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Trickle Charging

bluehole

Active member
I have a 1972 R75/5 and a 2000 R1100RS. I ride each bike often (usually at least once a week if not more frequently) and have never placed them on a trickle charger. I had occasion to place the Airhead on a trickle charger for a few days and when I started her up I noticed the battery seemed stronger than usual.

Would the R1100RS benefit from being placed on a trickle charger too? I know the Oilhead has a stronger charging system so perhaps it is not all that beneficial.
 
If you want to extend the life of the battery, you want to keep it on an intelligent trickle charger. Just put my bike away for the winter, and the bike will remain on an intelligent charger for the duration of the winter.
 
Oh boy that is a loaded question! The answer depends on what type of battery you have in your bike and how fat your wallet is. The BMW charger is overpriced IMO but that does not mean it is not a quality product.

My RT has a stock BMW (Exide) gel cell in it and I use a Battery Minder on it with good results.
See here: http://batteryminders.com/details.php?prod=12117 These work on lead acid batteries well also.

Another popular company is Battery Tender and either the "Junior" or "Plus" models will also charge and maintain gel or lead acid cells:http://batterytender.com/

If you have an Odyssey battery it is highly recommended you get their "Ultimizer" recommended charger which charges to a higher voltage cutoff and does 3 stage charging. This will get you longer life from this top notch battery. I will definitely be replacing my RT battery with an Odyssey once the gel cell dies. And it won't be long now...
Chargers for them are explained and listed here: http://www.odysseybattery.com/chargers.html
 
what do you recommend for an intelligent charger? bmw charger? battery tender?

Standard battery chargers will charge continuously forever. Not only will it make your electric bill higher, it can boil your battery dry. Most standard charger will only handle wet-cell batteries. You should disconnect the charger once it has fully charged.

Todays intelligent battery chargers will charge your battery in a series of steps. Once it is fully charged, it stops charging. It will then go into trickle mode. In this mode it will allow the battery to discharge down to a certain voltage level and then charge it back up to the full amount. Good intelligent charges will be able to handle Wet, Gel, and AGM batteries. And, most do handle all 3 types. You will leave the intelligent charger on the bike for the entire winter.

One disadvantage to intelligent charges is that they will refuse to charge some batteries that have been sitting for 6-12 months. This is because the battery has discharged so much, the charger thinks it has a short cell. I then have to charge it up partially with a standard charger until the voltage gets high enough. Then switch to an intelligent charger for the final part of the charge. If the intelligent charge still refuses to charge the battery, then I know the battery is finished.

At work, we have a larger intelligent battery charger that can handle 2A up to 75amps. It will also do desulphation and will check battery voltage. It can handle motorcycle batteries up to industrial batteries. It's a little too big for my bike. I recently purchased a 1.25a Battery Tender for my PC680. I store the bike at work for the Winter in a heated warehouse. I also got the DIN adapter plug so that I can plug it in easily. Very happy with the charger.

I almost purchased the NOCO Genius. It has an 8-step charging process. At that time it is priced high (on-sale now). I didn't buy it because they use a proprietary plug. I would have to spend another $10 for the adapter. That annoyed me. I was also concerned that the 8-step process might refuse to charge the battery someday like our charger at work. It might be a great charger. But, for me, it was a personal preference.

There are a number of good manufactures. Here is a page on battery chargers and winter maintenance. It also has a partial list of motorcycle battery chargers and prices.
 
Battery Doc

I have a Battery Doc and bought it because my dealer uses them for their bikes. It also plugs nicely into my accessory socket.
 
If you go for a Battery Tender, use the 750 ma version. That current is way way more than enough to keep a motorcycle battery up. For that matter, even the 750 ma BT will fully charge a nearly dead M/C battery in about a day providing the starting voltage is still above about 8 V.
 
I spent a few more dollars and got one that charges different type of batteries. It's a "smart" charger, so no need to flip switches or refer back to the manual... Just plug it and forget it.
Sorry, I don't have acces to it right now to tell you what it is. When I ordered my new battery on line, I called the store first and asked them. They sold all kinds of batteries and different chargers. They pointed me in the right direction...
 
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