hey guys i just have a quick question about charging my battery over the winter.i took the battery out today, but im unsure of which setting to put it on. my charger has 4 settings
2 for automatic: 10A 6V or 10A 12V
and 2 for manual: 2A 12V or 50 A engine start
the charger is a schumacher signature series
any help would def be appreciated thanks.
The battery from your bike is a 12v battery. You have a, "maintenance type", battery charger. The answer to your question is; you need to figure out if your maintenance charger will trickle charge at 2amps and do this intermittantly. I believe your charger will not do this in the manual position.
I also do not reccomend using the 10amp 12v auto position. though 10amps is not allot for short charging periods, (it is for reviving a battery in short term maintenance, say like while in repair shop or at home when you know the vehicle has sat for a long time), it will over charge your battery after about a day and a half.
So, test your charger in the manual mode, (2A 12V), with the battery hooked up using a multi meter, to find out if your charger works intermittantly providing a 2A 12V charge. You should see an increase and a decrease in voltage, (probably no more than 15V, then drop to 12V), and it should do this until the battery becomes fully charged, at this point you should detect a 12V stable reading for lenghty periods.
All this being written, and realizing thats allot to go through just to find out that your battery will not be destroied by to much charging; It is recommended that you buy a proper trickle charger, that has the ability to determine when your battery is fully charged, and does not continue with amperage and only holds voltage, when the battery only needs a maintaneing voltage feed.
I use a battery tender that does this very thing. Your maintenance charger is for short term type charging. I dont reccommend using it period.
Hopefully this was helpfull.
