Battery Tender/Trickle Charger

[94BULLITT]

I have a Noco Genius G3500 charger. It will charge 6/12v, Wet, Gel, MF & AGM batteries. It will charge either 3.5 or .9 amps. I keep it on the 4240. I use it to top the car batteries once in a while.

G3500 | Genius Battery Chargers

I keep solar panels on my vehicles because they are outside.

 

[The kid]

Battery tenders do thier job. Sometimes too well and causes the battery life to shorten by boiling off the water inside maintenance free batteries. Lawn tractors are a good example. Good for maybe two years like clockwork. Why? The battery become sulfated which shorts out the plates and no longer can maintain the amperage storage capacity. There is some simple maintenance that can be done to lead acid batteries that can extend the life three fold. Simply adding distilled water when needed. Well you say there are no filler caps. Yes there are. Look under the top label. You'll find six screw out sealed plugs with O rings to prevent leakage. They still seem to leak and always corrode the positive terminal. So your thinking it's a sealed battery. It still is vented and moisture escapes and concentrates the acid and starts to sulfate (white hard looking stuff) looking down into the filler hole. Google "How to save a sulfated battery" Using something a simple as distilled water and epson salts.

A battery tender should only be needed once a month to top it off then disconnect. I have ressurected three car batteries and refreshed my zero turn battery with the above methods. I've discussed this in another thread about saving 18V dewalt batteries. I rotate my battery tender once or every other month while checking fluid levels. The white sulfate that was shorting the cells slowly disappears and converts back to acid. This removal of sulfate also increases the amperage storage capicity.

As I said tenders are for troublesome batteries. Cold is an enemy of a battery thus a tender helps overcome the extreme cold. I'm not saying it works for all batteries, but I've had great sucess reconditioning my batteries addressing the cause and occasionally top them off. Good luck -robert

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I have had some issues with keeping batteries on various equipment batteries charged. Things like the lawn mower, ATV etc have presented me with dead batteries in the last several months.

Have any of you used or have first hand experience with battery tender type devices? Are they worth the $35 plus? Or is are they a lot of hype?

They are worth twice that if you have a 120v source so you never have a dead battery when you really need to use the equipment. As themichelob pointed out they will not fix a dying battery but can make a new battery last 2x+ longer if powered any time the equipment is parked.

 

[mvwicker]

I keep two motorbikes, a tractor, and a seldom used car on Deltran battery tenders. The car and one of the motorbikes got 10 and 9 years out of their OEM batteries. The other motorbike and the tractor still have their OEM batteries after 10 and 3 years, respectively, and they start without problems. I use the two-charger Deltrans, which you can get for about $80, and have pigtails with two-pole connectors permanently attached to the battery terminals for ease of connection and disconnection:
Battery Tender 022-0165-DL-WH 12-Volt 2-Bank Battery Management System : Amazon.com : Automotive

 

[Bird]

I use the ring connector on the scooter (battery hard to get at), and the alligator clips on the tractor. They all come as one set.

I see the price has gone up on the one I have:
DieHard Battery Charger/Maintainer: Start Every Time With Sears

And it came with an assortment of connectors. If the "reviews" are right, I guess it's pretty popular.

My ZTR is in an 8' x 12' metal garden tool building in the back corner of the yard and there's no electrical power there. So I just take the battery out and take it in the shop and hook up the charger/maintainer.

 

[Travelover]

I've had good luck with the HF $5 maintainers. If your battery is shot, they won't help.

 

[unbidden]

I've had good luck with the HF $5 maintainers. If your battery is shot, they won't help.

Have kept my motorcycle charged using the above for 5 years now:
Battery Float Charger, Automatic

 

[Locoweed]

I have 3 Carquest CBC1005 chargers that I have had for several years. 2 are used only in the winter & 1 is on my generator battery 24/7 very satisfied with them.

 

[3930dave]

My latest maintainer is the CTEK discussed in this thread:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/owning-operating/270368-ip65-plug-n-forget-battery.html

This generation of charger is well sealed against the weather, one of the reasons I'm willing to pay a bit more for this type.

I'm liking this CTEK so far.

As commented already - really important to keep an eye on the fluid levels in a traditional flooded plate battery, if you are going for longest life. Overly aggressive or malfunctioning chargers and alternators can evaporate quite a bit of water - distilled is always better than tap water for refills.

Rgds, D.

 

[Gem99ultra]

Count me in for the Pro - tender crowd. I have 6, 4 Battery Tender brand and 2 Schmauker brand, that I keep on all mowers, motorcyles, tractors, and trucks. Last week I replaced the first battery since beginning to use them; it was OVER 6 years old in a Harley. And if you ride a big Harley - you KNOW how much power it takes to crank it with a very small battery. I know first hand, the battery tenders extend the life of my batteries by 4 years or more. And that includes AGM batteries. And no - they cannot be used on Optima dry cell batteries...