Deltran battery tender junior 2017

[68ragtop]

Like many of you guys, I have been hooked on the tender junior for several years now & I have a bunch of them. At one of my local stores they will run a special on them every once in a while & I will grab another one.

I bought one a few months ago & its been in the package until today. I opened it up to realize its been redesigned. Its about half the size & easily half the weight.

For now, I am going to be a sceptic & wonder if this is a good thing. At first glance I would say its cheaper to manufacturer as there is nothing to it now.

I have had vehicles hooked up to them for months, if not years on end & I have zero issues with battery boil out, or anything. no compromises. But, now I am guarded with this change.
I am guessing this is old news as I have had this in my tool box for a pretty long time, but its new news to me.

I hope Deltran didn't ruin a good thing by trying to make them more profitable. I still recommend them to everyone thats in need of a maintainer.

Thoughts?

 

[Spimothy Leary]

interesting, mine is still the old one, I hope you are correct that technology allowed the smaller size/weight and NOT cheapness, because I recommend the Jr. ALL the time...

 

[Matt Braley]

Your new one is "high efficiency" so I'm not sure if that distinction means anything or not.

The same thing happened to me on my Optimate 4 chargers. My old one was heavy and bullet proof and the new one came in at half the weight. The new one takes on water when left outside in the rain where the old one does not. Luckily it comes back to life when dried out.

 

[68ragtop]

Honestly, this thing has a very cheap feel to it. Makes me kinda sad. the originals obviously have some sort of transformer in them & the new ones must be just chipsets. they are light as a feather.

High efficiency. lol nice marketing words, but I'm pretty sure they are much less expensive to build & that was the goal, not necessarily to save energy.

The Jury is officially out & time will tell. Not sure I am ready to long term test one yet given the cost of the batteries.

 

[68ragtop]

Here's the inside of the new one. Not much in there at all. All my older ones are in the storage building, & not nearby so I can't open one of those up but I will next chance I get.

Assuming they are screwed together like the new ones......

 

[Matt Braley]

Seen worse. Give her a chance maybe technology allowed them to make it better and cheaper. Sometimes it's just another Chinese company winning the bid to manufacture them. I'm looking forward to hearing the report after you put it to work. I like their lightweight lithium battery but it's not cheap. Quality seems good though I'm 2-3 years in so far.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Deltron-Bat...ash=item2cc186d643:g:GnoAAOSw3gJZHe9i&vxp=mtr

 

[mikidymac]

How are those $30 batteries Matt?

 

[Matt Braley]

They look thin and cheap.

 

[Luv2Camp]

Have one of the old version ones on my Seadoo and bought the new design one for my Harley about 4 months ago and so far it works just as good as the old version.

 

[68ragtop]

here's inside the "old" one & the comparison

I don't know about you guys, but I'm thinking the change is about mfg cost savings.
Wow! makes the new one look like a cell phone charger......

 

[Triorieel]

The old one is a transformer for the power where the new one looks like it is a switching power supply. I'm not familiar with how switching power supplies work, but I think needs some logic behind it. I wonder if there is circuitry on the backside of the board.

I use these 2A intellegent chargers on everything when they are not in use (seadoo's, lawn tractors, the car that hardly get used, etc...)
They will charge the batteries, they will also stop charging and maintain the battery. The nice things about these is the have a connector. This allows me to leave the wire attached to the battery and I just connect it with no effort when the vehicle/vessel parks.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/m...elligent-battery-charger-2a-0111506p.html#srp

You won't find motomaster in the US, but most things these days are built by manufacturer A and company B puts a label on it. So I wouldn't be surprised if they are a different name down there.

I think the brand genius charger has a good name, just more pricey then the ones I use.

Take note, I wouldn't use anything higher then the 2A for the seadoo's. The mpem's are reported to be sensitive and I figure 2A is weak enough to not raise the voltage to high during charging, but it's also strong enough it will charge a battery if it needs to.

And yes, I leave mine plugged in all the time on the seadoo's with the electronics still hooked up. This way I know the battery is getting the best it can get for life expectancy AND I never have to worry about a dead battery when I want to have fun.

 

[68ragtop]

There's a story of why I am worked up over this.....

I have a few cars stored that very seldom ever get driven. They all have batteries & some have the typical parasitic current draws from the clock, etc. I would charge the batteries from time to time, but it wasn't the best way to keep things in good shape. So, one winter I was putting everything away & I bought three new schumaker battery maintainers. They said they had float mode technology right on them. They went into charge & showed "green" charged after an hour or so. I hadn't checked on the cars in several months & when I did, I noticed the ones with the new chargers had the "trouble" led illuminated. I found all three batteries where destroyed. Dead as a door nail & essentially boiled away. So not only did I waste $100 on these maintainers, but I had to replace three batteries too. I was not happy at all. That's when I started using the Tender juniors because of a recommendation on this website. Since that time, I have had these same batteries plugged in 24/7 & they are all in perfect shape.

After this post I will have to look to see how long that has been, but I know its been at least 2 years. So I have had zero fear of leaving batteries plugged into the juniors everyday, year after year.

While these new ones might be good, Its going to take a long time before I trust them like I have trusted the old ones. After all the only thing that looks remotely the same as the old ones is the green sticker. Until I know for sure, I will recommend with a word of caution. Or just not recommend at all for now......