3 week old battery died today

I just put a battery in this te610 2-3 weeks ago and it died today. I haven't ridden the bike more than a couple miles. Does anyone know if this is normal? Do I need to put it on a battery minder when I'm not using it?

was it a Varta (oem brand)? They've been known to die early deaths unexpectedly....mine did on my TE610, at about 4800 miles.

Batteries lose about 1% of their charge a day, just sitting with no voltage drain. It should last quite a while before it goes flat, unless you've got a parasitic drain on it. Do you have anything hooked to it direct to hot that might be causing a drain?
oem clocks won't do it, their draw is inconsequential.

I only put a bike on a tender if I'm not going to ride it for weeks on end, which rarely happens.

The only other thing that comes to mind - you say you've only ridden it a few miles. Is it the type of battery that needs chemicals added then charged? If it wasn't set up properly by the place you bought it, it wouldn't have received a good initial charge to begin with.

I think Yuasa batteries are the most reliable and have plenty of charge, that's what I run in my TE510. Yuasa was OEM in my bike. I had an aftermarket battery die after a month.

A Battery Tender is a GREAT idea for any make battery, other than those super light weight bag batteries, which state to avoid tenders.

It's typical for a battery to only be 80% or so when new. Some will be 100%, some are dry charged, then you add acid. In any case, they should be put on an automatic charger and fully charged before using them. They are not deep cycle batteries, so if they become discharged below say 30%, it can sulfite the plates and ruin them, they won't hold a charge, or will degrade quickly over a short time (like a few weeks).

Also if you put 6amps on them you'll fry them (don't ask me how I know this ). Interestingly, the one I fried showed full charge but as soon as you put a load on it it would drop to under 10volts. Of course it wouldn't turn the starter. I completely disassembled that twice before I figured out it was the battery.

If the plates are shorted it would show dead in 3 weeks. Definitely return it under a warranty claim. But yeah, you could charge it fully, removed from the bike, and let it sit for 72 hours and see if it still shows 12.8v or better. If not it's self discharging and won't hold a charge = defective.

Thanks for all the replies. It was a Walmart Everstart. It was pretty pricey at almost $80. I added the acid and then charged it for 6-hours at 2 amps. After it went dead, I put it back on the charger and it turned over fine today. My volt meter is dead, so I'm going to see how it does over the next week.

Do these bikes recharge the battery like a car does?

Battery died again today :-(. A little bit of CafeHusky searching and I found a little thread about an unconnected blue wire.....that was my problem :-). I'm thinking I'm good now.