charging battery

toeknee · Post by **toeknee** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 5:56 pm

anyone know of a step by step video or instruction on how to hook up a battery tender jr to my Stella???

the Stella manual suggests I bring the bike into a dealer for any battery maintenance or charging (I already bought the charger) and plan on doing it myself

the charger came with instruction shows the battery being charged on (and off) the bike

is there any advantage to taking the battery off the bike before charging??
thanks yall!

PeteH · Post by **PeteH** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 8:44 pm

No advantage on/off the bike.

If your Battery Tender came with the permanent-mounting ring pigtail, as most do, you can wire that to the battery and thread the cable down and let the pluggy end hang just below the cowl, so that you can plug it into the Tender unit when parked, without having to open the cowl or worse, pull the battery out of the bike. Pardon the run-on sentence.

MrChet · Post by **MrChet** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:32 pm

+1

This is exactly what I have done. In fact, I just ordered a couple more pigtails for my Buddy and even my car that gets parked for most of the Winter:

$4.98

http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-08 ... ery+tender

Just make sure you put the cap on the plug that's on the bike so you don't get corroded tips.

IIRC, my tender came with alligator style clips. Those would just clip onto the battery in place after removing the cowl.

Post by **ericalm** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:47 pm

I've used the tender on the Stella with both alligator clips and the quick disconnect. Both work great. (The quick disconnect is also the source for my accessory power. Many uses!)

I charge all my scoots with the battery in.

MrChet · Post by **MrChet** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 12:23 am

ericalm wrote:I've used the tender on the Stella with both alligator clips and the quick disconnect. Both work great. (The quick disconnect is also the source for my accessory power. Many uses!)

I charge all my scoots with the battery in.

Hmmm, great idea. I hadn't thought of using the pigtail as 12V accessory. Did you just use an extra pigtail and splice a lighter socket to connector (non-battery) end?

toeknee · Post by **toeknee** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 1:14 pm

Thanks for the help everyone. Sounds like a silly question, but I have no mechanical/automotive knowledge. Thanks for helping me get over my lack of knowledge

Post by **ericalm** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:23 pm

MrChet wrote:
ericalm wrote:I've used the tender on the Stella with both alligator clips and the quick disconnect. Both work great. (The quick disconnect is also the source for my accessory power. Many uses!)

I charge all my scoots with the battery in.
Hmmm, great idea. I hadn't thought of using the pigtail as 12V accessory. Did you just use an extra pigtail and splice a lighter socket to connector (non-battery) end?

You can buy a socket with a pigtail!
http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-08 ... 0041CDPQO/

I made the mistake of buying a USB with a pigtail for 3X as much. Thought I was all fancy and modern. Plug never worked right.

MrChet · Post by **MrChet** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:39 pm

Nice. Thanks for the link.

How do you have the cable routed to somewhere accesible? 6ft of cord I could route it to glove compartment I guess under the floor boards.

ericalm wrote:
MrChet wrote:
ericalm wrote:I've used the tender on the Stella with both alligator clips and the quick disconnect. Both work great. (The quick disconnect is also the source for my accessory power. Many uses!)

I charge all my scoots with the battery in.
Hmmm, great idea. I hadn't thought of using the pigtail as 12V accessory. Did you just use an extra pigtail and splice a lighter socket to connector (non-battery) end?
You can buy a socket with a pigtail!
http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-08 ... 0041CDPQO/

I made the mistake of buying a USB with a pigtail for 3X as much. Thought I was all fancy and modern. Plug never worked right.

Post by **ericalm** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:47 pm

MrChet wrote:Nice. Thanks for the link.

How do you have the cable routed to somewhere accesible? 6ft of cord I could route it to glove compartment I guess under the floor boards.

ericalm wrote:
MrChet wrote: Hmmm, great idea. I hadn't thought of using the pigtail as 12V accessory. Did you just use an extra pigtail and splice a lighter socket to connector (non-battery) end?
You can buy a socket with a pigtail!
http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-08 ... 0041CDPQO/

I made the mistake of buying a USB with a pigtail for 3X as much. Thought I was all fancy and modern. Plug never worked right.

It's routed up into the glove box, but it wasn't easy. I'm going to do a post about it as soon as I can. Stella's getting new tires and brakes this week.

toeknee · Post by **toeknee** » Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:36 pm

worked like a charm, checked it every hour for the first 3 (then fell asleep) when i woke up in the morning (6-7 hours later) i was fully charged!

thanks for the help yall!

PeteH · Post by **PeteH** » Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:57 pm

And the nice thing about the Battery Tender family is that you can hook it up and forget it. Unlike cheap constant-current chargers, or even 'trickle' chargers, the BT family is 'intelligent' in that it samples the charge on the battery and pumps either a base charging current, a slower charge as it reaches the top, and finally a maintenance mode that only starts charging if the voltage drops below a certain threshold. This means that you can hook it up and forget it. Mine stayed on the Tender all winter (other than when I started it up every couple of weeks or so).

Just don't forget it so much that you drive off without unhooking it.

Lokky · Post by **Lokky** » Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:20 pm

ericalm wrote:
MrChet wrote:
ericalm wrote:I've used the tender on the Stella with both alligator clips and the quick disconnect. Both work great. (The quick disconnect is also the source for my accessory power. Many uses!)

I charge all my scoots with the battery in.
Hmmm, great idea. I hadn't thought of using the pigtail as 12V accessory. Did you just use an extra pigtail and splice a lighter socket to connector (non-battery) end?
You can buy a socket with a pigtail!
http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-08 ... 0041CDPQO/

I made the mistake of buying a USB with a pigtail for 3X as much. Thought I was all fancy and modern. Plug never worked right.

the only issue I have with this is how it doesn't seem to have an inline fuse.

VinylDoctor · Post by **VinylDoctor** » Tue Apr 16, 2013 3:26 pm

I tryed charging a battery the other day.
my card was declined.