Motorcycle Battery Maintainer Review

A motorcycle battery will lose most of it’s charge while your motorcycle sits parked during the cold weather months.  With any luck, you might be able to just stick a battery charger on it in the spring to get your motorcycle started, but will the charge last?  Imagine stalling at a traffic light and not having enough charge left in your motorcycle battery to get it started quickly.  Not a pleasant thought, for sure.  Avoid wasting time hooking up a regular battery charger to get your motorcycle or scooter started after weeks or months of storage. Get yourself a motorcycle battery maintainer.  They are easy to hook up and will automatically keep your motorcycle battery fresh and ready to go. We looked a two popular battery maintainers that have good reputations.

One of the two most popular devices for maintaining a motorcycle battery is made by Deltran and is called the Battery Tender Junior.  This is a fully automatic combination battery maintainer and battery charger that is very small, light weight and easy to use.  It puts out 750 mA and is available in 12 Volt or 6 Volt models. Most motorcycles will need the 12 Volt model, but check yours to be sure before you use any type battery charger.

The Battery Tender Junior simply plugs into a standard AC outlet in the US, but also, Deltran sells 3 different International models of their Battery Tender that cover continental Europe, Japan, and US/Western Hemisphere for $69.96 US.  It’s not a great idea to use extension cords, so it’s best to plan for your motorcycle to be stored within about 10 feet or 3 meters of an electrical outlet to be able to use this battery charger without an extension cord.  Just be sure to lift up your motorcycle cover enough to allow ventilation and to make sure it does not touch any electric cables.

This has an led indicator that lights up green when it senses that your motorcycle battery is fully charged.  No need to disconnect it, just keep it plugged in and it automatically switches itself from battery charger mode into battery maintainer mode.  It can be kept on for long periods of time without any harm since it has a micro-processor that monitors and controls the battery charger ouput as needed.  Deltran’s 2008 list price for the Battery Tender Junior is $39.95 and comes with a 5 year warranty.  Sometimes you will see these on sale at stores that sell motorcycle accessories, but they seem to sell out of battery maintainers quickly.

Another popular combination motorcycle battery charger and battery maintainer is called the Battery Minder from VDC.  This one also comes with a 5 year warranty and operates similar to the one from Deltran.  VDC rates this unit at 12 volts and 1.33 Amps max output, but with the built in circuit, thisy batter charger will only charge as much as the motorcycle battery requires.  In fact, VDC guarantees this charger never to overcharge your motorcycle battery no matter how long you keep it connected.

Another interesting feature this battery maintainer / battery charger is that it can work on up to 5 batteries (12V) at the same time connected in parallel.  Extra battery cables can be ordered from VDC if you need to keep some more of your vehicles or spare batteries charged at the same time.  VDC lists the Battery Minder price at $69.95 in the US as of this writing.

Which one works better?  Well, that’s very hard to say since we’d have to test on several motorcycle batteries of equal condition over some extended time period.  Motorcycle Info will try to stay neutral and let you pick which one you like best.  Both motorcycle Battery Charger / Battery Maintainer brands should do a very good job and both are backed by good warranties.