 

Any reason you want to go batteryless when you can get a 4 cell LiPoFe4 pack and hide it pretty much anywhere?? Costs about $500 bucks less in parts and about 4 fewer hours of labor too.

 

I can understand why you would do it but I like having something to light my neutral light before I start it instead of humping the bike back and forth to see if it's in gear. Also $500 Is a lot of money to loose a few lb's my 80's 1.3ah battery only weighs 1lb 3oz and cost me $10.

 

You will have to decide between looks or function. I like to ride my bikes so I prefer the later.

 

You will just have to figure how to make it work or spend the money on that kit and hope it works. Whatever you do I am sure it will be awesome

 

I've been running one for over 6 months. So far so good (knock on wood).

For now I have mine zip tied between the seat frame rails, under the seat. I'm eventually going to do a tank swap and put a new seat on there, so until then, I'll just leave it like it is, but you def can't see it currently. Not sure what set up you're going for.

 

His setup don't leave him many options

 

Looks like there's room under the front of the seat where it meets the frame. Maybe not.

 

Battery less is achievable. If you willing to deal with the hard to start. I tryed sevral copassitor all were hard to start and kick only somtimes 15 or 20 kicks. If you have a working charging system look at a small battery. I didn't have a working system. The banshee system worked very well I still ran a smaller battery. As for the thread they're are a lot of xs650 threads I just touched on some of the thing to make it work. It dose just do it

 

How has the reliability been? How long did the battery last? Which battery did you use exactly? I've been using an everstart es4lbs agm (35 cca, 3 ah) scooter battery for 3 years now. I'm curious if I can really go much smaller with kick-start only. I also don't want a lithium battery because they seem fickle.

 

The battery I have is a jjj brand I paid $10 off ebay. I used it in a moped of mine for two years and it's been in my 80 for two years with no issues. The battery has a max voltage of 14.5-15v witch is why I think it works so well.

 

Excellent. For that price I may give it a shot this season!

 

I would not put a battery in that hole. It will over heat and fail

 

Kick start doesn't have to be unreliable, but I imagine running without a battery that it could cause it to be more difficult. Even with a permanent magnet, the motor has to spin to get voltage to the coil.

My bike starts very easily on half choke, one kick on the kick starter with no throttle will get it to run. However, since my bike draws coil voltage from the battery, I'd have a leg up over any kickstart only system. If it were up to me (and I wanted to get rid of the bigger battery), I would go with a capacitor or very small battery to make starting easier. You can cut the wire that leads to the start button and BOOM! Kickstart only