From motorcycles, RVs and golf carts to boats, jet skis and aircraft, you're sure to find the right battery charger, battery tender, or trickle charger for your application. With the most battery chargers, brands and models available anywhere, we offer you the power you need to charge and maintain a battery in almost any environment, whether for industrial or recreational use.
What's the Best Battery Charger for My Application?
Look for a maintainer that features the automatic adjustment of the charge current and voltage based on collected information from the battery. Whether you’re charging batteries for industrial use or the AGM battery on your boat, a battery tender allows the battery to be charged quickly, correctly and completely without overcharging or damage.
You can choose your trickle charger based on battery type, including maintenance free, desulfating, wet cell, industrial or deep cycle. Gel cell batteries are a special case, but some of our gel cell chargers will work with other battery types.
You’ll also find chargers in common voltages (6v, 12v, 24v, 36v and 48v), as well as multi-bank, waterproof and multi-input/output (1-6, 10 and 12) voltage with various amperages. Purchase a Battery Tender or other top charger brand today!
Frequently asked questions about battery chargers and charging batteries:
What is the best battery charger for my motorcycle battery?
A very common question that customers ask is: What is the best battery charger for my motorcycle battery? That really depends on the size and voltage of your battery, but for the sake of popularity we are just covering 12 volt Sealed Lead Acid Motorcycle and Powersport Batteries (AKA... Sealed, GEL, AGM, Wet Cell Batteries).
If you have a small battery, under 20 AH(Amp/Hrs), the Battery Tender Junior may be the best choice. If you have a larger battery, you may want to use a slightly higher amp charger in order to not overwork your charger. For those larger Motorcycle / ATV batteries that fall within the 21-30 AH range we recommend the NOCO GENIUS2, or if you really want to prolong your batteries life the Battery Minder 1510 is a great desulfating charger for any powersport battery.
How should you choose the best motorcycle battery charger? While reviewing new battery chargers for your motorcycle battery, keep in mind that you'll likely want to use a multi-stage low-amp charger. Many riders find the best charger to be a fully automatic maintainer that can be set to charge for any length of time before shutting off, which helps to prevent overcharging of the battery.
Does Starting My Motorcycle in the Winter Charge the Battery?
Unfortunately, no, and here is why. The charging system of your motorcycle does not truly ramp up until it gets far above idle, depending on the motorcycle that could be as high as 5000 RPM! So, unless you hold 'er wide open for 10 or 15 minutes, you may not get enough of a charge to replace the energy you used to start the motorcycle, let alone the energy you needed to replace the natural discharge from being placed in storage.
You either need to keep it on a decent motorcycle charger, such as a smart battery tender, or you need to suck it up and go for a 20 mile ride every couple weeks!
Can I Use a Solar Battery Charger to Keep My RV Battery Charged?
The short answer is yes: A solar panel can keep an RV battery charged. Sizing the solar panel will greatly depend on individual needs. A person simply putting their RV in storage and their RV has a battery cutoff switch can easily get by with a 20-watt panel, as it will output roughly 5 to 8 amps a day.
However, if your RV has a parasitic draw or you are actively using your RV, then you need to calculate how many amps you are using a day to figure out the properly sized solar panel. We recommend reading our article Solar Systems the Right Way, which can help you design a properly sized solar system.
How Do I Keep My RV Battery Charged When in Storage?
Solar panels would be your best option if AC power isn’t present. To size a solar panel, you need to know how many amps your batteries are discharging daily. If your battery goes dead in a month and you have a 75 AH battery, you would be losing approximately 2 to 3 amps a day.
You might think a 10-watt panel would be sufficient as it outputs 2 to 4 amps a day, but in solar, you want a panel that can send more energy to the battery pack than needed. If your system uses 2 to 3 amps a day, then you want a panel that outputs at least double that daily draw, and then use a solar charge controller to get rid of excess amperage. Ultimately, this type of setup will be able to make up for bad weather days and still keep up with the daily amp draw.
In this scenario, you would want a panel that outputs at least six amps daily on the low side. So, a 30-watt solar panel and a solar charge controller would be ideal. Since the panel outputs six to 10 amps daily, the solar charge controller will dissipate the excess amperage when not needed. However, having that amperage available is crucial to keeping your battery pack topped off and ready to go.
For RVs with starting and deep cycle batteries, you can use a single solar panel to maintain both batteries by using a two-bank solar charge controller.
Will a Small Charger Maintain a Large Bank of Batteries?
While it might be possible, our answer is no for several reasons. Consider that a large battery in a car is approximately 100 AH, so a large battery pack of five or more batteries could be greater than 500 AH. Most batteries will lose 3 to 5% of their charge a month when brand-new and not hooked up. So, it's fair to assume they may lose double that when hooked up and not being used.
We have seen many people try to use a small charger or maintainer such as the Battery Tender Plus that only outputs 1.25 amps. Considering that 10% of 500 AH is 50 amps, the Battery Tender Plus would have to be in charge mode for 40 hours to make up for the natural discharge. The charger could be on even longer if the battery pack has a parasitic draw.
Ideally, you want a charger that doesn’t have to work that long to maintain a battery pack. We typically recommend selecting a charger with an amp rating that falls between 10% to 20% of the battery pack's AH rating, so for a 500 AH battery, a 50 amp charger would be ideal. While a small charger may work for some time, it could fault out from being in charge mode too long or fail prematurely from overuse.
In our 12v 500 AH battery pack scenario, we recommend the IOTA 55 Amp Converter Charger Power-Supply. A Charger Converter / Power-Supply is perfect for high amperage battery packs. They have demand sensing technology to actively make up for loads applied to the battery pack without taking the charger through another charge cycle. Their ability to supplement the amperage instead of always going into charge mode whenever the battery is in use makes them ideal for large battery packs.
Can I charge a lithium battery with a Battery Tender?
While it might work in a pinch, our answer is no. Most lithium batteries sit at a higher voltage level than lead-acid batteries. This means a standard lead acid charger, such as your Battery Tender Junior, will not effectively maintain the battery correctly as it discharges.
Another significant issue is when trying to recover an excessively discharged lithium battery. Most lithium chargers have a save mode that slowly ramps up the voltage without sending much amperage to the battery. It does this because lithium batteries do not like to see much voltage or amperage while excessively discharged.
A typical Battery Tender meant for lead acid style batteries will send too much voltage and amperage, hurting the lithium battery. For this reason, we recommend getting a lithium charger if you plan on using a lithium battery. At the end of the day, a lithium charger knows how to charge a lithium battery the best!
