Battery tender

[Kodiak]

Any body use the battery tender brand for maintaining battery over winter storage ? If so does it effect the sniper EFI at all ? And did you hard wire it in or use the the alligator clips for connecting to the battery terminals . Thanks

[toadster]

it's a pretty common model for sure, I don't think it would impact the Sniper EFI as I don't have that, but would think it wouldn't harm things at all...

[Just 1 More]

https://www.amazon.com/NOCO-GENIUS1-Fully-Automatic-Temperature-Compensation/dp/B07W46BX31

[Avalanche325]

My brand for winter is Florida.

[CaptB]

I do works well.

[rich grsc]

Never in more than 50 yrs.

[JohnK]

Battery Tenders are great, albeit somewhat basic compared to other trickle chargers. If your battery is healthy and you're just looking to keep it topped up over the winter, it'll work fine. There are higher-end chargers out there that have specific programing for AGM, Optimate, etc. batteries, and can desulfate and recover marginal batteries, but if you just have a healthy SLA battery then a Battery Tender should be fine.

[Jacob McCrea]

I have used one on my coupe, but probably don't need to. I do rotate it back and forth on my truck's dual batteries. The truck seldom gets driven and a start with low batteries can damage the FICM. I assume the truck's clock and plug-in voltmeter drain the battery over time. Those things are not present on the coupe. I use the alligator clips and see no point to hard-wiring it unless your battery is hard to access.

I have a hard time understanding how it would affect the Holley EFI system, but have no firsthand experience.

[idf]

I have half a dozen battery tender juniors, both 6 and 12 volt. Oldest are 15 or 20 years, newest 5. Never had one fail, and all cars fire up when asked. All are hard wired (a five min effort, so why not?). On several cars I've installed a plug under the dash, the others just left the connector in the trunk or elsewhere where convenient. No idea if they would affect the Holley EFI, seems unlikely. To avoid driving off without disconnecting I usually fun the cable through the steering wheel or leave the trunk open. Guess how I learned this?

[Alan_C]

I have the Battery Tender Junior 800, a bit more expensive but designed to detect AGM vs. lead acid and charge accordingly. I use it to keep my Odyssey AGM battery alive during construction.
On my MK4, I put the leads directly on the battery and made the plug accessible. Made charging easy with never an issue with a bad battery in 6 years, again used an Odyssey battery. The second owner got a couple more years out of the Odyssey. 8 years out of any battery is not bad.

[Papa]

From Holley:

Originally posted by Holley EFI Warning Notice:

Important Battery Charger Usage!
Most battery chargers do not provide "clean" power to the vehicle and can cause voltage spikes that damage the ECU. This is especially true of most 16V battery chargers. Adhere to the following guidelines!
• Never use the "cranking" setting on a charger to start the engine.
Do not set a charger to a charge current over 10 amps.
Charge the battery sufficiently, before trying to start the engine.
• If using a 16V battery charger, do not turn on the ECU switched power, nor start the engine with the charger on.
Make sure the charger is not charging over 18.5 volts.
• If the battery has sat for a long time, or is known to be discharged, it's best to charge the battery with everything
DISCONNECTED from the battery, while the battery is being charged.

[Fman]

I have been using this maintainer (Pro Sport) only during winter months when my car is often not being used and colder weather. I don't have the Sniper but do have the Pro Flo 4 EFI and have had no issues using this maintainer. I have the quick disconnect wired directly to the battery installed, very easy to plug in and disconnect.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07219JZCR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Kodiak]

Thanks for the reply’s .

[jab351w]

From Holley:

Originally posted by Holley EFI Warning Notice:

Important Battery Charger Usage!
Most battery chargers do not provide "clean" power to the vehicle and can cause voltage spikes that damage the ECU. This is especially true of most 16V battery chargers. Adhere to the following guidelines!
• Never use the "cranking" setting on a charger to start the engine.
Do not set a charger to a charge current over 10 amps.
Charge the battery sufficiently, before trying to start the engine.
• If using a 16V battery charger, do not turn on the ECU switched power, nor start the engine with the charger on.
Make sure the charger is not charging over 18.5 volts.
• If the battery has sat for a long time, or is known to be discharged, it's best to charge the battery with everything
DISCONNECTED from the battery, while the battery is being charged.

Seems Holley is being overly cautious here. Old battery chargers that were nothing more than a transformer and rectifier bridge may not have produced what they consider "clean" power, but not any worse than your typical '60s or '70s auto alternator/regulator. Most newer chargers with switching supplies have true DC outputs that are pretty well regulated. And if your maintainer is producing 16V for any length of time it's going to boil your battery into oblivion anyway.

As for the OP's original question, you won't damage anything leaving a battery tender hooked up. Those top out around 14V in "charge" mode and sit at under 13V in "maintenance" mode, which is less than your car's charging system produces. So the Sniper will be fine.

[Papa]

Seems Holley is being overly cautious here. Old battery chargers that were nothing more than a transformer and rectifier bridge may not have produced what they consider "clean" power, but not any worse than your typical '60s or '70s auto alternator/regulator. Most newer chargers with switching supplies have true DC outputs that are pretty well regulated. And if your maintainer is producing 16V for any length of time it's going to boil your battery into oblivion anyway.

As for the OP's original question, you won't damage anything leaving a battery tender hooked up. Those top out around 14V in "charge" mode and sit at under 13V in "maintenance" mode, which is less than your car's charging system produces. So the Sniper will be fine.

I think the key takeaway here is that you shouldn't start the car with a charger connected if you have a Holley EFI. I have an Optima red top battery and use an Optima charger to maintain my battery. I wired a plug in the trunk to connect the charger to.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=127579&d=1588389190

Dave

[frankeeski]

"Battery Tender" the brand was the first microprocessor based battery charger/maintainer. The slighted comments about them somehow being inferior to other brands and that they are not compatible with AGM, Lithium or Gel type batteries is kind of ignorant. If you go to Deltran's page here: https://www.batterytender.com/battery-chargers you may find that most of the bad information being spread in this thread is not fact based. Someone I thought knew better recently spewed the same falsehoods. That was Jay Leno, he is sponsored by Optima. There is a huge difference between a "trickle charger" and a "battery charger/maintainer". But hey, I read it on the internet................ so it must be true. :rolleyes:

[rich grsc]

A question never asked........why? A battery in good condition will not run down setting for a couple of months.

[Jeff Kleiner]

A question never asked........why? A battery in good condition will not run down setting for a couple of months.

C’mon Rich, you should know this…It’s kind of like how you need to jack the car up and put it on stands for the winter to take the load off of the suspension and tires. Not sure though whether that’s supposed to be done before or after draining the oil and fogging the cylinders.

Jeff

[rich grsc]

Jeff. I've been thinking about buying one of those body rotating tables, the kind used to do body off paint jobs. Mount the car on that, spin it upside down for the winter. The tires would be off the ground, and yet the shocks wouldn't be free hanging (very bad for shocks). A second advantage is the oil could run down into the cylinders, no need to fog them or rotate the engine over every day or so. What you think, could I patent that?

[JohnK]

"Battery Tender" the brand was the first microprocessor based battery charger/maintainer. The slighted comments about them somehow being inferior to other brands and that they are not compatible with AGM, Lithium or Gel type batteries is kind of ignorant. If you go to Deltran's page here: https://www.batterytender.com/battery-chargers you may find that most of the bad information being spread in this thread is not fact based. Someone I thought knew better recently spewed the same falsehoods. That was Jay Leno, he is sponsored by Optima. There is a huge difference between a "trickle charger" and a "battery charger/maintainer". But hey, I read it on the internet................ so it must be true. :rolleyes:

I'm assuming your comment was directed at me, as I commented that the Battery Tenders are "somewhat basic." Yes, some models can detect battery chemistry. That's not terribly sophisticated nowadays. Cheap Amazon chargers can do that. Here's a link to the charger I use. In addition to detecting battery type, it can charge Optimate batteries at 14.7V instead of 14.4V, it can desulphate, and it can provide a constant 13.6V 5A power source with no battery present to power onboard electronics for troubleshooting, car show displays, etc. No slight intended toward Battery Tenders. They just don't have some of the features of other chargers. Whether you need them or not is up to you.

https://optimate1.com/om6select/

[jscibello]

I use a Battery Tender all the time. I plug it into the the Power Port I have under the dash. I have the Holley Sniper and no issues. I was going to wire the lead to the battery tender to the battery but it was too short to reach conveniently.