what is everyone using to maintain there battery for storage

Im shipping off to korea in a month for a year long and will be storing my truck in a storage unit. my batterys only 3 months old, do you guys think it will be dead after a year gone? its just a cheapo battery but its just another cost i would like to avoid. Btw no plugs in the storage for a trickle charger.

 

Guys
I have used Battery Tender with great success. Also you can use the Battery tender Plus on gel cell batteries along with the regular batteries.

 

Nothing the cold killed the battery in my coupe..Damn it

 

HF has always worked great for me!

 

I'd pull the battery out and store it somewhere else where you could keep a battery tender on it or even sell or give it to someone else. They will hold up a long time if they are clean and dry on the outside and you disconnect the cables though.

The guy I bought my wife's mini van from lived up in the mountains and it was -20 degrees at his house the night I bought the van. He had the battery stored in his utility room to keep it warm and to keep if from going dead. That is a bit extreme but the van did fire right up after we put the battery in it.

 

Do the HF tenders work with gel cell batteries?

 

I have several Sears charger/maintainers that work just great and have for several winters. Use them on seasonal equipment and motor cycle/scooters etc.

Had a Battery Tender brand for 24 volt (aka 28 v) aircraft battery and it ruined high $$$ battery. After the battery went bad I checked the output and the Battery Tender and it was 32+ volts.....waaaay above spec. Be along time before I buy one of their products again.


Ray

 

I use a tender made by C-TEK. They offer several models, basic just maintains the battery. I bought the "deluxe" model and it's great. I will monitor your battery for storage, can be used as a jumper box on a dead battery, a charger like a traditional unit, and I can use it on any battery. 6 volt, 12 volt, sealed like an optima, etc. I did a lot of research on them as at the time I was the sales manager for a national performance parts warehouse distributor. Honestly the above mentioned work great a swell, just for us the price, quality, and options made our decision to carry the C-TEK units fairly easy.

 

Harbor Freight, 8.95 and cheaper on sale. I live in Florida in Winter and New Mexico in the Summer. I have cars, equipment and motorcycles in both places. I leave a HF tender on a backhoe for 6 months at a time. Just replaced that battery 2 days ago, It was bought Feb. 2007. I have 25 of those little chargers. I believe the output is 100 Milli amps, thats not much.

 

I bought a used Porsche that came with a Schumaker trickle charger in the trunk and wired to the battery. After the first year I started using the charger anytime the car was sitting around. I drove the car occasionally 5 1/2 years. When I sold it the battery (Interstate) was 9 years old, it was rated for 60 months. It was still kicking good.
Now I have a small Battery Minder that I alternate between two cars.

 

What should be the optimum voltage and current to keep a battery in good shape all winter if the car is not in use ?
I may have spare electronic parts to make one for free, and I just need one

 

I use a car quest cbc 1005 1.5 amp automatic charger and will use jumper cables and hook 3 to 4 batterys to it. I have used this thing to bring back 2 optima batterys from the dead.

 

the reason I asked is that I put the harley away for the winter, I moved from chicago to get away from the cold so when it gets cold I puss out and park the bike. It is an 03 and on the 5th battery. I have unhooked them and kept them in the warm and even cooked one on a trickle charger because I forgot to unhook it. so I started reading reviews and battery tender has way too many horror stories from the tender melting to charging 12.00 to use the warranty. Just wanted the H.A.M.B.s wisdom before I bought one. Thanks guys.

 

If its an automatic charger it should shut off when it reaches full charge.

 

You can also use the regular charger you have and hook it up to a timer that will cycle on and off for an hour or so a day. You can also gang batteries together (hook them in parallel, not in series - hooked up like when you jump start). That way you can charge/maintain several batteries with one charger.
Also, don't forget the solar chargers. Most of those don't shut off though.

 

3 battery tender Jr.s ($29.00) in use here for about 3 years working flawlessly.
I do it this way so that they or their supplied connectors can stay with car and I just plug them in to an extension cord. Of course if batteries are out, you can use them on a bench too.

 

Vibration, big twins shake

You running gel-filled batteries?

 

I have seen more than a few cases where cars burned to the ground in storage and the root cause was an explosion of a battery hooked to a trickle charger.

Those are probably rare cases, but I still don't know if it's worth the risk to me.

 

I use the C-Tek. Works for me.

 

I've been using the Schumacher Battery Maintainer for years on all my cars and they work very well. And they work on 6 volt or 12 volt batteries too. You can get them at WalMart for $19.00 each, and are available almost anywhere. They are also the same as the ones Sears sells. Here's their specs:

The Schumacher Automotive SpeedCharge Battery Maintainer and Charger is an exceptional battery charger that works on both 6- and 12-volts batteries with 1.5-amp output current. It features a fully automatic microprocessor controlled charger that keep the batteries at full charge using float-mode monitoring. This automotive battery charger is perfect for charging small batteries and great for maintaining small as well as large batteries found on motor cycles, classic cars, RVs, boats and more. The LED indicator lights on the charger shows three status settings: charging, charged, and trouble. The Schumacher battery charger includes quick-disconnect harness for permanent attachment of ring connectors. The ring connectors work great for hard-to-reach motorcycle batteries. This Schumacher automotive battery charger and maintainer is easy to use and keeps your batteries fully charged.

Schumacher SEM-1562A 1.5 Amp Automotive Battery Maintainer and Charger:
1.5-amp charger and maintainer
For both 6- and 12-volt batteries
Microprocessor controlled/ fully automatic switches to float-mode monitoring when battery is at full charge
LED indicator lights show charging, charged and trouble Quick-disconnect harness snap either connector into place in seconds
Reverse-hookup protection
Model SEM-1562a
2.5-lbs.

 

Yep, works great.

 

Don't use 1, but would like to find 1 to keep my battery charged.
The older I get the less my battery stays charged

 

I never used to use one but with this modern gas that evaporates so easily It can be a PITA when the battery runs down pumping gas into the carb.

Keep an eye on the Sears sale catalogs. They put a charger/maintainer on sale for around 20 bucks quite often in the winter. I was surprised when I discovered that the maintainer that I bought was in fact a charger that brought a dead battery back after sitting for years in only a couple of hours. I keep one on my 56 project car so that I can start it up and dream. Gotta keep the juices stirred. When they first came out I could not justify one. Too pricey for me with multiple cars but at twenty bucks or so It's nice to have a fully charged battery when the mood strikes to start it up in the winter time.

 

Uhhhh, ya' think??

Bob

 

have used battery tender on both cars the oldest is 6 years and never had any issues

 

yea it shakes it is 13 1/2 to 1 compression, 258 lift cam, McCooney carb, htcc cnc ported heads, plus more. but it gose dead during storage. When I was more mentally unstable and I rode all winter (toys for tots in chicago in december) it didn't go dead. I bit the bullet this year and bought one from harley and it cranks so sweet, just too much coin not to try to protect it a little. Im embarresed to say that I don't remember if this one is gel or not but the others were not.

 

Battery Tender Jr. rules...been using one 3 years and love it...always at 13.01 volts and believe me, I checked it often the first six months I had it.......Joe

 

Storage? I drive it year round, rain, snow or sun. In 35 years have never stored a car, built to be driven.

 

Been using battery tenders for years on many vehicles, bikes, tractor, quads. They have always done their job without fail. I think I currently have 6 of them.

 

Me too...