I did a search and they all seem to be about storing or which one is better or cheaper etc. Here's my issue. I bought a Battery Tender for my wifes Sportser on Friday.http://www.harley-davidson.com/gma/g...bmLocale=en_US Here's the issue. I plugged up her bike friday evening to charge the battery so I could take it to the dealer friday morning. Now I realize that it's just a trickle charger but the battery was still dead Saturday morning. I jumped her bike, let it run for a few minutes and rode it to the dealer(talk about funny looking). Rode the bike home saturday evening and hooked it back to the charger. Here it is 2 days later and the light that says the battery is charged, is still amber. Does it really take that long to charge a better fully from an originally low charge?

 

12 VDC @ 750 mA.
Typical Recharge Time: 8 - 12 Hours.

riding your bike does NOT charge the battery, it usually takes hours of riding to RECHARGE a battery.

even a car, if you have on AC, radio, heater, cruise, all that junk, will take a long time to charge.

everything on a vehicle is made to do ONE thing: be light as possible to save MPG, and the charging system does that by being minimally capable: in other words, it is designed to maintain a battery, NOT fully charge a dead battery.

and jumping a battery just puts enough juice in it, for that one trip.

and you can't "jump" a car if the car that is running has on the AC, interior lights,, radio, or anything. modern vehicles are not built tough like we use to expect.

so yeah, i would leave it plugged in for a few days.
on most vehicles, you have to take off the negative terminal, because there is something on there that drains some of the charge.

FWIW, i have a 2 amp trickle charger from Sears, $39, and goes on sale $19 every so often. I have 3, one for each bike, and one for garage queen car.

batteries are $60, so it's just good common sense,
and who wants to have a dead battery when you only have a limited time to go ride?

 

A tender is not meant to charge a dead battery...it maintains a fully charged one

 

There is some validity to what your saying...however, it depends what model he has...they do offer battery tenders (Deltran) that do charge a battery then go into maintenance.

 

Your Harley battery tender is only .75 amp. What is the amp rating of your dead battery? Do the math.

If you battery has been fully discharged, it may no longer be good and able to accept a charge. You'll soon find out if you have further trouble.

 

yeh, sounds more like the battery to me

 

This is true.
It maintains. Mine glows green after a couple of hours on a good battery and stays green.
If your battery is no good it will never go green.

 

Listening to what you guys are saying, I'm beginning to think the battery was drained to zero or might be bad. The bike is practically brand new. We picked it up on mothers day, but it's really been sitting in the garage all summer. She was very uncomfortable riding the bike with the mid controls and we finally got around to putting forwards on it this weekend. I'll give it another day and see.

 

My Deltran Battery Tender Plus will not charge a dead battery. I hooked the Deltran up to my bike and the Charge light would not come on. Jumped the bike, rode it an hour or so, and then re-connected the Deltran and the Charge light came on. Everything has worked fine since then. That's my experience.

Buz

 

Sounds like battery time.