Recommend me a Battery Tender and Tire Inflator

[Anonymous]

Any thoughts?

I would like to keep it cheap, but not at the loss of reliability.

I'm looking for a battery tender that can work on both motorcycles, cars, and boats.

And a tire inflater that is NOT compressor powered, but possibly a foot powered one that will also work on both cars and motorcycle tires.

[tzortn]

I have a $5 Campbell Housfeld foot pump I picked up at Walmart. It is fine for topping off a motorcycle tire but trying to fill one from )psi would not be a lot of fun. You may want to consider a portable air tank.

As for the charger I have a Battery Tender. I am not sure if it is enough to keep a big marine or even car battery charged.

[steves]

The battery tender I bought is a float/trickle charger I got at sears. Like $20 on sale.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?cat=Batteries+%26+Chargers&pid=02871219000&vertical=AUTO&subcat=Battery+Chargers+%26+Boosters&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes

[The CyberPoet]

Since you are in Portland, I'm going to guess condensing water (& rain, etc) is as much of an issue as it can be here in Florida. Thus, my advice for the bike is Deltran's BatteryTender Waterproof 800. If you search the net, you can find them for $34 or so... I use one of these and have dumped it into a bucket of water while it was charging just to test it (it was irrelevant -- it kept on doing it's job)

Being an 800mA (8/10ths of an Amp) max charge rate means it'd take forever to refill a low car battery (days), but it will do a good job of keeping up a car battery that's already full charged when you are out of town for months. It idealized for bikes and really intended for them...

You can find cheap car float chargers at wallyworld (walmart), such as the Black-n-decker one they have for $20 or so that work well for cars -- but if you intend on using it on the bike, make sure that it can be switched down to a max of a 1 amp charging setting.

The real problem for you is that the max safe charge rate for the bike is much much lower than what it is for a car, and any charger intended for the bike would take forever to charge up a low car battery. Fact of life -- it's like having to buy two hammers (a finishing hammer and a sledgehammer) to do two different jobs. If both batteries are close to full, 1 amp-hour or 800 mA will do the trick.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[Anonymous]

I'll look into that one Marc...and yes, condensation is a huge problem for me...especially the trunk lid of my car.

Can you reccomend me a foot powered tire inflator...all I can find are ones for bicycles, and those can get up to 300 psi...so I'm sure they have auto tire ones.

[The CyberPoet]

Bicycle ones will be fine as long as it will do Schraeder valves (which are the car/motorcycle standard).

This is basically the one I use (Wallyworld carries them for $12 or so):

http://automotive.hardwarestore.com/11-31-tire-tools/foot-pump-601717.aspx

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[Anonymous]

What do you think of this one Cyber?

http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8001&catalogId=40000008001&partNumber=751150&cm_mmc=cse_nextag-_-datafeed-_-product-_-na&mr:referralID=b5add8ef-1c40-4383-a55d-8b0adaddb8ab

[md86]

I bought a double-barrel foot pump from Meijer (think Wally-world) that filled my dad;s minivan tire in a pinch .... Has a gauge built in , but I don't trust those cheap gauges .

[The CyberPoet]

What do you think of this one Cyber?

http://www.rei.com/online/store/Prod...d-8b0adaddb8ab

At 13.5", it's too long to carry under the seat, and if it's NOT going places with you, you should get a foot-pump instead, preferably with an integrated gauge (you can determine how accurate the gauge is with a different gauge that you trust, if you're like Matt -- my foot pump is within 1/2 of a psi compared to my digital gauge). Pumping a hand-pump 50 times to get a 10 psi change on a motorcycle tire is tiring; a footpump pumps more volume per pump cycle and your leg is stronger...

I prefer foot pumps with integrated gauge for at home, but carry a micro-pump that's 6.3" long under the seat (well, strapped to the outside of the rear frame rail inside the rear fairings) that takes both CO2 cartridges and manual-action just in case. The one I have mounted to the bike is currently available on eBay as item #3697583765.


KNOW THIS:
Industry standards for tire valves say a valve that leaks 0.2 cc's of air an hour is acceptible -- it's actually the tire valve cap that provides the real seal for the valve & tire assembly.
Vertical tire valve assemblies can have their plungers pulled outwards (towards the tire) during high speed rotation, resulting in unexpected leakage. Valves stems that rotate the valve mechanism can prevent this effect (such as my Solid Billet Tire Valves), but the best solution in all cases is still to have a valve cap on the stem tightly, as it will prevent such valve openings from leaking.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet