Battery Charging and Battery Tenders

This is a 2 part question:

1. When you charge your battery, do you disconnect it from the bike? I always have done this fearing the charger could damage the electronics on the XJ. But I never really knew if this is correct. Any input?

2. My son bought a battery tender from Pacific Battery. It has permanent connectors that you leave connected to the battery when you run the bike. When it comes time to put it on the tender, you leave it connected to the bike and just hook up the battery tender and plug it in. Has anyone else used this brand of battery tender before? I never heard of them but he saw it in a sportbike magazine and ordered it.

Thanks

 

You leave the battery connected to the bike.
you boost a bike from a NON running car.

Maybe dis-connect if you're trying to salvage a "dead" battery with a massive boost. From my experience, when they go bad, they never come back.

 

As long as you're not charging at some ridiculous voltage or amperage (and you should NEVER be doing that anyway) and as TtR mentioned, not boosting from a RUNNING car -- then leaving it in the bike shouldn't be a problem.
Charging should be at ~14v, and less than 2 amps.

Battery Tenders are amazing creatures - they charge it when it needs it, then they monitor it using a "float" charge to keep it in top charge without damaging it. Excellent chargers.

 

This is what I use to mantain my batteries when not in use.



The small one just maintains the battery over the winter but the bigger one will recharge a battery from flat. Both could be used with the batt conected to the bike but I prefer to remove them compleatly. As you see they are mounted on my shed. Best part is Zero running cost.

I actualy use the big one to charge a car battery which I take to my lock up (which is not near my house) and by conecting a 1500 watt inverter use the car battery to run my lighting and if require power tools

 

How many watts is the large one?

Heck how big is the small one as well? Looks like a harbor freight special.

 

Here is a Link to the small panel with all the sizes and specs.

Here is a Link to large panel again with sizes and spec

So the large one is 18w and the small one 1.5w but being in Scotland I imagine we would not get maximum wattage all the time. (even in summer it rains) I would think about 3/4 power is average in the summer and perhaps 1/2 power in the winter.