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Battery Tender (Optimizer) Yes or No???

I also hook up mine to a tender after every ride, first battery nearly 6 years HD brand, new one is Xide X2 from Batteries Plus, time will tell.
 
My '09 is on its original battery also. Year round I only plug it in once a week or two and unplug after a day (or less). Tender usually indicates full charge in less than 1/2 hr. I just don't like leaving things plugged in long term. In the dead of winter when temps are below 0 F, I will leave it plugged in until the temps warm up.
Look at replacing the battery next year.
 
I am worried about the battery. The bike is a '12, so the battery could have been made sometime in '11 (or earlier!!). That is coming up on the useful lifespan of these OEM batteries.

With only 3,600 miles on it when I bought it, the bike (and battery) must have sat idle most of the time.

Guess I will order a new battery (Odyssey I am thinking) and have it on the shelf just in case!

Yesterday I took the battery out from under the seat so I could measure it. It measures approximately 6.5" W x 5" D x 7" H. None of the Odyssey batteries have these dimensions. The OEM battery was slightly swollen on all sides. So I do think the battery is on its way out.

So I ordered a different battery from Wholesale Batteries Direct. It is a:

01-366PHD 2012 FLHTCU Ultra Classic Electra Glide 1690 Battery LS (Lightning Start) from Power Source for $128.95. No charge for shipping. Check here:

600cca 30ah Lightning Start Motorcycle Battery replaces 66010-97C for Harley Davidson oem fit Free Shipping

Will advise how this battery does once I get it installed, and how the Battery Tender Jr. does with it.

Cheers,

TQ
 
Bubbie,

Right. I am worried about the battery. The bike is a '12, so the battery could have been made sometime in '11 (or earlier!!). That is coming up on the useful lifespan of these OEM batteries.

With only 3,600 miles on it when I bought it, the bike (and battery) must have sat idle most of the time.

OK. So I replaced the OEM battery with a Power Source Batteries: Lightning Start Battery WPX30L-LS a couple of days ago (see below). I had put the battery on a charger for about an hour before installing it. But the Battery Tender Jr. did not turn Green by the morning and stayed Red. So I figured I had a parasitic draw that was keeping the battery from fully charging.

But after a couple of days of riding and putting it on the BTJr each night, this morning it was flashing Green when I took it off and rode to work. Had to bring it back home around 1p due to threatening weather. Went back to work in the truck, and by the time I got home from work the light was GREEN!! Yay!!! I guess no parasitic drain.

Good. So now I will get rid of the OEM battery. It would take 4-5 days on the BTJr to finally turn Green. Something wrong with that battery.

Bought a FLHTCU103 yesterday!!

Cheers,

TQ
 
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I'm using a Schumacher speed/charge 1.5, it has a pretty cool feature that shows if a battery is probably bad or the connection is bad.

Plug it in lights go red/yellow and after it's fully charged goes to red/green. If the battery is weak or you have a bad connection it will show red and the yellow light will flash after it's been on for a period of time. It seems to be a pretty good indicator that the battery is heading south as my last 2 batteries that flashed yellow were indeed in need of replacement.
 
I replaced my Battery Tender Jr. with a new one I had bought a couple of months ago. It is a new style tender and must use a different technology to convert the 120 Vac to the low voltage Vdc and low amperage that the unit puts out, since it is significantly lighter than the old ones I had.

s-l1600.jpg


But what I have noticed is that if I have the BTJr plugged into Vac BEFORE plugging into the battery pigtail, it takes a significant amount of time with the LED "Red" before it switches to flashing green and then solid green. However, if I plug in the battery pigtail first, and then connect the BTJr. to the wall/extension cord it will come on "Red" and then switch to flashing green in less then a minute, and often within a few seconds. The green flashing goes on for a bit before switching to solid green as usual.

Some of you electron-heads may have some insight to how these things work and can explain my observations. I am just going off of empirical information.

Cheers,

TQ
 
The reason that the green light doesn’t come on immediately is that when the charger first comes on, the battery is sitting there, fully charged, at a voltage of about 12.9 volts. The charger immediately tries to bring the battery voltage up to about 14.5 volts. This takes a finite amount of time, although it should only be a few minutes if the battery is fully charged. Then, when the battery reaches 14.5 volts, the charger will hold it there until one of two things happen. Either the battery charge current will drop to less than 0.1 amp (from an initial value of 1.25 amps) or, if the current does not drop below 0.1 amp, then the charger will hold the battery voltage at 14.5 volts for 6 to 8 hours.



Note: It only takes a momentary AC power outage to cause the Battery Tender Plus battery charger to reset.
Smart technology built in, I plug in, un plug and plug back in it starts to flash green, My guess is it is checking the battery state of charge
 
The reason that the green light doesn’t come on immediately is that when the charger first comes on, the battery is sitting there, fully charged, at a voltage of about 12.9 volts. The charger immediately tries to bring the battery voltage up to about 14.5 volts. This takes a finite amount of time, although it should only be a few minutes if the battery is fully charged. Then, when the battery reaches 14.5 volts, the charger will hold it there until one of two things happen. Either the battery charge current will drop to less than 0.1 amp (from an initial value of 1.25 amps) or, if the current does not drop below 0.1 amp, then the charger will hold the battery voltage at 14.5 volts for 6 to 8 hours.

Jack,

OK. But if I plug my battery pig-tail into the lead from the BTJr when that unit is already plugged into the wall, then it will stay "Red" for a long time (sometimes days). If I plug the battery pig-tail into the lead from the unit and THEN plug the unit into wall power (120 Vac), then the unit flips to flashing green very quickly (unually less then a minute). Not sure how to explain that.

Cheers,

TQ
 
On the Schumacher unit it says to plug into the bike first then to 120V. Not sure why or if the Tender Jr. is the same. Must be something in the computer circuit that is already latched if plugged into the wall receptacle first. The new Schumacher has a digital read out that tells you if connection is correct and what the % of charge is.
 
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