Battery Tender

[duneslider]

Has anyone measured the parasitic drain on these when just sitting parked? Just curious how much drain there is when sitting? Self-discharge of an AGM should be around 1-2% per month on a new battery and it appears people are seeing about that much a day?

I will second, all batteries in vehicles will benefit from an occasional top off with a charger. Most cars will not fully top off a battery, especially AGM batteries. That is why most people don't see longer life out of an AGM battery who only drive on road. If you do a lot of offroad driving you will always benefit from an AGM and see longer life. I have been seeing about 7 years out of the last couple optimas and the last Diehard Platinum I bought started showing signs of age at about 8 years. I have never had a sealed lead acid last that long and several have left me stranded offroad when plates shorted due to vibration.

 

[Deadman]

This makes me even happier that my ASS is gone. Let it charge for the $.02 in gas it saves. Not worth the dead battery headache.

 

[rjdelp7]

I own 3 vehicles. I do not leave them connected to the Battery tenders. In fact, I don't trust them and do not recommend them. They have cooked 2 batteries on me. They static charge to over 13.5 volts(voltage green light comes on), which begins to boil the battery. Battery Tender warrantied one, because it was getting too hot. It was 131 degrees. I call that a fire hazard. The dealer told me cars must be driven every 10 days. I find that hard to believe, that every car on the lot gets started that often. It isn't in the manual. One week should not be a problem. I disconnect the battery for over 10 days. I charge all my vehicles every month or so. It keeps them desulfated(build up on plates/cells). I have a craftsman charger maintianer. It charges to 12.8-13.0. When the 'full charge' light comes on, I unhook it. Why spend so much on a vehicle to hardly drive it. A Expedition is not a sports car or collector vehicle. It is a bad investment, with a huge depreciation.

 

[lbv150]

On my '16 I installed permanently in the engine compartment a sealed marine battery charger 6amp and ran the AC plug out by the tow hook. Just unplug the extension cord and go. Even if it got driven every day it gets plugged in.

 

[Deadman]

My 18 Expedition just sat 2-3 weeks and It fired right up. Seems crazy that others are having charging issues. My "ASS" is shut off.....

 

[rjdelp7]

On my '16 I installed permanently in the engine compartment a sealed marine battery charger 6amp and ran the AC plug out by the tow hook. Just unplug the extension cord and go. Even if it got driven every day it gets plugged in.

Overkill and not needed. You will probably shorten the life of your battery. 6A charge is too high, 1a-2a is trickle.

 

[lbv150]

Overkill and not needed. You will probably shorten the life of your battery. 6A charge is too high, 1a-2a is trickle.

Nope I get 10+ on vehicle batteries. When I do change out a battery I do so because of age usually 6-7 years then it goes in a piece of equipment for many more years until they are shot, first to go is a dead cell. A good charger will ramp up or down as needed. The one I use has auto temp, 3 stage and drops to a maintenance charge. My boats have 20amp three stage chargers....First responder vehicles all have onboard chargers too, look in any firehouse.

 

[Fozzy]

My 18 Expedition just sat 2-3 weeks and It fired right up. Seems crazy that others are having charging issues. My "ASS" is shut off.....

Mine has no problem starting at 12.4v. And my battery always passes the load test. If you have time take a reading and pic of your sitting voltage. My guess is the average person running kids, grocery’s and even short commutes. The ASS stops the engine and restarts it more times than the alternator can replenish in the time driven. Slowly adds up if you don’t go on long trips.


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[Deadman]

Mine has no problem starting at 12.4v. And my battery always passes the load test. If you have time take a reading and pic of your sitting voltage. My guess is the average person running kids, grocery’s and even short commutes. The ASS stops the engine and restarts it more times than the alternator can replenish in the time driven. Slowly adds up if you don’t go on long trips.


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Absolutely the ASS stops the charging and not only stops charging, but puts a huge draw on it. I'll keep my idle time!

 

[Fozzy]

Has anyone measured the parasitic drain on these when just sitting parked? Just curious how much drain there is when sitting? Self-discharge of an AGM should be around 1-2% per month on a new battery and it appears people are seeing about that much a day?

I will second, all batteries in vehicles will benefit from an occasional top off with a charger. Most cars will not fully top off a battery, especially AGM batteries. That is why most people don't see longer life out of an AGM battery who only drive on road. If you do a lot of offroad driving you will always benefit from an AGM and see longer life. I have been seeing about 7 years out of the last couple optimas and the last Diehard Platinum I bought started showing signs of age at about 8 years. I have never had a sealed lead acid last that long and several have left me stranded offroad when plates shorted due to vibration.

Nothing scientific here but I checked my Expy just now. It has been parked since Saturday. Once you take the power off you hear all kinds of things clicking and things shutting off. Once you put the meter inline. The draw shoots up over 3 amps. The headlights come on and all the clicking starts. Then it drops down to 0.10 amps. I let it sit for 15 minutes and it bounced between 0-0.20 amps. I wish I had my better meter that does ma and ua. My neighbor is a Mopar mechanic and said most older cars draw 50 milliamps or less. New cars 50-70 and luxury cars may go as high as 90 milliamps. Cell service, WiFi, proximity sensors, keyless entry, alarm systems, system updates, vehicle reports you name it take power to run. It would be interesting to know what Fords official number is.


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[TobyU]

I don't really trust the battery tender for long term hook up either.
I like the battery minder better but can't say either is really good for leaving on for days/weeks.

They aren't as sophisticated or "smart" as the marketing leads you to believe.

I have an electronic charger with desulphater like you can still get from Black and Decker and Stanley(all same company) too and from other brands that will trickle down to nothing and do a "float" charge and kick back on after many hours and charge at 1.5 amps and down to .5 or less and go back into not charging until needed.
If you open door etc it will kick back up to 2-4 amps and then quickly back down to nothing.

I don't think any of the little tenders can taper down like that or as accurately.

I also have a transformer Diehard one that will do the same.
It will charge at max and taper down to off and green light will come of for fully charged and then eventually it light will go off for a few mins and charge a 2-3 amps then back to green.
I trust these far more to not overcharge and boil electrolyte out but I also like to keep them up with distilled water and most of the ones I have have removeable caps.

 

[Fozzy]

I don't really trust the battery tender for long term hook up either.
I like the battery minder better but can't say either is really good for leaving on for days/weeks.

They aren't as sophisticated or "smart" as the marketing leads you to believe.

I have an electronic charger with desulphater like you can still get from Black and Decker and Stanley(all same company) too and from other brands that will trickle down to nothing and do a "float" charge and kick back on after many hours and charge at 1.5 amps and down to .5 or less and go back into not charging until needed.
If you open door etc it will kick back up to 2-4 amps and then quickly back down to nothing.

I don't think any of the little tenders can taper down like that or as accurately.

I also have a transformer Diehard one that will do the same.
It will charge at max and taper down to off and green light will come of for fully charged and then eventually it light will go off for a few mins and charge a 2-3 amps then back to green.
I trust these far more to not overcharge and boil electrolyte out but I also like to keep them up with distilled water and most of the ones I have have removeable caps.

You need to check these out.
https://no.co/genius1


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[Plati]

I don't really trust the battery tender for long term hook up either.
I like the battery minder better but can't say either is really good for leaving on for days/weeks.

They aren't as sophisticated or "smart" as the marketing leads you to believe.

I have an electronic charger with desulphater like you can still get from Black and Decker and Stanley(all same company) too and from other brands that will trickle down to nothing and do a "float" charge and kick back on after many hours and charge at 1.5 amps and down to .5 or less and go back into not charging until needed.
If you open door etc it will kick back up to 2-4 amps and then quickly back down to nothing.

I don't think any of the little tenders can taper down like that or as accurately.

I also have a transformer Diehard one that will do the same.
It will charge at max and taper down to off and green light will come of for fully charged and then eventually it light will go off for a few mins and charge a 2-3 amps then back to green.
I trust these far more to not overcharge and boil electrolyte out but I also like to keep them up with distilled water and most of the ones I have have removeable caps.

Why do you say that? Gut feel? Seems that way?
Heard it once from a guy at Waffle House?

Do you know a lot about electrical / electronic circuitry and know what the circuits are in the various products?

What is not safe about leaving them on for weeks (which I and many others do routinely)?
and is what they are designed to do .....

 

[duneslider]

I don't really trust the battery tender for long term hook up either.
I like the battery minder better but can't say either is really good for leaving on for days/weeks.

They aren't as sophisticated or "smart" as the marketing leads you to believe.

I have an electronic charger with desulphater like you can still get from Black and Decker and Stanley(all same company) too and from other brands that will trickle down to nothing and do a "float" charge and kick back on after many hours and charge at 1.5 amps and down to .5 or less and go back into not charging until needed.
If you open door etc it will kick back up to 2-4 amps and then quickly back down to nothing.

I don't think any of the little tenders can taper down like that or as accurately.

I also have a transformer Diehard one that will do the same.
It will charge at max and taper down to off and green light will come of for fully charged and then eventually it light will go off for a few mins and charge a 2-3 amps then back to green.
I trust these far more to not overcharge and boil electrolyte out but I also like to keep them up with distilled water and most of the ones I have have removeable caps.

At what point do you consider something to be "smart"? Any of these smart chargers are going to have some sort of microprocessor with a predefined program that they run. Every programmer is different and every programmer thinks their program is the best but at the end of the day all the smart chargers are doing pretty much the exact same thing. (chargers can go bad and destroy batteries, I don't leave anything on the charger long term) Not smart would be a 12volt power supply that supplied a constant voltage and current, which does work great for charging a battery you just have to be careful and keep and eye on it and stop once "full".

There are several different ways that companies claim to be desulfating, I have read a lot of articles and it appears that many of the companies are full of it and have no science backing their methods and some may have a legitimate product that may actually work. I bought a fairly nice desulfator to see if it would bring back some older batteries and it was no dice for me (they may have been too far gone?). I still use it on newer batteries but so far my experience is the desulfator hasn't made my batteries last longer than my cheap battery tender. This obviously isn't a scientific test using a couple batteries in my garage over 7-8 years. There are a lot of theories and opinions on charge profiles for batteries and some are pretty simple and some are pretty complex and based on my experience at the end of the day they all seem to produce the same results.

What I will say though is preventing batteries from too much discharge is huge and getting them back up to full charge as soon as possible (while not creating too much heat) is key. Basically, the less you use a battery AND the longer it stays at full charge the longer it will last, that is fact and you can take it to the bank.

You can get battery analyzers to check your batteries and they give you a much better idea of what is going on inside your battery, they will kick back an internal resistance and if you monitor that over the life of a battery you can see when it is nearing the end of its life. They also will give you a load calculation without adding the strain that a normal load tester does. I highly recommend getting one.

 

[bushpilot]

I also use (and like) the NoCo's...since they do multiple types and voltage batteries.

Since Ford installed an AGM in our Expy I'm using a NoCo G3500 - w/ the SAE connectors (properly zip tied), even if I forget to disconnect, the connection point separates w/out damage on either end.

I hate cords and wires....so the charger/maintainer connection point is on the rear bumper.
Eventually I'll install and hide a Quick Disconnect socket and plug from PowerLet....

for now, the end can easily be tucked up / hidden behind the bumper

 

[Deadman]

I also use (and like) the NoCo's...since they do multiple types and voltage batteries.

Since Ford installed an AGM in our Expy I'm using a NoCo G3500 - w/ the SAE connectors (properly zip tied), even if I forget to disconnect, the connection point separates w/out damage on either end.

I hate cords and wires....so the charger/maintainer connection point is on the rear bumper.
Eventually I'll install and hide a Quick Disconnect socket and plug from PowerLet....

for now, the end can easily be tucked up / hidden behind the bumper

View attachment 35494


View attachment 35495

Do you park it outside?

 

[bushpilot]

Do you park it outside?

yup, always have.
I've had 2 F350s - both 350s were crew cab long beds, that wouldn't fit in the garage...they used dual, lead acid, batteries and I set up batteryminders on both of them...I even ran the block heater outlets to the rear bumper.

the 2004 F350, had the original ford batteries in it for almost 8 yrs.

 

[Fozzy]

yup, always have.
I've had 2 F350s - both 350s were crew cab long beds, that wouldn't fit in the garage...they used dual, lead acid, batteries and I set up batteryminders on both of them...I even ran the block heater outlets to the rear bumper.

the 2004 F350, had the original ford batteries in it for almost 8 yrs.

I like your idea. I always have my hitch in or cover off. Be a good place to mount the plug. NOCO makes a 3 amp single onboard charger that might be nice. But the 12v plug would give you the options to have 12v accessory power. I have a 2006 Suzuki LTR quad racer that has a small AGM battery in it that has been plugged into a Battery tender then moved to a NOCO .750. Older style charger everyday since new. Zero problems and the battery is still good. I only ride it a few times a year when I want to flirt with death. With age comes a cage. Until we get smart batteries like the ones in drones I believe every battery need to be maintained by a charger and the user if you want them to last.


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[bushpilot]

I like your idea. I always have my hitch in or cover off. Be a good place to mount the plug. NOCO makes a 3 amp single onboard charger that might be nice. But the 12v plug would give you the options to have 12v accessory power. I have a 2006 Suzuki LTR quad racer that has a small AGM battery in it that has been plugged into a Battery tender then moved to a NOCO .750. Older style charger everyday since new. Zero problems and the battery is still good. I only ride it a few times a year when I want to flirt with death. With age comes a cage. Until we get smart batteries like the ones in drones I believe every battery need to be maintained by a charger and the user if you want them to last.

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I used to be a motorcycle guy...still am really, but I ride so infrequently im more of a collector now....anyway - I been using battery minders (and noco genius') for many years....ive had motorcycles that weren't started in (embarrassingly) more than 10 yrs...same battery, start right up.

years ago I started using the powerlet connectors on motorcycles for connecting accessories and heated gear (jacket/gloves/socks/etc)...the powerlet outlets provide a positive connection that won't vibrate loose - but at the same time will pull out (w/out damage) with a mild tug.....on the pickup trucks - it was a nice connection point when camping and it doubled as a battery charge/maintainer connection.

Cords run under the garage door or around air gaps....very effective in the cold/snow - when the truck block heater needed to be plugged in (and on a timer)...plug in the block heater and the battery maintainer...done, and never have to worry about driving off and forgetting to unplug....

 

[TobyU]

You need to check these out.
https://no.co/genius1


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Ah...YES Genius are VERY good but you pay for it!!