Battery Tenders

I just got the BMW Charger +. Works with canbus & all other batteries on motorcycles, and has a few advantages that I don't see on other chargers:

- design is plain & simple (I like)
- can be walmounted easy
- 2 line alpha numeric display tells you what is going on with the charging usine words & percentages - I prefer that to multicoloured lights.
- easy to butcher the cable so you can connect in to other pigtails (like Noco SAE etc) & use on all bikes.

This was actually cheaper than the optimate 4 in my market - £60 off eBay for brand new, sold by a BMW dealer.

I never really liked how glitzy the optimate's look, and not sure if they can be wallmounted.
 
UK_r18_Classic said:
I just got the BMW Charger +. Works with canbus & all other batteries on motorcycles, and has a few advantages that I don't see on other chargers:

- design is plain & simple (I like)
- can be walmounted easy
- 2 line alpha numeric display tells you what is going on with the charging usine words & percentages - I prefer that to multicoloured lights.
- easy to butcher the cable so you can connect in to other pigtails (like Noco SAE etc) & use on all bikes.

This was actually cheaper than the optimate 4 in my market - £60 off eBay for brand new, sold by a BMW dealer.

I never really liked how glitzy the optimate's look, and not sure if they can be wallmounted.
Click to expand...
I used an old BMW plug charger I had on the R18. I’d added normal battery tender plugs when I added heated gear on my other bikes, so hadn’t used it in many years.

Tried it on the R18 and the old BMW charger worked great. Saved me having to get another charger.
 
The general theme is that any old battery charger / tender will work fine if connected directly to the battery via a pigtail of some sort - cheapest option.

If you want to use the built in 12v DIN socket on the left of the bike, you need a canbus compatible charger (BMW charger +, optimate 4, sure there are many others out there).
 
UK_r18_Classic said:
The general theme is that any old battery charger / tender will work fine if connected directly to the battery via a pigtail of some sort - cheapest option.

If you want to use the built in 12v DIN socket on the left of the bike, you need a canbus compatible charger (BMW charger +, optimate 4, sure there are many others out there).
Click to expand...

I just bought a simple, microprocessor controlled battery charge/tender from ebay. It has the typical spring loaded clamps on the ends that directly attaches to the battery's terminals. Works great with my other bikes.. So then if I get a standard 12v D plug/cigarette lighter male plug and attach the the charger's clamps to the wired end of the cig plug it should work with my 18's female D socket?
 
Adrian R said:
I just bought a simple, microprocessor controlled battery charge/tender from ebay. It has the typical spring loaded clamps on the ends that directly attaches to the battery's terminals. Works great with my other bikes.. So then if I get a standard 12v D plug/cigarette lighter male plug and attach the the charger's clamps to the wired end of the cig plug it should work with my 18's female D socket?
Click to expand...
Adrian,

The plug on the left of the bike is for charging using a Can Bus charger which uses a different method than directly connecting a charger to the battery using spring connectors or the pigtail connector. Some chargers like the Optimate 4 provide both connectors that can be swapped. You have to perform a simple step that changes the charger from conventional charging mode to Can Bus charging mode as well as the connector. I use my Optimate 4 to charge my riding lawnmower too. If your charger doesn’t provide Can Bus functionality you only want to use the spring clips on the battery or the pigtail connector they should have had pre-installed on the bike to connect directly to the battery.

Tom
 
Don't discount the BMW Charger plus when considering these - it does canbus as well as the standard charging, and has a much more 'grown up' interface with words & percentages to say what it is doing.

Price wise, these are the same or less than the optimate 4 (at least in the UK over eBay) for brand new products.

If you want a wall mounted, looks good option - I would recommend the BMW one, expecially for 1 or 2 bikes. If you are moving it between half a dozen bikes & like a trailing unit on the floor, the optimate is probably better.

Can you just wire up a 12v din cigarette plug to your basic charger & expect it to work? NOPE. Only a canbus charger will work with the onboard socket.

A basic charger will work fine, but must be connect directly to the actual battery using some sort of pigtail adaptor (or direct connected with the spring loaded clamp things). A basic (non canbus - cheap) charger will not work via the on board socket, even if you have the right plug to fit it in the socket.
 
Last edited:
Just resurrecting this thread. It seems that Ya'll are saying that it is in fact okay to just hook up a battery tender directly to the battery terminals while it is connected to the bike....Right? Please advise.
 
There’s a lot of very useful info on this topic on the site, I went through it all myself 6 months ago taking heed from owners before me. To save you time, in short……

Buy a proper CANBUS charger.

The electronics are very sensitive. I tried my ‘normal’ trickle chargers and they just didn’t work. Getting pigtail leads onto the battery is a faff anyway and I didn’t want to go messing. I bought an Optimate 4 CanBus edition for about £70 (in the UK). BMW do their own charger. America probably has its own makes too. Works a treat, plug straight into the DIN socket, switch on and forget about it. 👌
 
bigalcam said:
Just resurrecting this thread. It seems that Ya'll are saying that it is in fact okay to just hook up a battery tender directly to the battery terminals while it is connected to the bike....Right? Please advise.
Click to expand...
Rufus said:
There’s a lot of very useful info on this topic on the site, I went through it all myself 6 months ago taking heed from owners before me. To save you time, in short……

Buy a proper CANBUS charger.

The electronics are very sensitive. I tried my ‘normal’ trickle chargers and they just didn’t work. Getting pigtail leads onto the battery is a faff anyway and I didn’t want to go messing. I bought an Optimate 4 CanBus edition for about £70 (in the UK). BMW do their own charger. America probably has its own makes too. Works a treat, plug straight into the DIN socket, switch on and forget about it. 👌
Click to expand...
I have my chargers hooked directly to the battery along with heated gear leads on all my bikes but the R18.

The R18 battery access is very tight, so it is much easier to use the Powerlet plug and a Canbus charger. I also use the Powerlet plug for my heated gear and in warmer weather a USB charger.

I had an old BMW branded Powerlet charger from at least 15 years ago that I use on the R18. I’ve slowly replaced my Battery Tender chargers on the other bikes to Optimate and may replace the old BMW charger with an Optimate Canbus in the future. I’ve had the Optimate recover a deeply discharged battery that a Bsttery Tender couldn’t do anything to restore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top