Bought a new battery for my '08 ULTRA.I have to charge it after adding the acid, but don't have a charger.Will a battery tender work?

 

No. Chargers and tenders are two different beasts. Do the instructions give any clues to exactly what charging is required? I don't recall having to charge any of my recent batteries. If your bike will start you can charge the battery on the road, just go out for a decent run, like a tankful - much more satisfactory!

 

My trick:
The tender will come into action as it "sees" 7 to 10 Volts depending on the model you have. Hook your new battery with the tender to a separate 12 Volt source then remove the source after a few minutes . I use a CB power supply to do this.

 

Try it, you have nothing to lose.

 

I just bought an Optimate 3 battery tender and charger. It works very well and will even desulsify a bad battery. It cost about $60. Way better than any Harly tender I've owned.

 

I would never use a battery that has acid in it. It will leak and cause issues and what if you drop your bike?? Always use an AGM type battery in your expensive HD.

 

Sealed batteries are the way to go now days, AMG, Spiral Cell, even Lithium Ion batteries.

 

http://www.batterytender.com/Frequen...ions/#answer19

Can the Battery Tender Plus successfully perform the initial charge on a new, flooded, motorcycle battery?


Background: The motorcycle dealers receive batteries from the manufacturer in a dry state. The plates are dried out, and there is no acid in the cell compartments. (Do not confuse this with a dry-cell battery.) The dealer must fill the individual battery cells with acid and then put them on a shop charger to pre-charge prior to selling them to a customer. As the batteries arrive from the manufacturer, the plates are approximately 80% "formed". The initial pre-charge, post-formation charge, or more correctly, formation-finishing charge, must be conducted at a specific power level and for a specific time period. Each manufacturer has its own recommendations, for example one manufacturer recommends that the charger deliver a constant current equal to 10% to 15% of the battery amp-hour capacity and that the charge current be applied to the battery for a period of 5 to 10 hours.

Answer 1) Certainly if the dealer has properly pre-charged the battery after filling it with acid, then the answer is ABSOLUTELY YES.

Answer 2) If the dealer has not properly pre-charged the
newly filled battery prior to the sale, then the answer is YES, WITH SOME QUALIFICATIONS:

Qualification A) The Battery Tender® Plus should be left on the new battery for a minimum of 24 hours on float, in addition to whatever amount of time it takes for the charger to get to the float stage. It is not clear how to correlate the 80% formed plates with a given state of charge once the cells are filled with acid. To be safe, assume that the batteries require a full 100% charge after the cells are filled.

For example, a 16 Ah battery will take about 13 hours to get to the absorption voltage (constant 14.4 Volts). It may take another 6 to 8 hours to reach the float voltage (constant 13.2 Volts). This may sound awkward; because what happens is that the battery charge current drops while the absorption voltage is held constant. When the battery current drops to 0.1 amp, or if 6 to hours have elapsed at the absorption voltage, the charger automatically switches its output from 14.4 V to 13.2 V. So it may take the better part of 20 hours to reach the float stage. Add another 24 hours to that and you are at 44 hours. Throw in another 4 hours for good measure and you get a nice round, even 48 hours, or 2 days.

Qualification B) Although there are probably several charging methods that will be equally effective, regardless of who manufactures the battery, in the interests of technical consistency, they will not officially sanction any initial charging method other than those published in their technical applications literature.

 

I have never seen a maintainer that was ONLY a maintainer. All I have seen were charger/maintainers typically with a 1.5 amp max rater of charge. What kind of maintainer do you have and do you still have the directions that came with it? The answer should be in there somewhere for YOUR particular maintainer.

 

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FYI,quite a few maint/tender chargers are over 1-1.5 amps,i have a 5amp Deltran Tender / maint type charger i use at times on the much larger battery in my classic muscle car (69 chevelle SS 396) along with one of the smaller/cheaper 1.5 amp maint chargers i use on my bike battery at times too.

But i have seen maint / tender type chargers with more then the 5amps mine has so they are out there.

Scott