great battery article

[dc112675]

Just a thought, but I was wondering if you could hook up the wires from an onboard charger to the battery, and then splice them at the end and make a connector for them.  That way you could plug them into the charger when needed to, and then roll up the cord and tuck it away when you didn't.  Then you wouldn't have to remove the seat everytime?!?  I'm thinking a connector like one of these would do the trick:



or this:


I think the main concern is making sure there aren't any exposed wires to hit  metal.  Anyway, just a thought.  dc

[Greg Cothern]

I think the Battery Tender offering has a short battery lead that you leave on the bike and hide it behind a side cover or such.

[Curtis_Valk]

Greg is right.  I don't know if the chargers that Charles is referring to has them, but the Battery Tender brand comes with a pigtail that you leave on the bike and another pigtail with alligator clips for other uses.

They connect to the charger cord with an sae connector shown here: http://www.answers.com/topic/sae-connector.  If you make your own, I'd still use the sae connector instead of the ones you showed because they have a weatherproof cap when not in use.

I forgot to go by Harbor Freight after work today so I'm going to keep rotating my Battery Tenders around.  The good news is that my new Valkyrie already has a pigtail installed!

Curtis

[Charles S Otwell]

The float chargers were on for $4.99 so I bought a couple of them and I'm re placing the alligator clips with terminal ends and mounting straight to the battery , the charger will tuck nicely into the tool pouch under the side cover. this way I'll always have the charger with the bike. I keep my tools in my fork bag anyway.

[kdf9511]

I picked up one of those $4.99 float chargers for the Van recently.  I killed the bat in it with letting it set and throing the 10 amp charger on it about once a month.  Supriseingly I don't seem to drive it much since I got the bike.  Go figure.