Hello Gentlemen, I had a request to show exactly whare I have my battery tender installed on my SD, here is the skinny.

First I have installed my positive lead to the outside chrome 4mm Allen screw located in the box under the chin guard on the left side of the bike.

The blue part of the wire is part of the battery tender wiring harness, be careful not to touch this to any ground,

Or as instructed by the Battery Tender, disconnect the negative battery cable prior to installation. (PITA). Here she be.



Now here is whare I have decided to place the ground wire, the end of the 8mm socket wrench is on the head of the bolt. also on the same side of the bike.



Here is whare I like my pig tail to be located for quick and easy daily recharging of thoust battery, with the yellow charging light on.



Here it is again with the "float" (green) light on, basically on a trickle charge when this light is on.



Her is the pig tail when not in use, easy shmeazy.

Your lead is very close to where I keep mine.

I think Joe is like me in that I ride my bike all year so it is almost never hooked to the tender. I mainly use my plug for getting power to my Gerbings gear.

I just did mine this morning. I opted to connect the tender plug directly to the battery, which was quite easy. I route the plug through the lower opening where the positive terminal wire is routed from the starter relay. No worries at all. Nice clean install and another option to wiring it directly to the starter relay.

Why not connect the black cable (in your case your ground wire) to the negative cable of the battery? Do you have to ground it to the bike itself?
Is that safer or something when charging?

Reason why I ask this: want to connect a cigarette lighter connection to my battery (with a 5A fuse) that I can use for:
- Charging the battery
- Connect my Garmin Zumo

Your charging system may be fine. Is it possible that your bike sat for an extended period of time without being ridden?

With batteries generally the larger they are the longer they can sit. A car battery can sit for months and not really care but your battery is much smaller. If your motorcycle's battery sits for a couple of months it will die. At that point the best way I can describe it is that it is almost like the battery has a memory. You will most likely be able to revive it but it will never be able to accept a full charge after that point. Gradually thru this type of abuse the battery will not be able to hold a charge at all.

The trick with a battery tender is to start out with a nice fresh battery, that has been prepaired and charged properly from the beginnig, and keep it at an optimal state of charge for it's entire life.

When it starts to get a little colder outside, and I am not riding every day, I go ahead and plug the bike in even if it's only sitting for a few days or weeks at a time.

I have had batteries last 6 or 7 years by doing this.

If you don't do this you could be replacing your battery every year or two. You also run the risk of damaging other electrical components by running a weak battery.