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

["Steve Makohin" <wateredg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

From: "Bruno Valeri" <bvaleri@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


> "Ben Barkow" <dr.ben@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
>
>> I think trick charging is pure snake oil. For sure the bike's charger  is 
>> about as crude as anything you can buy at Harbor Freight so why  finesse 
>> the trivial (and largely needless) trickle tickle.
>
>
> It does seem like a voodoo area. Nothing visible. Difficult to measure.
>
> Nothing to go on except the resource websites ie battery and charger 
> sites. Also tech sites.
>
> They all suggest the use of different charging cycles for best results 
> depending on the battery type ie wet cell, low maintenance, AGM, Gel etc.
>
> Accumulating data from actual users is best. But often, too many variables 
> involved to allow for conclusions.
> FWIW, I charge my AGM battery with my automotive automatic charger and 
> have had good service life to date.
>
> Does my charger know to provide the right charging cycle? Dunno.
>
> But I have monitored charging voltage throughout a charge cycle and have 
> observed intial charge at upper 14 volts, transitioning to 15's  a third 
> of the way through and then coming down to 14 something again to finally 
> end up at high 13's. So there is a cycle.  Which one?  Dunno.  But it 
> seems to get the job done as my battery ends up with 12.79 volts post 
> charge. And I guess that's what counts. So I keep using it.

Another thing to consider is how the user wants to use the product. Some 
scenarios are:

(1) Store your bike for the winter, and hope the battery is okay in the 
spring.
    (Project Manager's Saying: Hope is not an effective strategy for 
success)

(2) Put your winter-stored motorcycle on a battery charger, leave it there
    all winter, and possibly boil down your battery over 4 months.

(3) Manually put a charger on your battery and turn it off when you believe
    it is right. Some folks use timed schedules. Some folks use voltage-
    based schedules. Most require human intervention, and/or a SWAG
    (Also known as the Scientific Wild-Assed Guess).

(4) Put your battery on a Battery Tender over the winter. It requires no
    human intervention. It won't boil down the battery.

I'm happy with my Battery Tender, needless to say.

- -Steve Makohin
 '01 R1100S/ABS
 Oakville, Ontario, Canada 

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