Has anybody ever had...

[6pak]

Has anybody ever had a power surge in the garage take out 2 battery tenders at once? There are 2 bikes in the garage, my RSTD and brothers Heritage. He has been having problems with his holding any kind of a charge (it doesn't), and he always plugs it in to tender. I never had a problem before New Years eve, I unplugged mine and rolled it out of the shed. Tried to start but cranked really slow. Fired right up after jumping. I took battery out, went to O'reilly, they tested it and said it was fine but low charge. Tender is a year old and showed the green full charge light when I unplugged from the bike. So I guess now that I have given a little background, there are 2 questions. First, would a power surge take out both tenders but not stuff like fridge in garage? And if that happened, could it have gone thru his tender and actually fried something in his Harley but not gotten thru the tender to my RSTD?

Of course he is getting this from me cause mine starts and runs fine.

So then he does this.

[darthandy]

It is possible since battery tenders usually have more delicate electronic innards than a fridge and are therefore more susceptible to a power surge. It seems less likely that a surge could get through to a battery since the tender would get fried and stop passing any electricity in a case of a major surge. I would plug in the tender and take a reading with a volt meter at the battery to see what kind of voltage it is putting out when the battery is low. That should give you a good indication as to whether or not it is putting out proper voltage.

 

Also, check the tender's instructions to see if it should be unplugged from the wall before unplugging from the bike (Most of them operate that way.). If that procedure is not followed when required, it can eventually damage the tender to the point that it won't put out a proper charge. The instructions should also contain the voltage that the tender will put out under various battery conditions so you can check to see if it is charging properly.

 

That's all I've got...maybe someone else here will have better info, but I hope this helps.

[Michael_Bishop]

Lightning hit the house a cross the street from me a few years ago. It took out our microwave and the box that runs the dogs invisible fence.

[SteveW]

We lost a treadmill, and two TV sets and, garage door opener due to a power surge