motorman Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 I was recently informed by a Honda dealer that the Battery Tender that I currently use has been shown to be lacking compared to the "New" kid on the block. I just recently went to the tender jr. after years with my radio shack "cycle" charger with a 1 amp charge rate. Finally went with the "smart" charger and now they say that the Noco Genius is the new "thing" Long story shortened, my Scorpion battery for the Vfr died and replaced it and got the Genius for 40%off. Seems cheaply made compared to the tender but is claimed not to "fry" a battery when left on for extended period. I never leave a tender on after the green light comes on. It's claim is "wicked smart": Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Oregonian Posted April 13, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 13, 2014 Since when do Battery Tender products fry batteries when left on for extended periods? I've left mine on various cars and motorcycles for years without any life expectancy issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud786 Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 I ran a Battery tender plus for several years, But I needed a better Tender for bigger batteries, so I got one at harbor freight, that provides, 6 amp for large batteries and 2 amps for vfr batteries, this thing rails over the bat tender plus, charges in half the time. Haven't touched the bat tender plus since. Not that I use a tender much normally, but when I do I go for the Harbor freight one, cause of its efficiency in comparison. I should put the plus in my saddle bag for emergency, but Id rather get a 3amp trickle for that purpose, cause in an emergency you need speed. I think the jr has a 1 amp rate and the plus a 1.4 amp rate at full charge mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Recalcitrance Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Battery Tenders don't fry batteries. They switch over to maintenance charge after reaching capacity. I think someone was trying to sell you something by doing what sales people should never do: speak negatively about a competitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V4 Rosso Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 and now they say that the Noco Genius is the new "thing"The NOCO charger does nothing that other battery tenders from e.g. Optimate and CTEK haven been doing for years. What model charger did you recently buy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motorman Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 I've got the tender jr. which is a .750 amp and the noco .750 amp and my old radio shack 1 amp. It seemed like the float voltage on the noco was lower at 12.7 vs. the tender's 13.2 A Honda dealer told me they fried a new battery over the winter with a tender. I've never leave my chargers on for extended periods. Noco advertises the Genius charger is "wicked smart' . My tender jr. is a straight 12V where the Noco is 6V or 12V but don't know when I would ever charge any 6V batteries. It's the same price as a tender and since I bought their battery they gave it to me for almost half off so I took the bait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer hondalover Posted April 13, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 13, 2014 I don't think any of the small chargers are sufficient to charge a battery. If the battery is a little low, then fine, use the Battery Tender, or CTEK, or the new "wicked smart" charger. But if a battery is dead, you need more than 1-1.5 amps to recharge it properly. I use my Battery Tender Plus to keep my battery "topped off", and some motorcycles are just harder on batteries than other motorcycles. I replace the battery in my Nighthawk about every other year, and I've had that bike since '96, so the VFR isn't too bad in my book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noobtastic14 Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 I have two chargers. A 1.5a charger in the garage that sits on the motorcycle throughout winter and occasionally is used to top off the wife's Jetta and a 1.5a charger under the hood of my car. The car has had up to six G31 batteries delivering almost 700AH of capacity and I still charge them with a 1.5A charger overnight (every night). So I guess my stance is, a manual 1.5A is a great charger for overnight use. A smart charger like the 1.5A in my garage is great for long periods of time. -Drew *in case anybody is wondering, this is my car. Its show not in competition season where I just run two bats under the hood Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Cogswell Posted April 13, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 13, 2014 My 5th gen's OEM battery lasted almost 7 years being on a 1999 vintage Battery Tender left on 24/7 when not ridden. The batteries in my truck were also 7 y.o. at replacement with a larger version of the B.T. left on 24/7. Removing the tender when the green light comes on defeats the tender's ability to top up the battery when the charge drops off. Set it and forget it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noobtastic14 Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 The optimas I just pulled out were 8 years old. They still started the car great but couldn't handle the load from the amps while driving. I attribute this to keeping them on the tender overnight for most of the last five years. -Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer YoshiHNS Posted April 13, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 13, 2014 Battery tenders are there to tend a battery, not charge it. You shouldn't need more than 1A to keep it up at voltage. They have circuitry so they only provide power when the battery drops below a certain voltage. Otherwise they just sit there showing the 'good voltage' green light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer FJ12Ryder Posted April 13, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 13, 2014 The optimas I just pulled out were 8 years old. They still started the car great but couldn't handle the load from the amps while driving. I attribute this to keeping them on the tender overnight for most of the last five years. -Drew I'm confused over this. Seems to me there is a much larger draw of amperage when starting the vehicle. The alternator should supply the voltage/amperage when the vehicle is running. Or am I missing something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motorman Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 That was my thought that maybe the circuitry on the new smart chargers may be more accurate at determining when they need to "trickle" the charge on a battery that is being monitored for an extended period. Maybe more of a positive "off" during the maintenance mode versus still letting a small amount of amperage into the battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud786 Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 The optimas I just pulled out were 8 years old. They still started the car great but couldn't handle the load from the amps while driving. I attribute this to keeping them on the tender overnight for most of the last five years. -Drew I'm confused over this. Seems to me there is a much larger draw of amperage when starting the vehicle. The alternator should supply the voltage/amperage when the vehicle is running. Or am I missing something? On a car you can have a dead battery and the alternator will run it, not on the vfr, the alternator charges the battery, and battery has to be good or bike wont run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noobtastic14 Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 The optimas I just pulled out were 8 years old. They still started the car great but couldn't handle the load from the amps while driving. I attribute this to keeping them on the tender overnight for most of the last five years. -Drew I'm confused over this. Seems to me there is a much larger draw of amperage when starting the vehicle. The alternator should supply the voltage/amperage when the vehicle is running. Or am I missing something? Yeah I understand the confusion. The stock alternator was 70A which ran the entire car with a single (small) battery to start it. I don't know how much power it takes to turn over, but its not much. The old batteries under the hood (pictured in the link) together had enough juice to start the car. The amplifiers pull over 300A of current from the alternators which put out about 410A of rated current. This means that I am playing mostly on alternator output rather than battery bank and that I need to keep my cars RPMs up over 2k to get the power I need to run everything at once. The batteries act like a "buffer" between the alternator and the amplifiers. The bass hits and the amps immediately demand energy from the alts. The alts in turn spin up to supply the demand. As the bass hits, and pauses, and hits again there is a fraction of time where the alt is reacting to the demand. So, the battery acts as a supplement between draws. This isn't much of an issue for 99.9% of cars driving because they don't have massive amplifiers and multiple/large alternators. The batteries were not buffering and I would get a micro voltage drop between the bass hitting and the alt supplying adequate voltage, then get a micro spike in voltage once the bass abruptly stopped and the alt was still turning out power. These spikes were extremely quick, but the protect circuits in the amps were sensitive enough to pick them up and kick off the amps thinking they had to much(15.3v) or not enough (10.5v) voltage. All this and they could still turn over the car in the morning lol. Dropped in bigger/new batteries gave them two nights charge on the tender and now I am pounding away without issue. Sorry for being so long winded. -Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud786 Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 I m developing a sonic gun, that will completely immobilize a boom boxers electrical system, I think it will sell well, almost everywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noobtastic14 Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Lucky for you there are respectable people out there that don't ever play at red lights/neighborhoods/or at night. Most of its play time is during sanctioned competitions. -Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VFR4Lee Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 My charger has been unused since I got lithium batteries in the bikes last year. So I'd say yes, to some extent it's a new tech knockout. It will take time for wider adoption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beck Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Retired my old Battery Tender about two years ago after something like 16/17 years of continuous use, It looks all beat up and the chord all split apart (but not yet frayed) from being kicked around for years on the garage floor next to my bike so I figured, It can't be charging my battery as well as it did when it was new, so it was a good time to retire it as a "preventative measure"..... Bought a slick looking maintenance charger from Black and Decker to replace it (it even has a nice red and black plastic casing that matches the bike!). I figure that it must have a more advanced design than my old Tender, so I'd be in good shape maybe at least for the next 10 years with it.....Surprise, surprise!...my battery began going south about a year later, despite good voltage from the bike's charging sytem and continuous use of the charger when parked. Changed out the battery thinking it was the problem and soon, the new replacement starting going bad quick too. Dug up the old tender from my junk box and started to use it again in place of the Black and Decker charger and the dying battery came back to normal just after a day on the Tender. From now on, I'll never consider anything else than another Deltron brand Battery Tender, If I ever need to buy another one. It's just really good quality and you just can't kill em! :fing02: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Switchblade Posted April 14, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 14, 2014 The optimas I just pulled out were 8 years old. They still started the car great but couldn't handle the load from the amps while driving. I attribute this to keeping them on the tender overnight for most of the last five years. -Drew I'm confused over this. Seems to me there is a much larger draw of amperage when starting the vehicle. The alternator should supply the voltage/amperage when the vehicle is running. Or am I missing something? Yeah I understand the confusion. The stock alternator was 70A which ran the entire car with a single (small) battery to start it. I don't know how much power it takes to turn over, but its not much. The old batteries under the hood (pictured in the link) together had enough juice to start the car. The amplifiers pull over 300A of current from the alternators which put out about 410A of rated current. This means that I am playing mostly on alternator output rather than battery bank and that I need to keep my cars RPMs up over 2k to get the power I need to run everything at once. The batteries act like a "buffer" between the alternator and the amplifiers. The bass hits and the amps immediately demand energy from the alts. The alts in turn spin up to supply the demand. As the bass hits, and pauses, and hits again there is a fraction of time where the alt is reacting to the demand. So, the battery acts as a supplement between draws. This isn't much of an issue for 99.9% of cars driving because they don't have massive amplifiers and multiple/large alternators. The batteries were not buffering and I would get a micro voltage drop between the bass hitting and the alt supplying adequate voltage, then get a micro spike in voltage once the bass abruptly stopped and the alt was still turning out power. These spikes were extremely quick, but the protect circuits in the amps were sensitive enough to pick them up and kick off the amps thinking they had to much(15.3v) or not enough (10.5v) voltage. All this and they could still turn over the car in the morning lol. Dropped in bigger/new batteries gave them two nights charge on the tender and now I am pounding away without issue. Sorry for being so long winded. -Drew Great explanation ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer hondalover Posted April 14, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 14, 2014 The optimas I just pulled out were 8 years old. They still started the car great but couldn't handle the load from the amps while driving. I attribute this to keeping them on the tender overnight for most of the last five years. -Drew I'm confused over this. Seems to me there is a much larger draw of amperage when starting the vehicle. The alternator should supply the voltage/amperage when the vehicle is running. Or am I missing something? Yeah I understand the confusion. The stock alternator was 70A which ran the entire car with a single (small) battery to start it. I don't know how much power it takes to turn over, but its not much. The old batteries under the hood (pictured in the link) together had enough juice to start the car. The amplifiers pull over 300A of current from the alternators which put out about 410A of rated current. This means that I am playing mostly on alternator output rather than battery bank and that I need to keep my cars RPMs up over 2k to get the power I need to run everything at once. The batteries act like a "buffer" between the alternator and the amplifiers. The bass hits and the amps immediately demand energy from the alts. The alts in turn spin up to supply the demand. As the bass hits, and pauses, and hits again there is a fraction of time where the alt is reacting to the demand. So, the battery acts as a supplement between draws. This isn't much of an issue for 99.9% of cars driving because they don't have massive amplifiers and multiple/large alternators. The batteries were not buffering and I would get a micro voltage drop between the bass hitting and the alt supplying adequate voltage, then get a micro spike in voltage once the bass abruptly stopped and the alt was still turning out power. These spikes were extremely quick, but the protect circuits in the amps were sensitive enough to pick them up and kick off the amps thinking they had to much(15.3v) or not enough (10.5v) voltage. All this and they could still turn over the car in the morning lol. Dropped in bigger/new batteries gave them two nights charge on the tender and now I am pounding away without issue. Sorry for being so long winded. -Drew Isn't the purpose of a capacitor to act as the "buffer", or in other words to store some amperage so the voltage wouldn't drop when you get a large momentary load? And another off topic comment, what do you do for the AF? Hopefully the cutbacks haven't effected your AFSC unless you were wanting to hang it up anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noobtastic14 Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Yes and no. The capacitor can charge/discharge quickly but it really is a band-aid for a charging problem. It does not create any energy, it just makes the alt charge it between hits. In most scenarios there is no need for a capacitor. A battery does the same job, but much better because it can maintain current into the amplifiers much for a much longer time. I've seen caps used for mids/highs amps in high Sound Quality applications, as well as "batcaps" which are a unique blend of battery reserve power and capacitor discharge rate. I am 2A7x5 which is a painter in the maintenance field, specifically I maintain the "stealth" or "low observable" systems on the F-22s. My job is currently critically manned, which means I'm not going anywhere ;) -Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted April 14, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 14, 2014 I was recently informed by a Honda dealer that the Battery Tender that I currently use has been shown to be lacking compared to the "New" kid on the block. I just recently went to the tender jr. after years with my radio shack "cycle" charger with a 1 amp charge rate. Finally went with the "smart" charger and now they say that the Noco Genius is the new "thing" Long story shortened, my Scorpion battery for the Vfr died and replaced it and got the Genius for 40%off. Seems cheaply made compared to the tender but is claimed not to "fry" a battery when left on for extended period. I never leave a tender on after the green light comes on. It's claim is "wicked smart": I had never heard of Noco until today. True, I don't pay a lot of attention to US-only brands these days, but I still found it a little odd that I had never even heard of the company before, and from what I've now read online, The Noco Company has been around since 1914... Hmmm. So, I did a little searching, and it appears that the company has indeed been around since 1914--as some kind of (battery?) chemical company. I could not find any battery charging related trademarks belonging to Noco prior to 2008, however, and the "Genius" mark dated just from 2009. The Seventh-gen has been around almost as long! According to Batterystuff, some of the Noco chargers are made in China (big surprise there), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think I know why they don't exactly mention this fact in their marketing materials... But a tip off on another forum led me to google "NOCO fake reviews" on Amazon and there I found some hilarious, yet not very surprising, discussions regarding the curious number of worshipful reviews by people with no significant review history of anything else, and only other Noco products in their wish-lists. In the comments section is this gem (from someone agreeing with a critical Noco battery charger review): "Funny how there are so many 5-star reviews in the past few months. And they all have hundreds of Yes votes. One of the reviews simply stated they bought one for their dad and it's exactly what he wanted. Why would approximately 130 people (out of 130), in a 2 month period no less, think that was helpful?" As for the Noco product itself, I have no idea, but I do know I'm not in any rush to replace my Tecmate Optimate smart chargers (in Europe) or my Battery Tenders (in the USA), which have served me well for many years without making me cringe at their transparent, brainless marketing hype and questionable marketing tactics. My WAG would be that the Noco product does what it says, more or less, which is pretty standard "smart charger" stuff. However, the ability of any smart charger to "revive" a damaged AGM battery is pretty limited, IMHO (having killed easily more than my weight in motorcycle batteries over the last 25 years), so all I really care about is a charger's ability to not allow me to kill them in the first place. I could not find any objective reviews of the Noco online, but it would be interesting to see how their chargers compared with the CTEK, Battery Tender and Optimate smart chargers in a hype-free environment... Ciao, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer luvtoleanit Posted April 15, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 15, 2014 With the newer li ion batteries having been proved out (I also run them on my other bikes) I see no need for traditional batteries or chargers any longer. I got one for the VFR recently and just need to install. My bikes sat for 3-4 months with no maintenance and all fired up from the first thumb of the starter recently. Lithium ion is here to stay and they are infinitely lighter..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer FJ12Ryder Posted April 15, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 15, 2014 Haven't there been some issues with the Li-ion batteries? Seems like I read that a couple guys had problems when they bought some on a group buy and experienced premature failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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