I finally bought a battery tender yesterday. Hooked it up to what I thought was a fully charged battery in my 89. Left it on for about 4 hrs., red light on steady. Disconnected it and re-connected today so far for 8 hrs. Red light still on steady. My concern: is this normal? I just thought with a well charged battery this tender would have gone to the next mode by now. Possibly this battery wasn't as fully charged as I thought. Any thoughts from you guys that use a battery tender? Thanks

Joel

I've got a Schauer that works really well. I had it hooked up to my Maxima all last summer, and to my Vette over the winter. When I brought my Vette home in March, it sat for several weeks without the tender hooked up to it, so I charged it up the other day - only took a couple hours at most for the charger to turn green.

I have the same Tender and when i first hooked it up to a battery that had been driven often the light stayed red for along time. I remember it finally turned green and I was thinking to myself its about time. I can't remember if it was days or hours though.

I would just leave it hooked up for a few days and see what happens.

patsfan

I'm just going to leave to hooked up all night and hope for the green by morning. I just can not get comfortable with leaving an electrical "device" plugged in and running all night. Old school thinking. Thanks

Joel

I've never used a Deltran but it and the " Battery Tender" brand are intelligent trickle chargers. They put about 1.25 amps into the battery so they take forever to charge a battery. They are made to maintain a battery, thus the term
"tender". A battery charger will put more amps into the battery. Mine has a selectable out put of 20, 10 or 2 amps. On the 2 amp setting, a battery with 10.5 volts will take a long time to charge, like 6+ hours.
Check your battery voltage before you hook uo the tender, that will help you guess how long it will take to come up.

Don't worry about leaving it hooked up (assuming thet the Deltran is intelligent like the Battery Tender). Once your battery is charged the tender will cycle on and off to maintain the charge unlike the older trickle chargers that put a constant current thru a charged battery and increase the sulfites.
It's automatic, plug it in and don't worry about it.

Quote:

I leave my tender on 24hrs a day while it's in the garage. I think I have a drain through the headlight motors that I haven't gotten too.I know where you're comming from, I disconnect the battery while I have my tender on.

When ever I park Rose the "battery tender" is connected. I might not drive her again for two weeks, so the tender is always working.

For a B-day gift I got a nice charger that has a "deep cycle" function that de-sulphides the plates.

Since the battery in Rose is three years old and has not given me any problems, I ran the DC program on my DD with a four year old battery. It took 24hrs to complete the process and I noticed an immediate difference on cold morning startups. Crank time is less and has more "spirit".

Heres the linky;
http://www.battery-rechargeable-charg ... ery-charger-products.html

IMHO leaving old school chargers connected overnight is sometimes risky. The new tech chargers are smarter and less likely to cause trouble.

Finally! got the solid green light on the tender. Yea, the thing that was screwing with my head was my regular battery charger was indicating a "full" charge. This was prior to using the tender, looks like this 20 yr old charger is getting a little lazy. But as if now, all looks good! Thanks for the replies.

Joel