Battery storage

[haulin' daze]

I'm sure this has been touched upon in the past, but I haven't read anything about it lately, so here goes.

I keep my 05 in a friends unheated garage for the winter. I do what's needed to it  then take the battery out and bring it home. This is what I keep it connected to in the basement during our nice, warm ne england winters:




Apparently this little auto shut off charger is not doing the job, as I've had to replace the battery the last two springs (those suckers are not cheap).

My questions are:
What do you guys use for a charger? (for the guys who take their batteries out)
And do I need to buy a voltmeter and constantly check the battery throughout the winter?

Any thoughts would be great so I don't have to shell out another $80 or so in april, and so I can get the bike out of his garage in a matter of minutes!

[Medic09]

We use a couple of Battery Tender Jr. for our bikes.  I don't leave the battery on all the time.  Too many batteries/bikes.  (Yikes!  Did I really say that?)  I rotate them so they all get full charge once a  month.  That's always been sufficient.

Where in Mass. are you?  I well remember that wet heavy NE snow.  I was pretty surprised when we moved out here and the snow was light and fluffy!

[Mustang]

even though the battery tenders are supposed to be automatic and go to float mode when the battery is charged .........they tend to boil the acid out of the battery over time and if you didn't keep the level up over the lead plates you now have an $80 paperweight .
Last winter I ran a car battery in Tigger 3 with the sidecar on it and left the bikes small battery on the shelf with a tender hooked to it ......when I went to use the bike battery a couple of weeks ago , I discovered it was "dry" and even though a volt meter showed 13+ volts at the terminals , the battery wouldn't even click the starter relay let alone turn the starter motor . Would run the bikes lights though for a short while  :roll:

[Medic09]

+1 to Mustang's observation.  Seems a similar comment from my dad or FIL might be why we first started doing occasional recharges.

Mustang, do you think the same happens with 'sealed' batteries, given that the internal setup is different?

[Mustang]

 yep unless you are talking about an AGM battery which is an whole nother animal in itself .
And BTW for what it's worth I have never been able to get more than 2 years tops out of any of the Tigger batterys in 14 years of Tiger ownership .

[EvilBetty]

I pulled an AGM battery out of the Buell Blast that was just starting to die and was 7 years old.

Based on that I installed one of these in the Tiger last month.

http://www.powerstarsla.com/pm121276.html

[Medic09]

I did, indeed, intend AGM batteries - because they are significantly different.

EB, that's one cheap price for an AGM battery.  I typically pay almost twice that for the batteries in each of my bikes.

[haulin' daze]

Wow, that Power Star is cheap. So basiclly what you guys are saying is that whether I hook it up to my tender, or let it sit in my bike without starting it for 4 or 5 month, the result will be a big bag o' sh!t.    There must be something else I could do so I don't have to buy a new battery every spring.  

[Mustang]

the pic of that powerstar batt clearly says sealed lead acid battery  right on the case
I don't think it's an AGM batt. too cheap.............. Agm's typically sell for around 80- 100 bucks

[Nimrod11]

There must be something else I could do so I don't have to buy a new battery every spring.  

Yeap - ship it down to Brazil andI can ride it for you all through summer (December and January)...   :lol:

[Mustang]

There must be something else I could do so I don't have to buy a new battery every spring.  

ride it all year and don't store it  

[haulin' daze]

Nimrod and Mustang...you guys suck for making sense  :D .

[Colonel Nikolai]

I take the battery out of the bike and put it up OFF THE FLOOR WITHOUT a tender for the winter. I've gotten 4 years out of my Sprint battery. Now that I own a 96 Tiger, I intend to do the same.

If you store it on the concrete floor, you will ruin the battery in a few weeks.

[EvilBetty]

My dad has had boats for years that require multiple batteries and all the associated storage and charging.  He's tried quite a few "maintainers" and says they dry out the batteries as well.

He pulls them from the boats and stores them on the floor on 2x12 strips, and then just charges them once a month.  Usually gets 5 years out of each one.

Mustang:  The language on the site says it's a sealed AGM battery, but I agree I've never seen an AGM like this before.  It really looks like any other sealed lead acid battery.

[Nimrod11]

Joking apart, you could always put the charger on a timer and have it on just for some time - sort of automating EvilBetty's dad's process. How long for? I would suggest as less as possible, making sure the voltage keeps up.

I have also worked with some large industrial size UPS systems and they had a similar system - they floated for some time and then shut off the charging and just monitored the voltage.