Hello

[Water Warrior 2]

Originally Posted by skeet monroe

Nah, I lost my battery like some kind of fool a while ago.

I just did that a while ago for the second time in 2 years. In my case being lazy is getting expensive.

[skeet monroe]

[quote=Water Warrior]

Originally Posted by "skeet monroe":15zpfoi0

Nah, I lost my battery like some kind of fool a while ago.

I just did that a while ago for the second time in 2 years. In my case being lazy is getting expensive.[/quote:15zpfoi0]
Hah, I know the feeling. I think I left the battery on my truck's bumper...and drove off. I searched the roads from my house all the way to town, but couldn't find it. The only thing I can think of is someone must have spotted it and swiped it.

Hopefully I'll be getting a new one this weekend. Money's just been a little too tight to spend on a battery lately.

[Water Warrior 2]

I let the batteries sit for too long without a battery tender plugged in. It really doesn't take much to kill a small battery.

[mrlmd1]

Remember, like I've been harping on here for quite a while - when you get a new AGM battery, put it on a charger for many, many hours to fully charge it up before first use, regardless of what the battery dealer says, that it's ready to go. Otherwise it will fail prematurely, like maybe after only one or two starts of the bike.

[alantf]

Just checked the rating of my little charger/tender (that I've never had to use, yet) It says 0.6 amp. Do you think that's o.k if I have to charge up a flat(ish) or new battery, in the future? :??:

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by alantf

Just checked the rating of my little charger/tender (that I've never had to use, yet) It says 0.6 amp. Do you think that's o.k if I have to charge up a flat(ish) or new battery, in the future? :??:

Yes, IF......you leave it connected for about 2 DAYS and it isn't completely dead to start with.

[Water Warrior 2]

My battery tender is 0.75 and does a fine job when on the job.

[mrlmd1]

A battery tender is not the same as a charger.
The tenders put out a low current (like the 0.6 - 0.75 amps mentioned) that is meant to maintain a battery that sits without use and can be kept on for a long time. A charger, like for our size batteries, will put out 2 amps and is meant to charge a low or dead battery and has to be removed when the battery is fully charged. These are not usually expensive enough to have tapering charges and go into a float mode after the batteries are fully charged, and can overcharge and damage a battery if left on for a number of days.
They are two different animals and have different uses.

[patrick_777]

Gonna have to disagree with you there...

The Battery Tender Junior 12-volt charger is much more than a trickle charger. It has a "brain". Utilizing a 4-step charging program (initialization, bulk charge, absorption mode and float mode), it allows you to simply connect the charger to a battery, either in or out of a vehicle, and forget about it until you are ready to put the battery to work. Like all Battery Tender chargers, at the end of the regular charger cycle it automatically switches its output voltage to a safe, storage or float level that eliminates the need to worry about the damaging effects of overcharging, and the resulting need to check on the condition of the battery. If/when the battery voltage drops too far under load, output power resumes and the charging cycle begins again. The unit also features sparkproof connectors, short circuit and reverse polarity protection, an easy to understand charging status indicator consisting of a single LED, and almost no current draw from batteries connected to it.

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by mrlmd1

A battery tender is not the same as a charger.

You should stick to medicine, Doc. :poke2: :biggrin:

A battery tender is just a specialized charger. It works absolutely fine as a "plain" charger, as long as you don't expect too much from it. If the battery capacity is 10 amp-hours, you can charge it at a 1 amp rate for 10 hours OR at a .5 amp rate for 20 hours and the end result would be roughly the same. Going to either extreme, however, introduces some problems; you can't charge it at .1 amps nor at 50 amps, for instance.

And a plain charger works fine as a tender too.....in a manual mode; you just have to remember to connect it for a few hours every week or month.

And finally, a "plain" charger automatically tapers off to a smaller charge current just because that's the way electricity works. As the battery voltage goes up, it opposes the charging current more and it charges less. A 2 amp plain charger will NOT damage a battery if it is left on it just for a few days; it takes weeks or months........unless the battery involved is extremely small, much smaller than a bike battery. You can also get away with using a really small trickle charger (.5 amp or less) as a tender BECAUSE of that taper effect; by the time the battery is fully charged, the current is down to .1 amp or less which does no damage, long term.

The advantage of a "real" tender, then IS that it will do the initial charge fairly quickly AND then will switch to "float" mode for long term maintenance. If you are trying to charge a battery that is SO dead that a tender won't do the job, you might as well give up and get a new battery because a bigger charger will only revive it once or twice......if at all.

NOW, if you have a WHOPPING big charger, that is rated at 10 amps or more, it can damage a small battery quicker but a couple of days would only result in a little lost water.