cooks battery?

I am using a "Battery Companion" for my 1982 KZ750E. New battery bought in Jan. 2013. I have twice needed to put water in the battery. Could this charger be cooking my battery?
TIA,
Steven

roysclockgun wrote: I am using a "Battery Companion" for my 1982 KZ750E. New battery bought in Jan. 2013. I have twice needed to put water in the battery. Could this charger be cooking my battery?

YES. I don't know what else could be doing it.

My "Battery Tender" initially goes to 14.5 volts D.C. on a weak battery at about 1.25 amps, and then drops down to do a "Float Charge"(I'd think very little current). And yes, your charging system is close to, or is boiling the battery fluid.

Is there a battery self tending trickle charger that I can hook up and leave to keep the battery up, without cooking the water off?

get a battery tender. they have a few different models on the market. they have a connection you hook to your battery and the tender plugs into it. it makes charging much easier.
www.batterymart.com/p-battery-tender-jr-...7NpbcCFYFQ7AodSSsAAw

roysclockgun wrote: Is there a battery self tending trickle charger that I can hook up and leave to keep the battery up, without cooking the water off?

I've gone through this very popular battery charging, maintaining, whatever the current word for it is. Fact is hooking up any charger/maintainer and leaving it on will damage your battery. I've used Battery Tender and the like and went through like 8 batteries in a couple years just by kind of swapping it back and forth between bikes. My gosh I could leave all 8 batteries uncharged out in the cold weather all winter and have better luck. Now I leave my bikes I ride with batteries out in the cold all winter, take inside the ones I don't ride. Had much better luck not charging, and when/if I want to ride I try to start the bike. It starts-great, don't start-charge, don't start then-battery is crap. Longer life than "maintaining them", I'll tell you that. I learned my lesson.

I never figured out why I might need a battery tender. Because of work travel I usually only get to ride at weekends and if I miss a week or 2 I still dont have any problems starting the bike. When the bike goes away for winter ( 4 - 5 months up here) I do take the battery out but have found that I might only need to connect a charger once or twice over the Winter and then for less than an hour. I bought the beast almost 10 years ago and the current battery is the second one I have bought in that time.
I see another thread here asking What Battery Tender ? but I have to admit was wondering Why Battery Tender ?

I appreciate all the responses. It seems that there are two schools, in terms of whether to use a battery tender, or not.
I have heard that a battery tender with 1.5amp rating is too high. The ones with .750amp rating are good to use regularly. Do you agree?
When I bought my new Triumph last year, the dealership strongly recommended always keeping it on a battery tender. Of course, they did sell them.
Steve Ashe

roysclockgun wrote: I appreciate all the responses. It seems that there are two schools, in terms of whether to use a battery tender, or not.
I have heard that a battery tender with 1.5amp rating is too high. The ones with .750amp rating are good to use regularly. Do you agree?
When I bought my new Triumph last year, the dealership strongly recommended always keeping it on a battery tender. Of course, they did sell them.
Steve Ashe

If you use a lead acid battery, it needs a battery tender or it will die an early death. It must be a properly designed unit that is temperature compensated and won't overcharge the battery. The max current rating can be 2A, that's not critical since it does not send that much through the battery continuously. In the "standby" mode only a very minute current flows.

Okay, I bought a new battery. Will not install until I get a rectifier. Ebay has new one for $45. I hesitate to start buying electrical components until I know for sure what I need. Should I just take the bike to an MC mechanic and let him do it?
All that I really have in the way of test tools would be an Amp/Volt meter.
Best,
Steven

I've had 4 battery tenders .....a really old one that was built well(damaged the transformer in flood water) sooooo I bought 3 deltran tender pluses.... JUNK ,1 lasted a year then would not got to float mode and cooked the battery :evil: .... 2nd one crapped out in a little over a month.... :huh: the 3rd crapped out in a couple of weeks.... :S I also have sears craftsman and schumacher maintainers which have never had a problem.....I searched the internet and I'm not the only one to have problems with Deltran products....... :dry: NO more Deltran battery tender junk for me :evil:

Walmart has the schumacher 1.5 maintainer for around $21.00.......Sears has the craftsman 1.75 maintainer for $20 when on sale. :woohoo: Deltran pluses are way overpriced. :evil: