Battery Charger

[Bounce]

I was reading my owners manuel. It said not to use a standard battery charger. I checked the forum search function and I found a subject line "battery tender" but it really did not explain why a regular battery charger cannot be used.

"Regular" battery chargers usually mean "for cars". They run at a higher level than most bike batteries like. Where a bike battery likes what some people call a trickle charge (1.5 amps) many "regular" chargers lowest settings are something like 5 amps (with some having switches for 10 and 50 amps for "quick boosts"). Even on a "trickle" setting, many auto-type chargers run higher than the 1.5 amps that are recommended for bikes.

These higher rates can damage a bike battery.

[SIZE=8pt](all values are approximations. this disclaimer is for those who are anal-retentive enough to already have their keyboards fired up to argue how many electronic angels can dance on the head of my ****.)[/SIZE]

 

[Bounce]

At the risk of sounding uninformed (ie; stupid....and still a "FNG"...) if you can ride once a week (or at least every other week) during winter, even if just for 15 minutes, is it still a good idea (or necessary) to have a charger?? Thanks, Jay

IME(xperience) You need to run longer than 15 minutes just to restore the charge lost to starting the bike.

 

[FJRottie]

There are conflicting studies about these sorts of high-frequency chargers. Some show a significant recovery rate, others are less convincing. All the ones I have read are based on recovering typical flooded-cell LA batteries -- I don't know of any independent studies of use on AGM batteries.

After doing some research this is what I found.

The Battery Tender Plus was made in two models. Part # 021-0156 is the one made for gel batteries which BMW installs in its motorcycles. Part # 021-0128 is the model for AGM batteries. The gel model charges a little slower and lower and if you use the gel model on the AGM batteries then you might not get a full charge. If you use the AGM model on the gel you may damage the battery.

The Battery Tender Plus is the one for AGM Batteries. Do not use the original Battery tender on the AGM battery. The original (Battery Tender or Battery Tender Jr) will not bring an AGM battery up to full charge.

 

[FJRottie]

I made this seperate post in case someone or Admin wants it somewhere else.

Thanks to the FZ1 Board here is a link to a post all about the battery in the FJR (which is the same used in the FZ1, V-Star, etc)

GS GT14b-4 Battery - FZ1 Board - Scroll down to the 2nd post (long one) made by, "architeuthis".

 

[Geezer]

I made this seperate post in case someone or Admin wants it somewhere else.
Thanks to the FZ1 Board here is a link to a post all about the battery in the FJR (which is the same used in the FZ1, V-Star, etc)

GS GT14b-4 Battery - FZ1 Board - Scroll down to the 2nd post (long one) made by, "architeuthis".

The post about batteries is very informative but it does assume that we have a gel cell and not an absorbed glass mat (AGM) battery, According to the owner's manual we do indeed have AGM. It appears that the information in the post is still relevant and worth a read.

 

[FJRottie]

Yes our battery is a sealed Lead Acid / Absorbed Glass Matte Battery.

That post was from 2001. I think Yamaha now uses AGM batteries exclusively.

 

[Digger]

With being a new user to FJR I am not sure if you need to unhook the battery from the bike before you hook the trickle charger up for the winter. I am not sure if the charger will harm any electronics if the battery is still hooked up to the bike.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Geezer]

I did not unhook my battery from the bike to put the charger on. I intend to leave the batery in the bike and all of the electronic connected and ready for use. If there are any ill effects I'll post.

 

[charismaticmegafauna]

From a chart I have on the wall: a fully charged AGM battery is 13 volts. Since you all are apparently going thru the machinations of hooking-up things, electrically -- you can, using an inexpensive digital volt-meter, check your B+. If it's 13 volts(or greater), nothing needs to be done -- you already have a fully charged battery.

Years ago I worked in a shop in Northern Minnesota that stored boats and motors over the winter. We had a corner room in a steel building where the batteries were stored. In the Fall, when the boats came in, the batteries were removed, cleaned and checked for state-of-charge (back when you could check the specific gravity with a hydrometer). If (or when) it was fully charged it was put in the corner (un-heated) room -- where it would get a good 40 below 0. In the Spring batteries where installed (usually, no charging needed), motors started, etc., and boats delivered. It worked that way year after year a huge majority of the time -- once in a while there'd be a suspect/old battery that would be a problem. A fully charged battery won't freeze and cold storage is better (less happens). There probably are parasitic losses in the FJR system: clock, computer memory, etc? that may need addressing -- I don't know how much they are or how serious their draw? But batteries are designed to store electrons; and, the stock FJR battery, in my experience, appears to be very good at that.