Jakeboy said:
That thing is plenty slick! It's always on the bike. Great idea!
Jakeboy,
To clarify, I don't think the charger stays on the bike at all times. Just the pig tails which is how all the other brand smart chargers do it as well. It makes it really easy to just pull into the garage and plug in whatever vehicle has the harness. Plus you can get extra harnesses and have them on multiple vehicles, and just plug in whichever one you are not using at the time.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but, unless I'm reading the website wrong, the above smart charger seems to have about the same specs as most other smart chargers. Which isn't a bad thing. That's a good thing. Smart chargers are the way to go and everyone should have at least one. I'm just saying there are many, many chargers out there that have smart charging and maintenance functionality. Battery Tender brand was one of the first. They still don't have the 'desulfating pulses' that many other smart chargers offer, but their argument is, if you keep a battery/vehicle on a smart charger when not in use, you'll never need a desulfator option. Can't argue with that. Well, only when you 'inherit' a battery that has sat or not been treated well or not had the option to keep one on a tender (like a boat that only gets started once a week on a boat lift and there is not electricity source nearby to allow a smart charger to be used...though they have ones with a mini-solar panel, but that's another subject all together).
There are no shortage of great smart tenders out there so make sure you shop around and look at warranty and customer satisfaction before you buy. Also, once you pick a brand, shop around as smart chargers are often a loss leader (an item sold at or below cost, by a retailer, to stimulate the sales of other profitable items they sell).
Here is but a small example of some well respected brands. There are many other brands available:
Battery Tender:
http://batterytender.com
Battery Minder:
http://www.batteryminders.com
Tecmate Optimate:
http://www.tecmate.com/battcare_home.php
I think just about all smart tenders are pretty good and all are better than nothing or the old trickle chargers that just keep on charging and boil your battery if forgotten. I currently have two Battery Tender Plus, two Battery Tender Jr. and one Battery Minder Plus. The BatteryMinder is the only one with desulfation pulses and I swap it around on various batteries so it can pulse for a few weeks with the idea that if one could benefit from some 'reconditioning' it will get it, but if it doesn't need it, the pulses won't hurt it. I have harnesses on all my motorcycles and ATVs and just use the alligator clips on the boat battery and car batteries. Anyone with an electric-start riding lawn mower, generator, or anything else with a battery should use a smart charger when not in use.
Since I've been using battery tenders, I've NEVER replaced a battery. True that par of that is because I've sold off the items before I had a battery fail, but then, two of those were 2003 motorcycles that I just sold last fall and this spring with the stock batteries still working perfectly after 7 years. In the summer, I often hook up my truck because, when commuting on my bikes, the truck can sit for a week at a time. My wife and I tend to carpool in the winter time, so we drive her car (better mileage) when the weather permits or my truck when the bad weather rolls in. Whichever we are not going to drive for more than 4 or 5 days gets a smart charger clipped on.
One last story, just because I appreciated the idea and it might serve others well...I had a friend that lived way out in the country at the end of a powerline and also had a high water table. Every time there was a bad storm, their basement's sump pump would need to run, but because a storm often took out power for a couple hours at a time, there would be no AC power for a sump pump to run (and a generator would only work if they were home or if they spent big bucks on an auto-start model). He simply changed to a DC-powered sump pump powered by a deep cycle marine battery and just left a smart charger attached to it all the time. Whether the power was out or not, the sump pump would run whenever needed. If the power was out and the battery discharged with use, whenever the power came back on, the smart charger would charge back up the battery and keep it charged. This is a fairly neat idea, I thought, and could apply to any item that could be powered by a DC battery during a power outage.
