motorcycle alarm

I got this cheap mc alarm on ebay for $7.51 and installed it on the inside of the access door under the seat, left side. Then ran the power directly to the nearby battery. It is a vibration activated alarm. It is quite sensitive, pushing the bike off its double stand will activate it as well as a light bump anywhere on the bike. The alarm is fairly loud and goes thru different sounds once activated. I think it would get someones attention across a parking lot. The alarm came with a keyfob to activate/deactivate. A bonus was i just switched insurance companies and one of the questions was "does the bike have an alarm", so a little discount applied, not sure the amount!




The keyfob shows a start button but i think its just a generic keyfob for alarms.

Hotwings.

If you have the tools do an experiment.

Take out the underseat bulb if you have it in so your readings aren't tainted.

Test the draw on the bike with and without the alarm on.

With nothing aftermarket to drain the battery, you should have a draw of about 5-7ma for the Swing clock, etc.

Then test the draw with the alarm on.
Most car alarms draw about 25ma, and most bike alarms are just stripped down car alarms.

ma= milliamps per hour.

With this figure you can tell how long your bike can stay untouched before it will not start.

As an example, 30 ma=300 milliamps in 10 hours or 3 amps in 100 hours.

The stock YTZ12 battery is an 11 amp hour battery, which usually won't start the bike below 8 amps.

This means that you can leave the bike for 100hrs=4 days+4hrs before the power drain may be too much to start the bike.

Cheap motorcycle alarms are often little different than car alarms in terms of their draw, that is to say they will draw 25ma or more.

A good bike alarm will draw 4-10ma.

You have a very cost effective motorcycle alarm. Just be aware of its effects on your power consumption so you can avoid a dead bike.

Dan

dspevack this is interesting. Where would i test, directly at the battery? It would be nice to know how much it draws. However i dont worry about it because i have a battery tender permanently on the bike and plug it in every time (almost every time)i come back from a ride because i never know when im riding next. Also i rarely turn the alarm on as i always park inside my locked garage. I installed the alarm more as a novelty rather than a practicality thing. All this being said i was going for a ride with my brother (98 virago) a while back and went to start the swing, all i got was the click click of a dead battery. I discovered the battery tender wasnt plugged in for a week or so

Yes you test directly at the battery. If you have a multimeter you can take the pos.(+) wire off the battery and put the test leads between the battery post and the pos.wire. Set the multimeter on amps. As Dan said test first with nothing on, then test with the alarm on. If you don't have a multimeter you can find a cheap one here. http://www.harborfreight.com/7-function-digital-multimeter-92020.html