hi all
i found on halfords a battery charger supposedly for cars for just 15 pounds, the thing is it says for lead acid batteries, and my bikes battery has sulfuric acid. will that battery charger work on my bike?? i know there are other specific battery chargers for bikes, but they cost twice the price....

lead acid and sulphuric acid are one and the same m8, what's the output on the halfords one and what type battery are you charging, ie 125 bike or is it something bigger?
i use a car charger on my cb900 but the battery is a big heavy bugger.

My bike is a Gpz 500 , it has a 12V 14AH battery. i didnt check the outpt on halfords charger, but its for 1200cc cars if that can help.
any way, the important thing is if a lead acid battery charger is compatible with sulfuric acid batteries, then im fine

by the way, whats m8 that u've mentioned?

m8=










mate (m eight)

I onced used a car battery charger to charge up my then GPZ1100 B2 with
damaging effect, they're ok for about half an hour and definetly no more, they
tend to overcharge and the battery gets hot therby warping the cell plates.
You need a trickle charger such as the ones you see going for about £35.

If your bike's battery is flat it can safely be boost started from a car but turn on
inigition then lights and finally connect up battery to bike battery and REMEMBER
positive to positive and negative to negative of both batteries.

Do not run car and you turn the lights on the bike to absorb any sudden surge in
power from the other power source.

Cheers

chris,
so u mean ill be fine as long as i charge it for just a short time?
what damaging effect had on your battery using a car battery charger??

i bought one of those battery chargers from halfords and it wad fine!! used it to charge me 12v for me tzr125.....

I've used car battery chargers for years with no apparent ill effect.

I use one of these - Gunson model 1

It cost me about £15 and does a perfectly good job. Excellent in fact cos its a trickle charger but even so it turns itself off if the charging rate gets too high, then back on when things have cooled down a bit.

The effect is it can push in too many amps, just bear this mind a battery is forced
volts and not amps, amps is referred to draw on a item in this case the battery
a flat battery will still show say 12 volts where in fact it should 12.5v to 12.7v the
regulators in the charger sees this as charge state and if you use a strong charger
it could possibly pump in as much as 20volts, not good when its a bike battery but
a different case with car batteries, its all to do with plate design within the battery

Firstly before connecting remove filler caps and disconnect battery from bike
electrics, this normally depends if it has solid state ignition or electronic modules
if electronic modules are present and you leave the battery connected it could
case problems due to the fact that chargers sends pulses of electricity to the
battery known as pulse charging.

You can use a car charger but not for longer than 30 minutes, after the first 5 min
check to see if the battery is bubbling through the filler holes then disconnect but if
the bubles are far and few say like one now and another 5 to 19 seconds later you
should be ok.

Common chargers as we know them are not designed to be left connected for long
periods of time thats why there are state chargers such as the Ultimate III they
have built in electronics that determine on how much current to apply to a battery
and does so with presise accuracy, if you do use a cheapy then connect it for half
an hour each week if your bike is been stored, better still pull the bike out and ride
it for half an hour in winter on a good day, this way you keep the tyres flexiable,
the oil in the engine and gearbox splashing all over and the fuel in the tank to be
aeratedthrough the splashing motion, not to mention all your carb problems will be
solved.

On the battery side of life I could go on and on as this is one of the most over
looked items on a vechile and I dont just mean cars or bikes.

Come back if your not sure, what you can tell me is the make and model of your
bike and what charger you have, this way I'll be able to assist you more.

Cheers

I must admit Chrismk, that is the most informative piece i have ever read about batteries. I must admit to being a bit blank on them but that has certainly explained things in language even i can understand.

Thx

I'm not sure the battery voltage is entirely relevant...? At least not with a cheap 12V charger and a 12V bike battery... A car charger will just try to put too much current in (basically try to charge the battery too fast). This heats the battery up and causes the damage to the electrodes that Chris mentioned.

As far as I know, bike batteries are designed to handle less current than car batteries, - this is the difference...

The rest of it sounded spot on.

thanx all for the info, specially chris,
i ve thought about an idea, since a car battery charger will give too much power to the battery, how about connecting a bulb while its charging, so it'll reduce the amps that the battery is receiving. i think this is the formula, Amps=Watts/Volts to know how many watts the bulb should have

Wouldn't it be simpler just to buy the proper charger. There's always a risk of you getting it wrong and ending up with a fried battery. Not all are double the price. For example

My pleasure,

The charger you have now can it not be returned for a exchange or refund ?
If you're stuck with it then I cant really comment on the light bulb issue as wattage
is the issue with regards to draw on the charger in other words the charger is
going to think that the battery requires more Amps and the regulstors will push in
a bit more, perhaps a bit more to much if you get my meaning so the answer is no

What do you exactly want to do, do you need to charge it now and then or all the
time, are you having charging problem with the bike.

In the post above if you scroll to the bottom of the page that is thee ideal trickle
charger for storage but to be on the safe side disconnect after say a day or two
then reconnect after a week, depends on storage requirements.

If you have a charging problem like I said come back and lets see what can be
done

Cheers

Edited a dash later:

You asked :

chris,
so u mean ill be fine as long as i charge it for just a short time?
what damaging effect had on your battery using a car battery charger??

The 1st part is correct, short period and monitor just to be on the safe side.
The 2nd is my battery boiled like a bloody kettle and stuffed the battery to kingdom
come and back, new battery in cost a fortune cos thee 'ole GPZ1100 B2 were fuel
injected and demanded lost of current all the time only to discover that these bikes
loved abusing batteries and found myself buying a new battery every 8/10 months
only cos the batteries wernt that good a few years back but things have certainly
moved on in a big way for bike batteries, I have a gel filled battery at work thats
no bigger than a large bike battery but put 2 of these together and it will jump
start a large tipper lorry from dead to full go in seconds there agin they do cost
£180 each, I intend to keep the spare one in my shed for just in case cos I recently
overhauled this jumper pack at work, it can crank up to 700amps per battery and
lasts roughly ten years, sorry I side tracked a bit there but a bit of useless info
never killed

Cheers again