Using a battery tender

[Yambone]

I use a 1-amp battery tender on the FJR for longer periods like when I'm on the road most of the summer (bikeless). (Yeah, sucks to be me! :dribble: ) How about shorter periods of a couple of days or a week? Any downside to regular short term charges?

And is it okay to use on a wet cell 12 volt car battery? Do I need to pop the caps to allow venting with a 1-amp? The car (van) is outside, so fumes not an issue.

Thanks in advance. :blink:

 

[OhioFJR1300]

I hook up my battery tender when ever I am not riding the bike. No problems so far. The design of the battery tender is to maintain the battery so it will not over charge it like a battery charger will. I don't see you having a problem and would suggest you hook it up when ever you can.

 

[buckford]

I hook up my battery tender when ever I am not riding the bike. No problems so far. The design of the battery tender is to maintain the battery so it will not over charge it like a battery charger will. I don't see you having a problem and would suggest you hook it up when ever you can.

Gunny woof.

Same here. Thats what their made for.

Buckford

 

[dbvolfan]

In the summer, my battery tender stays on my Shadow if I am riding the FJR a lot. In the winter, it actually stays on my car in the garage b/c I never drive it! Works great and no issues whatsoever. Thats what it's made for.

 

[Zorlac]

No problem for car battery use and 1A isn't enough current to worry about outgassing.

 

[Silent]

I have the hookups for the tender on my FJR, but since my riding season never ends, I never use it

I did hook one up to my boat battery tho, and it promptly melted the housing on the tender and blew it out. :blink: so no more battery tender on the boat.

 

[HaulinAshe]

The guideline for safe, continuous charging of a wet cell battery is C/20. That's capacity divided by 20.

The FJR battery is listed at 12 Amp/Hour capacity. That means you can safely leave it charging indefinitely at a rate of up to .6 amps or 600 milliamps, without any venting or adverse affects.

Assuming you have a Battery Tender Plus, here's what they have to say about it:

The Battery Tender Plus battery charger delivers 1.25 amperes during bulk charge mode, holds the battery charge voltage constant at 14.4 VDC during absorption charge mode until the battery charge current drops to 0.1 amperes at which time it then automatically switches to a float charge mode. During float charge mode, the output voltage of the Battery Tender Plus battery charger is 13.2 VDC, which is well below the gassing voltage of a lead acid battery. This keeps the battery topped off, while minimizing any detrimental effects to do gassing.

 

[Zorlac]

"That means you can safely leave it charging indefinitely at a rate of up to .6 amps or 600 milliamps, without any venting or adverse affects."

The battery will not draw that much current after it accepts the bulk charge at the proper charge voltage, if you try and force .6A into a 12Ah battery "indefinitely" you will seriously damage the battery.

 

[abarron576]

I'm presently using 6 Battery Tender Jrs on various full size vehicles and bikes, and have no problems. I will move the tenders from one bike to another on monthly intervals to keep them charged. Only caution I would make, is to not use them to try to charge a dead battery. As to the effectiveness, I still have the original battery in my 03 Sportser and 02 V-Max as well as five and six year old batteries in various part time use venicles.

 

[Huck Fonda]

"That means you can safely leave it charging indefinitely at a rate of up to .6 amps or 600 milliamps, without any venting or adverse affects."
The battery will not draw that much current after it accepts the bulk charge at the proper charge voltage, if you try and force .6A into a 12Ah battery "indefinitely" you will seriously damage the battery.

Z, call me confused here, but didn't you just post that a 1A charge was fine, and then come out with this comment? You got some 'splaining to dooo.

I have to back JA up here. I don't think I'd ever hook up any straight rate charger to anything of mine unless it was around 0.5A max. Some of the tenders out there do a full on charge and then slow the rate down to maintain a battery. These rock, and I'd put one on everythign and never think twice. But a 1A charge for a month? No way.

All the shops I've worked in have those Christie chargers, and they say it best. You can hook up a discharged battery and watch the amp needle swing for the far wall, and after a while it settles down. These are cool, too, because if it doesn't drop the rate, then you know you have some serious problems, most likely sulfation.

There are a select few battery chargers out there that can recover a sulfated battery, and to my knowledge, Battery Tender doesn't market one. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Since I don't have much cause to let a bike sit for any real length of time, the old 2A/6A charger I have is pretty dusty.

My contribution to the discussion.

 

[Powerman]

Every battery at my house has a homemade charger. Take two 3 terminal regulators in series: one configured for voltage, one for current. I put a pot on the voltage regulator and adjust for the float voltage. Pick the resistor for the charging current, usually @ C/10 to C/20. Use old wallwarts for power.

I have a dust buster vacuum that is 14 yrs old. They come with a diode and a current limiting resistor.

You can add a little plug on the MC for easy hookup.

 

[Herkypilot]

Every battery at my house has a homemade charger. Take two 3 terminal regulators in series: one configured for voltage, one for current. I put a pot on the voltage regulator and adjust for the float voltage. Pick the resistor for the charging current, usually @ C/10 to C/20. Use old wallwarts for power.
I have a dust buster vacuum that is 14 yrs old. They come with a diode and a current limiting resistor.

You can add a little plug on the MC for easy hookup.

I don't know about you all but that went clear over my head! :blink: Good for some of you elec. engineer types.

H.

 

[Zorlac]

"Z, call me confused here, but didn't you just post that a 1A charge was fine, and then come out with this comment? You got some 'splaining to dooo."

Very deeply discharged batteries will initially draw a very large amount of current from the charging voltage source assuming the charger can put out that amount of current without it's voltage being pulled down by the battery's load.

Gradually, as the battery accepts a charge, the current drawn from the charger will taper off as long as the applied voltage is held constant at at say 13.8V.

If the charger is a constant current type of charger, the voltage out of the charger will increase to keep the same current flowing and eventually cook the battery if it's not disconnected. This is what I was eluding to when I wrote about forcing .6A into a 12Ah battery indefinitely.

Suffice it to say that a "battery tender" can be hooked to damn near any 12V battery for maintenance purposes, but would probably be unable to resuscitate a fully discharged battery in less than a day due to it's limited current output and may actually self destruct in the process.

 

[ponyfool]

I hooked my 2002 Bandit up to a car battery charger back in July '06. Now, some 15 months later, I am still not finished settling into my house after it was destroyed in the fire that started as a result of hooking up my motorcycle battery to a car battery charger.

YMMV, but I'll never do it again. $350,000 and counting in damages wasn't worth it.....except, now I have an FJR....

 

[Zorlac]

WOW!

That's a hard lesson in overcharging and or excessive rate of charge!

I've done some wacky shit with batteries and HV power supplies over the years, but usually when I was drunk.

 

[FJRAL]

I use a 1-amp battery tender on the FJR for longer periods like when I'm on the road most of the summer (bikeless). (Yeah, sucks to be me! :dribble: ) How about shorter periods of a couple of days or a week? Any downside to regular short term charges?
And is it okay to use on a wet cell 12 volt car battery? Do I need to pop the caps to allow venting with a 1-amp? The car (van) is outside, so fumes not an issue.

Thanks in advance. :blink:

One of my cycle mags recently had a question posed by a reader. He's been using his tender on a bike/battery for ELEVEN YEARS and wonders if he should be concerned. The mag replied somewhere along the line that it was a good thing, but, maybe a new battery wouldn't hurt.

 

[Harald]

I went with a standard brick transformer (those little black boxes that you plug into the wall to power all kinds of electronics) that's rated for 200 miliamps at 14 volts DC. You can buy them for a few bucks and with quick disconnects hooked up to the bike make for painless hookups. Been using it for many years to keep my bike battery from draining in storage. It won't charge a dead battery, but works great to keep your battery from dying from disuse.