Battery Tender?

Howdy all,
I am not sure if this has been discussed before, but I am looking for a battery tender. I want something I can connect to the bike when I am not riding and keep that battery full and happy. I assume that I could also use this tender when and if that battery dies? Any recommendations? I was looking at the Dellran products and they look pretty cool. Your help is appreciated.

D

I have two for motorcycle use. One is the Battery Tender Jr. With just .75 Ah output it is designed to maintain a charged battery during periods of storage. .75 Ah is not adequate to recharge a deeply discharged battery before it cycles to a float or maintenance charge. The other is a 1.5 Ah Cliplight charger/maintainer that is adequate to recharge a discharged motorcycle battery of 10 or 11 Ah capacity and also maintain a charged motorcycle battery during periods of storage.

Check the features of the Optimate4 before you decide what to go with.

You're going to get a lot of different answers. Here's mine..."Any battery tender is better than none". I have used a $9.95 tender from Harbor Freight for over 9 years with great success and also have a Delran Battery Tender Jr. that I just bought for my wife's bike. I think it was around $21. As dduelin has mentioned though, these will maintain your battery but not recharge one that is dead or very low. If you want a charger/tender you'll have to open your wallet a little wider but they can still be reasonably priced.

I agree with everyone who stated use the battery tender. It has been around for a long time, and for good reason.

I think the brand and model is not any more "critical" because battery tenders are very common nowadays.
Just buy one from the local shop which has those connectors you require.

happy said:

I think the brand and model is not any more "critical" because battery tenders are very common nowadays.
Just buy one from the local shop which has those connectors you require.

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Blood is common, so just get a transfusion from anybody who is handy....

Different tenders have different feature sets and not everybody needs or wants the same features. There is no point in buying a tender which doesn't fulfill your needs and there is no point paying extra for features you don't need. So making one's self an informed consumer by doing a small amount of research beforehand is just common sense.

It would certainly be a refreshing break from the Internet forum standard post of "Hey, I just bought Product X. Is it any good?"

Mike Cash said:

Blood is common, so just get a transfusion from anybody who is handy....

Different tenders have different feature sets and not everybody needs or wants the same features. There is no point in buying a tender which doesn't fulfill your needs and there is no point paying extra for features you don't need. So making one's self an informed consumer by doing a small amount of research beforehand is just common sense.

It would certainly be a refreshing break from the Internet forum standard post of "Hey, I just bought Product X. Is it any good?"

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Blood and battery tender?
Very far fetched. Although I agree with your advice about buying what you need.
My point was: many battery tenders are similar and in good quality. Even a $9 one compared to a $199 one. Features is one thing. Branding and marketing is another.
Kindly be gentle when quoting.


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Just use a normal charger but plug it into a timer socket set to come on for a hour a day.

Ralph said:

Just use a normal charger but plug it into a timer socket set to come on for a hour a day.

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I'd strongly advise against this. For one thing, what is a "normal charger"? A 12 amp automotive charger? You should charge a motorcycle battery at one tenth the amp/hour capacity, so do not use anything over a 2 amp charge rate. Charging one hour per day is way overkill, and with a non-intelligent charger, would possibly damage the battery.

There are plenty of automatic smart chargers on the market that can competently maintain a battery.

Greg

docb91b said:

Howdy all,
I am not sure if this has been discussed before, but I am looking for a battery tender. I want something I can connect to the bike when I am not riding and keep that battery full and happy. I assume that I could also use this tender when and if that battery dies? Any recommendations? I was looking at the Dellran products and they look pretty cool. Your help is appreciated.

D

Click to expand...

Here's the one I use: HERE
easily found, cheap, reliable, does the job...
especially if you have the sae connector cable on the battery permantently...
makes it easier to just plug in your NC.

I got me a battery tender 1.25 amp...

I was between that and the battery tender jr. (0.75 amp) and went for the bigger one so I could hook up my car in the summertime when I'm riding the NC at every opportunity.

Dealer had a quick connect wire already connected for me on the NC, so it made sense to reuse it. I Figure I'll put the connector that came with the battery tender on my car for when that gets parked for months on end in the summer.
And I'll still have alligator clips left over to use to re-charge my wifes battery in the event she kills her car battery.

Basically the 1.25 amp gives me the option to charge/maintain pretty much anything where the 0.75 would have only really been reasonable on the NC, and even then only to maintain a charge.

We'll see how it does, my average lifespan for an OEM battery is about 4-5 years (my car is probably do for one soon). We'll see if the battery tender can push that average up.

happy said:

Blood and battery tender?
Very far fetched. Although I agree with your advice about buying what you need.

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It's called "illustrating absurdity with absurdity"

My point was: many battery tenders are similar and in good quality. Even a $9 one compared to a $199 one. Features is one thing. Branding and marketing is another.

Click to expand...

Your first post gave the message of "they're all the same so just buy anything". While brands really don't matter, you clearly and incorrectly said there is no difference between different models. The upshot being that there is no difference between features either. Now you want to backtrack and have it another way....something you seem to do quite a bit.

Kindly be gentle when quoting.

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Kindly be clear when expressing your opinions the first time.

Pistols at dawn! C'mon guys please take any Snarly Mcsnarly sniping out of this thread and down into the Bar or quit poking each other with sticks.

They are all the same to me. I buy any one which I come across and I would say same to anyone asking this question.
The elephant in the room is a wall.

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The Costco near me still sells the 1.25 amp Battery Tender for $39.95