PGlaves
#13338
It amazes me how the process of battery charging has changed over the years. In the 1970s and 1980s Voni and I had 4 or 5 bikes and one "dumb" charger I bought from the Sears and Roebuck Co. in 1966 when our car's charging system shot craps. All the bikes had rather robust wet cell lead acid batteries. Over our Iowa or later Kansas winters with the bikes parked I charged each battery for 24 hours once a month. On the first day of the month I would attach the charger to one bike in the morning. The next morning I would move the charger to the next bike. I would keep moving the charger again each morning until all the bike batteries had been charged. Then I would wait until the first day of the next month to repeat the process. In the fall I would make sure that the electrolyte level was OK for each battery, and then I would check again and top-off each battery in the spring.
It is true that those bikes lacked the Gizmos (technical term I learned in high school shop class) that might more quickly discharge the battery on a parked bike today. So now I have several rather inexpensive "sorta-smart" chargers that will at least drop back to float mode if left connected. Mostly I will connect them for a day or two and then put them away for a while. Our current bikes (R1100RS, two K75s, and two G310GSs are not battery hogs but the ones parked in Kansas are hooked up on chargers when we are in Texas and the ones in Texas live on chargers when we are in Kansas. Thus is the life of old guys in the 21st century.
It is true that those bikes lacked the Gizmos (technical term I learned in high school shop class) that might more quickly discharge the battery on a parked bike today. So now I have several rather inexpensive "sorta-smart" chargers that will at least drop back to float mode if left connected. Mostly I will connect them for a day or two and then put them away for a while. Our current bikes (R1100RS, two K75s, and two G310GSs are not battery hogs but the ones parked in Kansas are hooked up on chargers when we are in Texas and the ones in Texas live on chargers when we are in Kansas. Thus is the life of old guys in the 21st century.
I don't have any devices that need one. When I bought my VFR in 1998, I bought a /5 accessory outlet harness and bracket so I could charge it with and draw power via a regular BMW plug.
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