Battery/Alternator

jackleman · 11-06-2009, 05:07 PM

I'm going to be buying my 2nd new battery today for my 06 STX-15F. I bought the ski about 6 months ago and it had an everlast(Walmart brand) 18 amp battery in it. We ran it pretty frequently and the battery seemed to be holding charge well. After a 2-3 week sit the battery was dead and I was unable to refresh charge it back to life.

I put another ever last in, and the ski ran for a few more weekends before dying after another 2 week sit(I guess I should have disconnected the negative lead while it sat?)

Anyway I'm wondering if there may be a problem with the alternator on the ski. The service manual is very breif abotu it, can anyone shed some light on this thing. Does it operate the same as a car alternator? My plan is to buy a battery from the local Kawasaki shop and try my luck with that. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

faster7581 · 11-06-2009, 05:15 PM

you may have a charging problem, if you have a multi meter , set it to volts dc install the + - on the battery terminals and start up the ski, rev it up to 3000 or so and the meter should read 12.8-13.5 volts or close to that, if not, stator or rectifier is bad.... also i call the everstarts, neverstarts for that reason, i would recommend a yuasa or deka battery, you get what you pay for when it comes to batteries

jackleman · 11-06-2009, 05:17 PM

Thanks for the advice, I will do this tonight.

LCDRChemEng · 11-06-2009, 06:35 PM

Simple answer, yes, the ski motor recharges the battery, so if your's is going flat afer 2 weeks you probably have a) a bad stator or b) a short somewhere (I think this is more likely).

One more thing, if you can spare the change buy a battery minder from Amazon or similar. I have a duall and a single that I use for the 2 jetskis and the mowing tractor. It will keep the battery fresh as long as its plugged in.

hilomikey · 11-07-2009, 02:56 PM

Everlast means neverlast spend the cash and get a good battery. Yuasa is my choice

rotortiller · 11-07-2009, 03:42 PM

Check the charge voltage with a fully charged battery. It should be 14-14.5 roughly. It is clearly stated in the service manual to be valued at 14-15 volts

Check the discharge current with a meter with the key turned off. Do this with/using the amp meter setting installed between the removed battery ground terminal and the battery negative terminal.

Take this figure and multiply by hours away unused then think about the size of your battery. You should have your answer either way.

rt