General maintenance question

[basketcase]

The organization of our board is such that I couldn't figure where to put this question, since is it not strictly a K bike question.

I own two battery maintainers: a Battery Tender, and a Yuasa. The Battery Tender was acquired first, say, five years ago, and the Yuasa last year. The Yuasa has a test mode that the Battery Tender lacks.

I have an accessory plug wired with a male/female two-prong plug to hook the Battery Tender to the bike using the BMW sockets on the bike.

Will the polarities on both maintainers be the same?

Put another way, are the plugs interchangable?

[Rob Nye]

Rick,

I am not familiar with the Yuasa charger however I believe there is a standard.

The connectors for the battery tender (I can not remember the actual name for this item) always have the exposed part as the positive lead. For example on the lead from the bike the exposed (male) barrel is negaitive. This is to prevent any chance of shorting through inadvertant contanct with a ground.

I am 99% sure I have this right, before you go plgging stuff on let's see if anyone else chimes in to either confirm or correct.

Best,

Rob Nye

[Rich]

I don't know the answer to the question, but I wanted to throw something else out there. I just picked up a battery tender for an 04 R1150RT and learned something new in the process that I want to pass along. The older battery tenders are not compatible with the new gel cell batteries, as they cannot take the higher voltage that the older battery tenders put out. BMW makes a new charger for the gel cells. The output voltage is lower and the gell cell will supposedly last longer by using the newer chargers designed for them. This info came from my dealer, so if any of you are using the old chargers with the gell cell batteries, you might want to check this out for yourself.

Happy riding!

[MCMXCIVRS]

Originally posted by Rob Nye
Rick,

I am not familiar with the Yuasa charger however I believe there is a standard.

The connectors for the battery tender (I can not remember the actual name for this item) always have the exposed part as the positive lead. For example on the lead from the bike the exposed (male) barrel is negaitive. This is to prevent any chance of shorting through inadvertant contanct with a ground.

I am 99% sure I have this right, before you go plgging stuff on let's see if anyone else chimes in to either confirm or correct.

Best,

Rob Nye

I'll vouch for the final 1%.

[oldcarkook]

Cycle Gadgets' accessory plug adapter might be your answer.
http://www.cyclegadgets.com/images/PL-PAC-002_thumb.jpg

Also, you'll find more on the gel battery topic under this post too.
Gel Batteries versus doin' acid (http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1194)

The center button on the tip is the positive connection and the walls are the negative connection.

[basketcase]

The Yuasa products can be viewed at the link below:

http://www.yuasabatteries.com/

I have the Supershot model, with a testing mode, recovery for sulfated batteries, and float mode. Every once in a while, they run a sale special in which you can get the maintainer, a set of motorcycle jumper cables, and a battery tester all in a package.

I also have a 12 volt circuit tester that I can use to determine which pole is hot. If it is the same as the Battery Tender, I can use the Yuasa for the K with the plug I already have.

The Battery Tender will then be consigned to duty with the riding lawn mower.

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Added via Edit: 10/25/03

The polarities are the same, and my old faithful jumper wired with a BMW plug is still in service. So I'm switching to the Yuasa for the K, in view of the advanced features.

Thanks again for the feedback.