Re: [BMWMc] Requesting list wisdom re gel battery and Battery Tender Plus

[John R Pierce <pierce@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Makohin wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> What is the list wisdom regarding a gel battery and a Battery Tender
> Plus? I am aware that the makers of the Battery Tender tell you you
> need a special Tender, as does BMW. My mechanic says the gel
> batteries have not been in the field long enough to conclude if there
> is any harm done by using a standard Battery Tender, and that he
> knows of no cases where he can attribute a gel battery's demise to
> using a standard Tender vs a special gel Tender.

I have a BMW 'Gel" tender, and I used a digital voltmeter to 
characterize its output voltages and compared them with the spec for the 
standard Deltran Battery Tender Plus...  the *ONLY* difference I saw was 
that the 'absorption phase' was 0.1V higher on the gel tender.  Now, its 
POSSIBLE the absorption phase is longer or shorter than standard.

I dunno, but I think you'd be fine using a regular BTPlus with the 
Exide/BMW "Gel" battery, and I know you can use the BMW 'Gel' tender 
with AGM/SLA/VRLA batteries such as the westco and panasonic, and it 
should be fine with regular wet cell non-sealed batteries too.

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