Dead Battery and a good question..

[jettcity1]

I left the key on. the battery is dead, can I use a conventional charger? this is what I got out of a manual. "To charge a VRLA (Valve Regulated
Lead Acid) battery, a special (constant-
voltage) battery charger is required.
Using a conventional battery
charger will damage the battery. If
you do not have access to a constant-
voltage battery charger, have a
Yamaha dealer charge your battery."

I have a small harbor Freight automotive charger.
I want to get it charged up to full stregth for starting purposes.
Do I need a special charger?


I dont want to remove it and take it to a dealer, that just seems odd to me.
what kind of battery is this?
2012 Raven. still new

 

[markjenn]

The battery is a quite conventional AGM (absorbed gas mat) battery like almost all bikes have these days. (VRLA is a less-commonly used term for a sealed battery that includes both AGM and "gel" type batteries.)

You can use any charger that has a charge rate low enough not to overheat and damage the battery. If it is an automotive charger, then it must use a slow charge setting of about 2A or less; if you fast-charge a motorcycle battery with a charger on settings designed to fast-charge auto batteries, you may overheat the battery and shorten its life.

There is an issue with "smart" chargers and AGMs. Smart chargers are those that automatically sense when a battery is nearing its full charge and let you leave them hooked up indefintely. Such a charger must be able to sense the different charging rates of AGMs to work properly. Nearly all motorcycle smart chargers (e.g. Battery Tenders) these days work fine with AGMs, but older ones work properly only on conventional wet batteries.

If you can confirm your automotive charger has a low enough charge rate, you should be able to use it, but you probably will want to remove it after a few hours to avoid overcharging the battery. Or you might want to go ahead and get a dedicated motorcycle smart charger - they're relatively cheap and handy to have around. Personally, I like the Optimates a lot better than the Battery Tenders.

- Mark

 

[HoebSTer]

I think the Optimate is backed or recommended by Yamaha. I picked an Optimate up when I got the Tenere.

 

[jettcity1]

An hour and a half at 2 amps and she fired right up. I bought a tender and plugged it right in and the easy access panel and battery locatiion make it SUPER easy.
Piece of cake, getting to the battery oven on My C-14 was alot worse.