battery tender recommendations?

With all this "gel battery specific" stuff I wonder:
Suppose your bike came without a gel battery. The battery dies, and you replace it with a gel battery. Now, do you have to replace the alternator or voltage regulator with a "gel battery specific" model??? Or, is this all hype and snake oil?
Just curious.
I have tended my various batteries for years with a $9.95 charger from Sears. Hooked it up for a day or two every four to six weeks and never had a problem.

thank you...

thank you all. It appears a good approach is the deltran bt plus/12v with the pigtail attached to my battery, saving my bike sockets for other gear. Also appears a cost effective solution.
Larry/Northern Va./R1100RT

This is a bit embarrassing as it shows a person with out of control MMS.........But I'm getting treatment.........

Anyways,
I have six motorcycles, a classic sports car and a sump pump back-up system that all have an Optimate battery charger hooked up. I have not replaced a battery in the last five years. Some of the vehicles are in heated spaces, but some are not.

I've tried all kinds of discount trickle chargers and other brands of battery maintainers and they all either failed or toasted my batteries. Since I switched to Optimate I've had zero issues.



http://www.optimate3.com/

Powerlet plug

AZ-J said:

Battery Tender Plus! It works on all bikes beautifully.

Click to expand...

I have a Battery Tender (junior, I think). With the proper plug I can just plug it into the Powerlet receptacle on the side of the bike, right?

I have 3 of the Schumacker units from WM.

I am an electrical engineer and I have actually worked for a battery manufacturer.

They are a 3 step unit, all the voltages are correct and they do an excellent job on SLA, gell or Flooded. They are a very good value. They abuse the battery much less than the bike alternator.

There are several things that happen to LA batteries. If they are overcharged, then they lose water, this increases the specific gravity of the acid, and the plates corrode, and the battery eventually gets too weak to work.

If they are left discharged, over time the sufate crystals grow larger. They can puncture the separators and short a cell. Or they can shed and short a cell. Or they are just unavailable, and the battery gets weak.

The activation energy to convert a large sulfate crystal, is greater than the charger delivers, there are pulse chargers that can do it. The Schumacker unit does not do this, and if you keep your battery charged reasonably well ( >80%) you never will need to.

However you can buy that kind of charger too, but to be honest, unless you like walking in MC boots, just buy a new battery. They cost less than a tire.

Using a tender ever night, is overkill unless you have a bike with too small an alternator for all your lights and gear. Using it if shut off for a week, or 2 is over kill. If not going to drive for a month or more, then use the tender.

I check mine with a voltmeter every so often, and one did fail and overcharge a bit, it was on a trolling motor battery so it was overloaded, I do not use on that any more.

Schumacker rocks.

Rod

RoyB - You forgot your airplanes,RC toys,batteries for guns.
Here's a new Optimate 4 since last year - again over seas - but can pick up the 3's in the mid $40.'s to 50. dollar range.

Figaro1100R said:

I have a Battery Tender (junior, I think). With the proper plug I can just plug it into the Powerlet receptacle on the side of the bike, right?

Click to expand...

This only works on a non-CanBus bike. It will not work with a Canbus bike. As I have the BT Plus, I use a SAE pigtail from the battery. It works like a charm.

I had an Accumate which I'm sorry to admit I gave to a friend in Mexico-what was I thinking?It was worth the extra $$$ IMO.
Deltran has excellent customer service reputation and the 1 time I dealt with them earned nothing but high marks.