most these batteries are around 14 amp so anything over that charging wise could do damage. i would recommend charging it w/ the 2 amp setting for safer results although i have used 10 amps if i was in a hurry. also when using your tractor or what ever to boost your bike, just make sure the boosting machine is shut off while hooked to the bike when boosting as not to shoot up to 100 amps form the charging vechicles alternator into the 14 amp battery. imo

 

I have an oddyssey 680 coming for my SP500HO. It's the biggest I could fit in the stock carrier. We use oddysseys a lot over here for 4x4 winching competitions and they are by far the best. Good warranty and life span too.

JF

 

So I hooked up the bigger charger this afternoon, using the quick connect charging plug on my machine. The bigger charger has a meter on it and tells you what state the battery is at while it is charging. When I hooked it up, the meter on the charger was reading full, almost as if it wasn't working, but my Fluke meter was only reading about 6.5 volts, so something didn't seem right. So I disconnected the battery, yanked it out and connected the charger directly to the battery and the meter on the charger was now reading about 50%. Any thoughts as to why the charger wasn't reading correctly when I had it connected with the battery still connected in the ATV? I'm concerned that I may have other troubles, like a short or something else that's drawing from the battery while it is connected to the ATV. Any way of checking if I have other problems once I get everything put back together? Don't want this to happen again.

Thanks for all the responses.

 

Upon further investigation into how I hooked up the bigger charger while the battery was still connected to the bike, I think that somehow the polarity got reversed from the bigger charger to the battery because I was using a battery tender extension cable from the quick connect on the ATV and then on the other end going to the big charger, I plugged in the alligator clips that came with my Battery Tender and clipped onto the alligator clips from the bigger charger. This explains why the meter on the bigger charger didn't work.

Hopefully the charger went into failsafe when this happened and shut itself down and didn't put out reversed polarity. Not sure though, as this is an older charger. So now my next question - Do you think any harm was done to the ATV electronics, speedo, relays, etc. by having the polarity reveresed for 2 or 3 seconds while trying to charge in the 2AMP mode?

The battery seems to be charging ok, currently at 75%. Hopefully I didn't screw anything up on the ATV.

 

it doesnt take long to do major electronic damage hooking up power wrong. when you get your battery fully charged and put it in your know pretty quickly. most likely you'll be fine.

 

Charged the battery overnight and just installed it. Started right up and all seems well.

Is there a way I can check error codes through the speedo? I want to make sure that everything is clear.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

Is there a way I can check to see if I have any current draw when the ATV is shut down? I can't figure out how my battery ended up dying. I didn't have the Battery Tender hooked up to it the past few weeks, but I've had it disconnected for more than a month before and never had a problem. Just trying to figure out if I have an electrical problem or not, or just a fluke thing.

 

If memory serves me well and some times it don't. LOL. If you have the bike in either park or neutral (can't remember which) and turn the key on and off three times leaving the key in the on position on the third sequence the instrument cluster should go into diagnostic mode and flash codes. I know this works for the 04.5 and up, not sure about older sportsmans.