Investigating Lithium batteries a year or 2 ago, and they said Tender JR was compatiable. I didn't want to invest in another charger.

 

On a 900 pound bike I doubt you would notice a 15 pound lighter battery even if it were free which this one certainly isn't.

 

As far as charger for lith bike batteries go's,ponder this,motorcycles of any mfg/inc Hd dont do anything special done to the charging systems in their bikes to allow lithium motorcycle batteries to be used.

So with that said i'd think any battery charger for a std lead acid battery or newer gen agm lead acid battery of reasonable amperage (of .5/1/2/3/4/5amps or so ) should work just fine because as long as they deliver same type voltage to charge the battery as the motorcycle charging systems does.

But as already stated in this thread by other people chargers with desulfation mode should not be used on lithium bike batteries.

Now since we are talking maint type battery chargers I dont know if i'd fully trust some of the maint chargers on the market esp used on lithium bike batteries .

I say that because they are more sensitive to charge type / cond etc and could poss have srvc life affected if maint charger was to maybe charge to a too high voltage or too long before tapering back to low volt /low amp charge rate resulting in reduced srv'c life & or premature battery failure.

And thats an issue i was looking into in general with std lead acid or newer gen lead acid agm batteries in the other motorcycle forum i belong too because i was seeing a trend where guys running quality agm batteries in their bikes where experiencing significantly reduced srv'c life then normal for battery type & mfg which peaked my interest.

So for quite a while i would ask every person that posted they had battery failure asking for new battery rec what type battery had failed,its age & mfg and if they used a maint charger which is when after a while was seeing a steady theme/trend emerge.

That trend was approx 7-8 of 10 times someone posted they had a bike battery failure (talking all std lead acid or newer gen agm lead acid bike batt's & not lithium bike batteries) that 70-75% of the time they had been often using maint chargers if not using them /hooking them up every time they come home from a ride which really caught my attention.

It was quickly became apparent the majority of the people having premature battery failures were in fact using maint chargers (most 1.5amp version) which was something i was thinking was an underlying yet to be detected / discovered cause of premature bike battery failures.

Then i started doing the same thing keeping track of people having premautre battery failures on the classic car forum i belong to and guess what?

I found the same approx lvl of premature battery failures in classic cars were with guys using the 1.5 amp maint chargers too .

In the midst of all this i have mult vehicles with batteries that i had bought 3 small type 1.5 amp maint chargers & one 5amp maint charger for and decided to take a closer look at what was going on with them performance wise and guess what i found right off the bat.

That not one of the 3 1.5amp & 1 5amp maint charger i had actually went to the same same approx full charge voltage where they the were supposed to cut back to the much lower main volt charge.

The highest voltage & time it took for all but 1 of the 4 the maint chargers i had to reach full charge & then cut back to lower maint charge rate was inconsistent with 1 cutting off full charge rate early and another one staying at full charge rate much longer then the others and a 3rd in the middle of the other 2 maint chargers where 1 cut off high charge rate early & the other cut off full charge rate later .

And i actually had 1 1.5 amp maint charger that never cut back maint charger always staying at full rate of charge no matter how long it was on a battery where the other 3 maint chargers i had would easily hit full charge & cut back to it's maint charge ,but that one charger alawyas stayed on full charge rate.

So after i had the 1st hand experience of finding that i personally had maint chargers from diff mfgs that sowed to be inconsistent along with 1 that was defective brand new always staying on full charge rate all the time never cutting back to its lower maint charge on any battery i tried it on in showed to me they had substantial design and or quality control issues that looked to be in more then a few cases possibly leading to premature battery failure

And on top of that i also had quite a few people in the other motorcycle & classic car forums i belong to where i found many people experiencing premature battery failure there were also in fact using maint chargers either all time or often too which led me to the following conclusion for myself which is.

From all the feedback i got from all the battery failures on 2 diff unconnected websites (motorcycle & classic cars) along with my personal exerience testing 4 maint chargers against eachother with 2 of 3 working units having inconsistent cutoff voltage & times and 1 unit never cutting back to it's lower maint charge mode that there seems to be an issue with at the very least the earlier vintage maint chargers that hit the market.

The main issue i found seems to be that quite a few of the maint chargers seem to be charging batteries to too high of a voltage and or too long of a time period before actually cutting back to the lower maint charge rate which over time like 1-2 yrs to damage it /warp plates etc due to over charging with batteries that have many yr rep of lasting 5-6 yrs on avg when no maint charger is used and people just run a manual charger on the battery 1x every 2-4 wks or so (once a month on avg esp in off season winter storage) to keep charge topped off & to reduce sulfation too.

And thats not to mention the issue i had with with 1 maint charger not ever detecting battery is at full charge always staying on full charge rate never cutting back to it's lower charge rate that could easily ruing a battery in not too long of a time frame if someone was not paying attention not noticing it never cuts back to a lower charge rate.

So other then the 1 maint charger (of the 3 1.5 amp units i have )that seem'd to be working properly cutting back to it's lower maint charge rate in between the other 2 1.5 amp maint chargers that had issues where they either charged too long to too high of a voltage or too short of a charge time before cutting back to it's lower charge rate & 1 was flat out defective never cutting back to a lower charger rate no matter how long you left it on any battery.

So with the testing i did with the maint chargers i have that showed they were inconsistent on when they cutback to lower maint charge rate and had 1 defective that never cut back to low maint charge rate along with many premature battery failures i had tracked and asked questions on within 2 diff online forums for motorcycle & classic cars where many people experiencing premature battery failures were in fact also using maint chargers all the time or often i have come to the following conclusion which is:

There seems to be some lvl of maint chargers on the market that are either charging batteries too high of a voltage and or too long before cutting back to the lower maint charge rate or never cut back to the lower maint charge rate that are vover charging the batteries resulting in preamture battery failure.

Since the majority of the maint chargers involved with the battery failures i am referring to were mostly the 1.5am versions they aren't that powerful being only 1.5amps which took longer / 1-1.5-2 yrs for those batteries to fail.

So what i do now to avoid any issues with premature battery failure due to an improper functioning main charger is i use 1 of the the 2 seeming most consistent properly working maint chargers i have (either the 1.5amp -schumaker or other Deltran 5 amp ) charger that seem'd to perf best to fully charge the batteries (esp in winter storage) 1x every 3wks + - a few days.

Then i remove them from the battery shortly after reaching full charge and going to the lower maint charge rate which takes approx 2.5-3.5 hrs or so to reach full charge when sitting for approx 3wks.

Yeh that requires a bit more thought and time on my part but hey,its gets me out in the garage looking at the Bike & #'s matching classic car i have owned since 1978 (69 chevelle ss 396 4spd) to charge the batteries for mult vehicles & or bikes every 3wks or so.

Thats just the 1st hand exp i had testing multiple maint chargers i have against each other along with actual failure info/data i obtained from 2 totally unconnected websites on prematurely failed std and agm design lead acid motorcycle & classic car batteries that said to me there was more then just a casual connection between some of the maint chargers on the market today and premature battery failure when certain maint chargers were used on std and agm type lead acid motorcycle and classic car batteries that were too often in the equation of batteries that had failed prematurely.

Scott

 

Have you measured the "lower main" and "full charge" voltages provided by your tenders with a 4(5)-digit voltmeter?
According to experience available current (Amps) is less important than providing a clean and steady voltage during long storage periods.

 

Maybe, but there are other factors as well - longevity for one thing. The other is a 2 year warranty. I could be wrong but most batteries have a 1 year warranty.

 

True, and that played in my battery choice not long ago.
Two year free replacement on the Duracell Battery for my 'King from Batteries Plus, walk in - walk out local store made my choice easy.
Lith/ion batteries are unique indeed, with nuances of their own.

 

I have no experience with lithium ion batteries for motorcycles...but i have a battery powered bike.. and they work great for it... li batteries have to be treated a little different than lead/acid.. first they should never be over charged.. second they last a lot longer if they are kept around 90% charged.. so depending on how the li battery is built for the motorcycle this may be a good choice or bad choice for a motorcycle, if the battery is built to stay at around 17volts or so that would be good because the bike would charge it to around 13-14 volts and keep the battery in its 'good' zone.. also li batteries loose very little charge from just sitting around (wintertime) so you may never have to put it on a tender (the builders usually recommend topping it up every 3 months or so)also if the battery is kept in a cool area (30-45f) they will keep pretty much indefinitely and not loose their charge... there are some bad things about li batteries that you might want to consider, one is if they are damaged or overcharged they can blow up ( ) although it is very, very rare because the batteries have built into the case electronics that protect the battery from overvoltage/undervoltage/overcharge and will shut down the battery if it is in danger... the other issue that li batteries have is that they don't make as much power when they are real cold (below around 25f) , this is easily dealt with by trying to start the bike with the battery for a few seconds and then waiting about 15-20 seconds and trying again, the first time will stress the battery and warm it up so that it makes more power for the second try..this is not an issue for most motorcylists as they don't do a lot of riding in frigid weather... the real advantage of li batteries is that they make lots of juice for a small package, weigh alot less, and last a long time (if treated right)...