Another Dead Battery Question

[nomadbehappy]

Ok, I was a bonehead and shut the engine off when I put the kickstand down at work this morning and then forgot to turn the ignition switch off ... I know better than that but got distracted. Since I had just wired my new driving lights up last weekend to my new fuseblock and did it so they could be on when the ignition switch was in the on position, but bike off .... yup when I went out to the bike to ride home tonight the battery was dead. Luckily I could push it into our maintenance area for the night, pulled the battery and it is sitting on the battery tender charging overnight.

Question 1 - What idiot designed the area to hold the battery. Could there possibly be any more connections etc to disconnect, unbolt the hold down etc. Good luck trying to hook up cables to jump the bike.

Question 2 - My battery tender has an SAE connector on it so you can choose what connection to make to the battery (ring terminals or clamps). If I connected the cables that have ring terminals on one end and an SAE connector on the other, could I leave those on the battery and then plug the cable with the clamps (SAE on the other end) into the cable from the battery and use the clamps to connect to another battery for a boost?

Question 3 - If the above would work, should the connection be directly to the battery, or could/should I make the connection to one of the unswitched spots on my fuseblock?

Mac scared me with what can happen when you boost a bike from a car that is running, so I figured I better ask these questions before I do something that may be stupid and expensive!

Thanks

Brian

[cactusjack]

1. Poor design
2. You didn't have to pull the battery. You could have installed the ring terminal pigtail on the battery and run the connector out under the seat to connect the charger. I think I understand what you mean with the battery post clamps. You would need to build an adapter to connect the two and make sure you maintain the proper polarity.
3. I'd connect the pigtail directly to the battery, not through a fuse block.

[hammer]

A test probe should tell you which connector (for sure) from the battery charger is positive. I have a single 12 volt LED with pigtails from Radio Shack I keep on the bike. Because the LED will only light up when the positive wire is connected to a positive source ( the battery charger in this case), you know for sure which is the positive lead.

[AlabamaNomadRider]

I think the Schumacher Battery Tender gave pretty explicit instuctions on hooking up the pigtail. If I could do it anyone could. Mine works fine and if I'm not riding the Nomad is hooked up to the tender.

[cnc]

The answer to question 2 is yes you can leave the ring terminals on permanently and have the connector ready to plug the charger in. That is what I do as I am sure many others do. I also have my compressor wired with a matching plug so I can plug in quickly into this lead if needs be.
No on plugging the lead with the alligator clamps into this cable you leave on the bike, the polarity will be reversed. It was meant to plug into the charger and then clip to a battery. If you wish to use the lead as you mentioned and have the correct polarity switch the alligator clamps ( black to positive red to Negative )
It is best as others have suggested to test with a volt meter so as to keep it clear in your mind which is pos and which is neg when adapting these leads.

[macmac]

I will pay the first guy to point out the fool that designed that battery tray 100 bucks. I plan to tack the fools hair on my wall.

I have never seen any battery tray on anything, trucks cars boats and bikes that bad before!

This says 1600 all over it because the 1500 was great.

Currenty my favorite maintainer is shumaker anti sulfation pulse, and the good thing is at walley world these are 20 bucks. Both the battery tender and the shimaker come with clips and or a pog tail lead.

I bolted my pig tail lead to the battery direct, passing the eyes right thru the cable caps. In my case i fed the pig tail forward and down, into the hose collecting wire bracket just forward of the battery.

No fuse....

Also I made up another aux ciggy butt light power take off for it. This lives in my saddle bag pocket and is only in use when I want to plug it in.

At napa I found 2 trailer 2 pin pig tail with brown and white wires.. I had to sort that out plugged in with a test light to get the ciggy butt polarity correct.. I forget which wire wire was hot at the plug then, but it's just 2 wures, and the hot one wants to be the center in the lighter socket.

The pig tail can be used two ways.... to feed the battery or too take from it.