10 amp battery charger

[vincent]

I got home from work yesterday and must have left the bike in the on position. Went back to it a few hours later and the battery was dead. I have a black and decker 10 amp charger that automatically reads what type of battery it is hooked up up and charges it appropriately. I was able to get enough of a charge to get it started in in the garage. Is it safe to charge the battery while it's on the bike and hooked up? How much of a charge should I be looking for? (I'm trying to go ride today)
1600 fi

[macmac]

At 10 amps 1 hour should be IT, with the key switch locked OFF.

You really don't want that charger on the bike at all, but on a rare occasion I guess for 1 hour it might be ok.

You can ruin a batter of 18 Ah size which these batterys are. 0 amps is over half the batter rating 18 Ah (amp hours) is what these batterys are.

It would be a wiser idea to buy a walley world Shumkaer 1.5 amp charger for 20 bucks and use that any time you are not riding and or parked at work.

'IF' that battery is any good in the first place it will recover by itself given some time. It would recover best on the charger I mentioned and faster.

That B&D is for cars and trucks with 650 cold cranking AMP batterys not any puny 18Ah battery, not ever, really.

If you exceeed 1 hour you will start to damaged the AGM battery.

If you do as I reccomend you might be on that AGM battery more than 7 years, maybe 8. maybe more.

[usranger74]

At 10 amps 1 hour should be IT, with the key switch locked OFF.

You really don't want that charger on the bike at all, but on a rare occasion I guess for 1 hour it might be ok.

You can ruin a batter of 18 Ah size which these batterys are. 0 amps is over half the batter rating 18 Ah (amp hours) is what these batterys are.

It would be a wiser idea to buy a walley world Shumkaer 1.5 amp charger for 20 bucks and use that any time you are not riding and or parked at work.

'IF' that battery is any good in the first place it will recover by itself given some time. It would recover best on the charger I mentioned and faster.

That B&D is for cars and trucks with 650 cold cranking AMP batterys not any puny 18Ah battery, not ever, really.

If you exceeed 1 hour you will start to damaged the AGM battery.

If you do as I reccomend you might be on that AGM battery more than 7 years, maybe 8. maybe more.


What is a AGM battery? Advantages?

[Dave]

What is a AGM battery? Advantages?


http://tinyurl.com/3x4pqye

[blowndodge]

Absorbed Glass Mats,

This is a very fine fiber Boron-Silicate glass mat. These type of batteries have all the advantages of gelled, but can take much more abuse. We sell the Concorde (and Lifeline, made by Concorde) AGM batteries. These are also called "starved electrolyte", as the mat is about 95% saturated rather than fully soaked. That also means that they will not leak acid even if broken.

Nearly all AGM batteries are "recombinant" - what that means is that the Oxygen and Hydrogen recombine INSIDE the battery. These use gas phase transfer of oxygen to the negative plates to recombine them back into water while charging and prevent the loss of water through electrolysis. The recombining is typically 99+% efficient, so almost no water is lost.

The charging voltages are the same as for any standard battery - no need for any special adjustments or problems with incompatible chargers or charge controls. And, since the internal resistance is extremely low, there is almost no heating of the battery even under heavy charge and discharge currents. The Concorde (and most AGM) batteries have no charge or discharge current limits.

AGM's have a very low self-discharge - from 1% to 3% per month is usual. This means that they can sit in storage for much longer periods without charging than standard batteries. The Concorde batteries can be almost fully recharged (95% or better) even after 30 days of being totally discharged.

AGM's do not have any liquid to spill, and even under severe overcharge conditions hydrogen emission is far below the 4% max specified for aircraft and enclosed spaces. The plates in AGM's are tightly packed and rigidly mounted, and will withstand shock and vibration better than any standard battery.

Even with all the advantages listed above, there is still a place for the standard flooded deep cycle battery. AGM's will cost 2 to 3 times as much as flooded batteries of the same capacity. In many installations, where the batteries are set in an area where you don't have to worry about fumes or leakage, a standard or industrial deep cycle is a better economic choice. AGM batteries main advantages are no maintenance, completely sealed against fumes, Hydrogen, or leakage, non-spilling even if they are broken, and can survive most freezes.

[ringadingh]

Those AGM batteries do seem to last a lot longer. My bike battery lasted over eight years before replacement this summer, and a booster pack that I carry in the truck, just quit on me in its twelfth season of use. Im going to replace it with another in a few weeks when they go on sale here.

[AlabamaNomadRider]

Is the stock battery in the Nomad an AGM? If not seems that is the way to go.

[usranger74]

What is a AGM battery? Advantages?


http://tinyurl.com/3x4pqye


Dave - that was about as cool as anything I have seen on the web. :)

And, thank you BD for the in depth explanation.

[vincent]

Thanks Mac, I picked up a Shumacher charger today and it's on the battery now.

[mikeyger]

mac I was going to ask what I should buy because I noticed a lot of you say you put a battery tender on all the time while not riding. When I get this Shumacher do I just hook it up everynight or every now and then? Thanks

[macmac]

mac I was going to ask what I should buy because I noticed a lot of you say you put a battery tender on all the time while not riding. When I get this Shumacher do I just hook it up everynight or every now and then? Thanks

The shumaker charger will come with 2 sets of leads. I reccomend you hard bolt the one set which will be obvious to the battery and lead it forwards and down to the wire hoses retainer. Even with a hot engine you can reach there.

So yeah plug that bike in any time you are not riding or parked at work.

I am planing on getting no less than 8 years from my stock AGM battery. I test mine each time I ride. That's easy because i have a full time voltmeter.

That battery is as good today as the day I bought the bike (used) of the dealer show room floor. The bike has 1,413 miles on it used. I went over it with a fine toothed comb.

I think this bike was made on a Thrusday too, close enough to the weekend for happy campers. Never buy any machine made on Mondays since the crew will be hung over, and never buy one from a Friday because that Govt Work is good enuff day. http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif

Yeah what BD said Thar's no bloomin way i can improve on that.

[ringadingh]

I have charged my battery while its still in the bike connected, and have never had a problem, however it is best to disconnect and remove them for charging.

[mikeyger]

I was just wondering why you charge your battery if you are riding it everyday. I see a lot of people do. So I just ask because I never did this before. You guys have saved me a lot of money so far and I will always take your advice . Thanks again for answering all the silly questions I have and probably will have' I really do appreciate all of you!

[jandreu]

Dang BD...that's more words than I've ever seen you reply with and not one wise crack either. Good info... http://s2.images.proboards.com/cool.gif

Back to the thread...just my 2 cents. If you ride regularly than no need for a charger. I normally get 6 years from regular batteries. My HD has a six year old battery, gets ridden maybe 1 time a month for 30 to 50 miles and the battery always starts the bike with no problems.[Of course now that I've said that it will probaly die tomorrow]. http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif

[cnc]

In my opinion There is one drawback to always having your battery on a tender when you are not riding. If your habit is to unplug and ride off, the battery may be on it's way south and you might never know it until you are away from home.
Batteries of this size will probably not start the bike fresh off a maintainer if they are really toast and as others have mentioned, I have had maintenance free batteries fail with out warning, but still best to unplug the night before or at least a few hours before. If it won't crank fast enough to start the bike after that short amount of time, you didn't want to go anywhere anyway. Batteries fresh off a charger, or maintainer will give a higher false voltage reading due to surface charge, so to get a true indication of the voltage it is best wait a few hours before testing anyway.

[macmac]

cnc, you can knock off that fake charge pronto fast, start the engine which sucks up apx 365 amps, and hit the kill switch which leaves the head lamp on. Run that for 10 seconds and you are pretty much at true suface float, or climbing from lower than.

A truely good battery can drop some from use and recover.

I agree that with no meter anything is a guess. My meter reads out in digital reads to 4 places, has a green good, yellow caution and red better shut off something led, AND a battery % meter.

If my battery were on the way out that % meter would show it, even if the charging system was working well.

[cnc]

Your right Mac there is more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to getting a truer indication of battery voltage. I was really more concerned with guys who might always keep their bikes plugged in and just unplug and go.

[macmac]

Well anything can happen. Any battery car dead short with out notice, A dead short usually means a warped plate in one cell. Lots of things can cause that. The frames that hold the plates can break, the plates can separate, pieces of a plate can crack, warp, break and so wedge all causing a dead short with no warning. A stator can dead short and kill charging, wires can break in the field coild, rec/regs, and ect.

I haven't heard of connectors going bad, high resistance yet on Vulcans, but that was common on all Japanese bikes once. Honda and Yammi suffered that the most, but ALL the others did to some extent.

The connector I am talking about connected the stator and field coil wires from the alt to the rec/regs, or from the alt engine to the frame sort of thing.

The deepest investigation I have personally been involved in is on my 81 yammi xs 850 sh.

Out riding the volt meter I was using on that bike which is hard wired to the bike showed a red light, and read real low. I was close to my apt back then, and shut off everthing I could to make it home. The bike had passing lamps and I had installed a switch to shut off the main hi low beams, so I ran in day light with no lights.

I opened everything up on the charging system since the battery was a known good, and was taking the charge I put on it as soon as i got home.

The field coil checked out, but the stator didn't in Ohms mode. I took that off, and it checked out fine. I re-installed it and it showed a dead short.

So I took it off, where it checked out fine again. So I installed it again and it dead shorted. http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif

Man I thought I was going nuts. There is no moving parts and i could not find a thing wrong with it.

So I took it off again, and re-installed it one bolt at a time, for 4 bolts. I checked it each time I installed a bolts and 3 went in all checked out fine, but the 4 th bolt when torqued right dead shorted the stator. Still I couldn't 'see' any thing bend or warp, couldn't find missing varnish on the stator windings, nuthin, and never did fine nuthin.

So I added a drop of blue locktite to that offending bolt and wound it in to dead short watching the meter, and backed it off to no dead short, and that charging system is in there working today. At the time , doing that bought me the time to get a whole system and 1/2 for that antique bike, which is held in reserve.

That was a great lesson too. I got to play with the ACV side of the meter, which I don't get the chance much, sort out the screwy ACV readings which i am not that familar with, use ohms mode with the acv side of the stator, and use a VOM in more ways than is normal for 12 volt vehicals.

It was real nice I have this habit of a full time volt meter on bikes too. I never understood why there wasn't one from the factory on all bikes.