I have a standard Craftsman battery charger with a 'start' setting and a 'trickle' charge setting.
After doing a little bit of archive reading etc., it appears that i need a tender for winter storage, and should not use the trickle charger.
Can someone explain if i am correct and what the difference is?
i believe some tenders have different features than others.
from what i understand, your standard Craftsman (or other brand) trickle charger doesn't control charge properly for our dry gel-cell batteries... but i could be totally wrong.
either way, i CAN make a great recommendation.
look for the "optimate 3" or "optimate 4" batter charger/desulfator.
they charge with a special algorithm that is specifically designed for our batteries.
when you go from charged, to dead, to charged, to dead... the battery begins to sulfate. when this happens, it gets harder and harder for your battery to hold a good charge, and function properly. the optimate 3/4 fights this, and has actually reversed the sulfating in some batteries.
in short, it will make your battery last longer. and at nearly the same price as a standard tender (i got mine on sale for $35, ... i bought TWO) it's a no-brainer in my opinion.
here's a small write-up.
http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/motorcycle-battery-charger/optimate-4/ (http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/motorcycle-battery-charger/optimate-4/)
the best part is the intuitive display, so you know exactly what it's doing, and when it's charging.
you can still find the "3" version out there too, that's what i have. works wonders.
Battery Tender is a brand name used by a company called Deltran. You are looking for a "smart charger" that will automatically go into a "float mode" which will maintain the battery without over charging. Since your bike has an AGM battery, to fully charge and properly maintain the charge you will need a charger that "floats" at 13.4 volts. Others will work, but you will not have a full charge.
I'm gone a lot (poor excuses being better than none) so I'm real bad at battery maintenance. I've owned an Optimate in the past and I also still have one of those other mini-chargers that was mentioned in another thread that are supposed to resuscitate sulphated batteries. Never was able to recover a sulphated battery, but there are limits to everything and maybe my batteries were just too far gone. They may be OK chargers but I personally doubt the recovery claims. Note that I'm not claiming any scientific evidence, just my personal opinion.
Quote from: Langanobob on October 20, 2009, 09:13:05 AM
I'm gone a lot (poor excuses being better than none) so I'm real bad at battery maintenance. I've owned an Optimate in the past and I also still have one of those other mini-chargers that was mentioned in another thread that are supposed to resuscitate sulphated batteries. Never was able to recover a sulphated battery, but there are limits to everything and maybe my batteries were just too far gone. They may be OK chargers but I personally doubt the recovery claims. Note that I'm not claiming any scientific evidence, just my personal opinion.
Your doubts are justified. In theory they work by Knocking the SO
4 out of the plates. If the battery does somewhat revive you will only be putting off the inevitable since the plates are already damaged.
thanks!