[Motor7]

Yes, I know, it's only TN and there has not been much snow on the ground this winter, but lot's of cold/wet and I dislike that combo. It hit 60 and I had a free day, so I topped up the tires and rolled out to do some errands. 6 miles down the road my ABS light started blinking on and off.....hmmmm. Checked my Hella DIN plug in voltmeter/usb and it was all over the place....9.1vblink13vblink12.3vblink9.6vblink12.8vblink and so on. I turned around and headed back to my shop. Shut the bike down then tried a re-start....nope.

I remember a few months back I had a trickle charger go feral showing 15v, so I pulled it off, threw it away and replaced it with a new 4.5amp Battery Tender model. The Autozone AGM was less than 2 years old(I thought) so I called my local AZ, made sure one was in stock, jumped the bike and headed to the store. Rode up, pulled the battery and handed it to the AZ guy and asked him to check the date of sale....he said, "It's just over 2 years, so out of warranty" so I jokingly said, "my lucky day". He said, hold on, maybe I can try something......a min later he handed me a new AGM and said, "no charge!" I was shocked, but grinned the whole time out of the place after thanking the guy profusely.

Had a great ride with the new battery charging properly...good start to the riding season and it's true...miracles DO happen😇

 

[twenty]

4.5 amps is too high for the little battery, you should be looking for a 1 amp charger.

 

[Solarguy]

Glad he took pity on you. Most people are decent human beings.

 

[Motorpsychology]

4.5 amps is too high for the little battery, you should be looking for a 1 amp charger.

Battery Tender is a float charger. It will charge up to ~14.2v then shut off and restart at ~13.1v, most of the time running under 1A. An AGM battery can handle higher amp charges than a lead acid.

 

[Solarguy]

Yeah, a modern charger/maintainer will not use the bulk charge rate for very long. And when done, it shuts right off. Then it monitors and charges as needed. That's the huge advantage over an old-style (dumb) trickle charger.

 

[Motor7]

I am still leery of battery maintainers. If you look at the reviews on just about any of them they have a high rate of failure. This is the first time I had one fail while overcharging & usually they just become a rock with a cord attached to it. Overall though, with the parasitic loads some of my accessory's (Garmin Zumo) cause, it is mandatory to use a maintainer. Without one, and if I forget to pull the gps from the cradle it will kill the bike battery in a couple of weeks.

 

[Motorpsychology]

I am still leery of battery maintainers. If you look at the reviews on just about any of them they have a high rate of failure. This is the first time I had one fail while overcharging & usually they just become a rock with a cord attached to it. Overall though, with the parasitic loads some of my accessory's (Garmin Zumo) cause, it is mandatory to use a maintainer. Without one, and if I forget to pull the gps from the cradle it will kill the bike battery in a couple of weeks.

Battery Tender® brand float chargers have a good reputation. My BTjr. has given me good reliable service for almost twenty years. I've seen mostly negative reviews on many cheap trickle chargers. You get what you pay for.

RE:Garmin Zumo- If you hold the power button down for five seconds, a menu option appears to shut it completely off; a quick press only turns off the screen and leaves all the apps running in the background.

 

[shu]

I am still leery of battery maintainers. If you look at the reviews on just about any of them they have a high rate of failure.

That's because all of us satisfied BatteryTender Junior users just plug them in and forget about them- we're not on the internet writing reviews because we're not even thinking about them.

I've had almost no problems with battery tender juniors for a couple of decades. (I did have one that malfunctioned but when it did, it did not harm the bike's battery and the company replaced it.) I keep a couple of bikes charged up and ready to go- they just work.

................shu

 

[Motor7]

RE:Garmin Zumo- If you hold the power button down for five seconds, a menu option appears to shut it completely off; a quick press only turns off the screen and leaves all the apps running in the background.

AH HA!

 

[Rolex]

Even without the GPS in the cradle the Zumos12v to 5v converter will draw about 0.02a while parked if wired directly to the battery.

 

[Motor7]

I am also sure the Hella DIN digital voltmeter/2x USB also draws some juice but I never unplug it unless it's raining.

 

[Rolex]

Any quality converter will have a draw on it but the cheap crap ones don't.

I don't know what the difference is in the switching but good ones do it differently to the cheap ones.