My battery has been going dead a lot lately; I thought it
might be improperly hooked up driving lights I just added.
When I tested the current leakage yesterday it
was 0 - and it died later that night - and then I discovered
one of the fuses in my digital mutimeter blew. Duh!
So now I have what I believe is an accurate reading of 2 mA,
the same with the lights connected and disconnected.

This is still 10 times the service manual specs, but it seems to
me it should still take a while to drain a battery at this rate.
It's a 5 Amp-hour battery, or something like that, right?

Nevertheless, I have gone dead 3 times this week.

How do you know when it's time for a new battery? This one
is 2 years old and has died maybe about a dozen times for
other explainable reasons.

Ted

That sounds like too much to me although I never have checked this on my bike. The clock is the only thing that should be drawing and should be almost undetectabe on a meter.

Try removeing 1 fuse at a time untill it goes away and see if you can isolate the circuit.

My bike is a 98, still factory battery if this is any indication. Love those maint. free batts!

Even with a lot of TLC I would need a new battery every 3 to 5 years on the old bike.

2mA sounds about right. So the manual spec says that ambient drain is 200 microamps?

A battery like that should be able to handle 2mA for a long time without draining. JMHO.

Ted, if the battery's been fully flat a few times, it may well have lost some of it's capacity. Also, just in case, I'd check the generator is charging it OK. I've just had a run of electrical problems which traced back to burnt wiring on the generator. Cost me almost £8500 (in the shape of a shiny new R1150GS which I'm picking up tomorrow :grin: )

David