A little info before my question.


Last week I was charging a 12 volt battery with my tender, not my motorcycle battery, a remote gate 12 volt battery. After charging the battery, I unplugged it from the tender and plugged the tender back into the bike pigtail, but I didn't.


I accidentally plugged the battery I had just charged into the pigtail for about 5 seconds before noticing my error. I unplugged the battery to battery connection and plugged the tender to the bike correctly.
I noticed the tender blinking like it was not hooked up and after checking the in line fuse I noticed it was blown. After replacing the fuse, the tender still was blinking, no charging going on.


After several checks I unhooked the pigtail leads from the battery and with an ohm meter, saw that the hot wire on the pigtail was showing open.

I replaced the pigtail with a new one, hooked up the tender and all works as normal. Tender light was not blinking and it went green after a few minutes.
The bike started, no indicator lights and the voltage gauge is showing charging as normal. I have not had a chance to ride it, I have been out of town for the past several days.

So, what I did, for 5 seconds I hooked a 12 volt battery + to - and - to +. The fuse probably saved the day but I am curious why it appeared to burn the cable to the point that the positive pigtail cable was showing open.


The big question. Did I do any damage, and if so what do I need to be looking for.
All appears to be fine.

 

What you need to be looking for is a battery tender that is reverse polarity protected. :-)

 

This ^^^^^

Most newer tenders have it along with safeguards in place for 6 volt/12 volt combinations. As an example, along with my bike, I use my tender on an old tractor 6 volt battery with positive ground. My tender automatically recognizes the battery as 6 volt and if I forget the positive ground and hook it up wrong, it will just sit there and not do anything. No harm, no worries, no switches to flip. All for around $20.

 

I'm confused on where you plugged your tender in wrong.

As I read your post...you had your tender plugged in to a remote gate battery and charged it. You then removed the tender from the battery and hooked the gate battery and your bike battery together (tender wasn't plugged into anything). You discovered your error and unplugged the two batteries from each other. Then you hooked the tender to the bike but it wouldn't charge because the pigtail on the bike had a blown fuse and open (burned) wire. You replaced the fuse and the wire and then the tender worked. Having a tender that detects reverse polarity wouldn't have made any difference. The tender was never plugged in wrong. The fuse and the burned wire saved you from doing any damage to either of the batteries. You should be fine.

 

My tender and battery only plug together one way and can't be reversed. If you have the same oriented pigtails on both batteries that correspond to the tender how could you have gotten the batteries hooked together?

 

Yup, the tenders already detect reverse polarity, this was a direct wire. I know exactly what you're talking about: during Irma when my power was out I hooked two tender alligator clips together the hook my boat battery up to charge my portable DVD player. I quickly found out the when doing so you have to reverse the clips on one side to keep the correct polarity.

However, back to your issue - I think everything is fine. That's what fuses are for, I wouldn't worry about it at all

 

all good guys but the tender wasn’t my issue.

I plugged a charged 12 volt battery in to my bikes tender pigtail.
Battery to battery but with the poles reversed

the tender inline fuse blew and I’m hoping that saved everything from damage, but it also fried the tender wire or at least appeared to.

My question is, do I need to look for or should I expect any damage to the bikes electrics.

Thanks for for the reply’s.

 

I always unplug the tender when I'm connecting or disconnecting it from a battery. The only way I like to make electrical connections is at the power source, not in-line.

 

You're good. Worry not.

 

He said he connected (somehow) a charged 12v battery to the pigtail with reversed polarity. That blew the fuse and burned a wire. This has nothing to do with making a connection with the battery tender plugged in.

OP, you're fine. If you are concerned about the bike's electronics, turn the bike on and check if everything is working correctly. No need to hypothesize about it.