Setting up battery maintainer with Google Home

[ssaigol]

I have set my battery maintainer on Google Home to turn on every Monday for 36 hours then shut off. It's a 0.8A device. I figured that keeping the battery maintainer on 24/7 with the battery at max charge all the time is not optimum. Better to bring the battery to a full charge, then stop charging and letting it discharge down to a lower voltage of ideally 12 to 12.3 volts. A weekly top-up should be all it needs.

Opinions?

 

[m in sc]

ive done this with an old school mechanical light timer i had laying around in the past before i had a battery tender. however, a battery tender will turn itself on and off automatically, internally. get one of those and much simpler. but, i usually never leave tenders on my bikes overall. But there have (obviously) been occasions in the past.

 

[dmonkey]

It depends on the maintainer. You don't want to leave a trickle charger connected, but many automatic battery maintainers are designed to be able to be safely connected to the battery long term. "Battery Tender" brand make those, so do many others. From a fire safety perspective you'll still want to check on it from time to time.

 

[NMCoyote]

mine will automatically dis-charge the battery on a preset timeline then recharge to 100% capacity. and it does this while on the charger full time. I still ride during the winter so it's not that big a deal, but it kept a Interstate AGM battery in my FJR in good shape for 10years. Nice!

 

[ssaigol]

ive done this with an old school mechanical light timer i had laying around in the past before i had a battery tender. however, a battery tender will turn itself on and off automatically, internally. get one of those and much simpler. but, i usually never leave tenders on my bikes overall. But there have (obviously) been occasions in the past.

I have fully automatic one but I'm not comfortable with leaving a battery tender unsupervised for the entire winter.

 

[dmonkey]

A different approach would be to disconnect the (fully charged) battery from the bike. The manufacturer of the OEM battery, Yuasa, recommend that and go so far as to recommend pulling the battery from the bike for storage.

https://www.yuasabatteries.com/resources/guides/battery-maintenance-storage/

 

[NMCoyote]

Yuasa,

the most I ever got out of a Yuasa was one riding season and one winter on the battery tender, they suck in my humble opinion, but they're cheap and usually in stock at the local Cycle Gear

 

[m in sc]

I have fully automatic one but I'm not comfortable with leaving a battery tender unsupervised for the entire winter.

like said, i dont use them but leaving them plugged in is fine. we've had one on the forklift for like a decade at work, we use it maybe 2x a month. if they fail the then quit charging. powering it on and off will probably be riskier than leaving it plugged in, which is how it was designed to be used in the 1st place.

 

[SneakyDingo]

The only opinion I have is that if you combine it with Home Assistant you can likely be more efficient with your routine, as you can have the switch turn off when it's no longer consuming more than like... 0.2A. So it'll be on for as long as it needs to, then turns off once it's in standby for 5 mins or so. I do something like this with my washing machine, except instead of turning off the switch it pings my phone to go empty the wet clothes into the dryer. That is a very, very slight optimization though.

EDIT: I guess one advantage to Home Assistant would be able to detect if it breaks completely and isn't charging your battery because the tender is broken, since it will never trigger that "high" current usage state.

 

[ssaigol]

My Smart Life Wi-Fi plug doesn't report current flow. But that is a good idea.

 

[SneakyDingo]

I started from scratch with Home Assistant so I bought Kasa plugs, but I know through 3rd party connectors you can get it working. It's just... janky and requires effort. Again, a lot of work to make it happen, but I guess if you also want notifications from your washing machine / dishwasher / etc. and you have a lot of these plugs, the effort to do 3 is almost the same as the effort to do 1.

 

[m in sc]

I have to say, this group has a real talent for making the simplest shit way more complicated than it needs to be.. and I've been an engineer for 24 years. lol.

 

[SneakyDingo]

Lol I got distracted by a work thing and was coming back to post that this is the only true answer:

a battery tender will turn itself on and off automatically, internally. get one of those and much simpler.

But - we're engineers. if your battery maintainer isn't running on a Cloud based home automation system that's wifi enabled and smart house connected that you can turn on and off from anywhere in the world, are you even trying?

Hey Siri, spray @m in sc 's chain with WD40.

 

[m in sc]

i spray my chains with wd a lot. then i lubricate them. I am def old school k.i.s.s. mentality though. Gizmos are neat but its at least 1 extra failure point to consider. .02

 

[ssaigol]

I have to say, this group has a real talent for making the simplest shit way more complicated than it needs to be.. and I've been an engineer for 24 years. lol.

Well the Trail125 itself is a prime example of making things complicated. Did the Trail NEED fuel injection, abs, self start, led lights? Do we like that shit? Oh hell yes!

 

[AZ7000']

Well the Trail125 itself is a prime example of making things complicated

Maybe, but maybe not.... I'd guess it will run 30+ years with oil changes every 10k miles and just topping off as needed. Probably air in the tubes and gas also... Doesn't get simpler than that imo.

On the 1975 it occasionally needs points, carb work, and lightbulbs. Those are all eliminated on the 125...

 

[m in sc]

didnt need any of that, thats just modern technology stds. I didnt buy it for the whizbang stuff, and i hate the abs TBH. To the point, i even disabled the auto clutch and put a legit manual one in.

 

[mcmd]

i spray my chains with wd a lot. then i lubricate them. I am def old school k.i.s.s. mentality though. Gizmos are neat but its at least 1 extra failure point to consider. .02

Hey @m in sc, I'm the polar opposite of a mechanic. Just wondered what the WD40 does for the chain. I know it's a super thin silicone lubricant. Are you using it to clean the chain before using chain lube that clings to the chain?

 

[TrailBoss]

I have set my battery maintainer on Google Home to turn on every Monday for 36 hours then shut off. It's a 0.8A device. I figured that keeping the battery maintainer on 24/7 with the battery at max charge all the time is not optimum. Better to bring the battery to a full charge, then stop charging and letting it discharge down to a lower voltage of ideally 12 to 12.3 volts. A weekly top-up should be all it needs.

Opinions?

It depends on your battery maintainer. If it's an Optimate 3, leave it on 24/7 and forget about it. The Optimates are THE BEST and I trust them 100%. I've been using them on all my powersports equipment for 13 years now, and the batteries generally last 7-9 years plugged in 24/7 when not in use.

I also have a Battery Tender (4amp) that I bought to top up a car battery now and then. They are not as good as Optimate. Story: my battery backed sump pump battery started chirping (built in alarm for the entire system, "Basement Watchdog" brand) so I disconnected it and hooked up the 4 amp Battery Tender brand. After a while I check it and it says "Fully Charged" and the status lights are showing green. I plug it back into the system and after a day it starts chirping again. This time I plug it into the Optimate, and after a day of blinking and flashing it shows me the red "bad" status. Optimate knew, Battery Tender had no idea. I took the battery and had it tested and it was shot. It wasn't even that old, and barely saw any use. Fact most chargers are stupid and you are smart with your awareness that not all of them do a good job of maintaining your battery.

Optimate 3 100%. Plug it and forget it.

 

[ssaigol]

That's 1 vote for Optimate which, btw, is made by Kubota, a Japanese heavy industry manufacturer.

Battery Tender is a USA best seller.

Noco is very popular in Canada because Canadian Tire sells it with a money back warranty.