- First Name
- Chris
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2021
- Threads
- 3
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- 74
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- 140
- Location
- Eastern PA
- Vehicle(s)
- 2021 Bronco Badlands Sasquatch; 737
- Your Bronco Model
- Badlands
I'm about to charge my battery after sitting for a couple of weeks. Looking at a chart it looks like its at 12.2 volts which equates to 60 percent.
My question for anybody that knows... is it possible to hook a tender to the Bronco without disconnecting the negative terminal?
In the Bronco owner's manual it states the following, and it sure seems like a lot to have to go through to keep the battery charged up.
Anybody have experience with this???
I have direct experience with exactly this situation.
Wife's Badlands SAS doesn't get a ton of driving time, and when it does, it is mainly local and doesn't give the battery much time to charge off the alternator.
After much consideration, I installed a Noco GenPro 10x1 battery charger/tender semi-permanently under the hood like so:
I ordered everything for the project from Amazon and McMaster-Carr. I utilized 'industrial strength' velcro from Amazon as my mounting medium to the top of the fuse box lid, making the unit removeable. The soft side is mounted to the fuse box, hook side to the bottom of the unit. To make the bottom of the unit smoother for mounting, I used a fresh razor blade slid under the rubber 'feet' to pry them off. I ordered some foam strip from McMaster-Carr w/adhesive on one side and cut three strips to install on the top of the unit as in the picture. This foam compresses when the hood is lowered, effectively 'trapping' the unit so it won't move in off-road/aggressive driving conditions.
I cut the hook terminals off the end of the charger, leaving the in-line fuses in place. I then soldered an in-line connector from Amazon in place to allow me to disconnect from the Bronco's battery and use some alligator-clip style clamps to charge other batteries if need be.
You can clearly see the in-line connector and excess wire neatly wrapped and zip-tied in the picture above. Additionally, the black heat-shrink connector mounted to the outside edge of the battery minder can be seen on the right.
The thick red wire with the black heat shrink is the positive lead for the charger mounted on the positive side battery bus. The thin black wire with red heat shrink is the power for the RockSlide Engineering steps.
Above is a photo from over the driver's side headlight looking back at the install.
I ran the 110V Noco charger cord down the front fenderliner, and hooked it through a heavy-duty zip tie that I only partially cinched to make a loop behind the driver's side recovery mount. I bought a weatherproof plug protector to mount on the end of the plug when it's not in use, and we simply plug an extension cord to the Bronco when it's sitting.
Zip tie is in the center of the picture w/the 100V plug through it.
The beauty of this unit is you simply select the mode button for 12V AGM battery type and the Noco unit will remember what you selected. So when you unplug and drive away, when you come back and plug it in it analyzes the battery then charges it as necessary. The Noco unit is also water-resistant, being made for the marine/water environment, so I don't worry about it dying because of water getting under the hood.
With this set up, everything is reversible/removable, but yet permanent enough to last a long time if we keep our Bronco a while (according to my wife, this is her 'forever' vehicle). With the in-line plug, I can still use the unit to charge other batteries.
A word of caution! If you do something like this, do yourself a favor and drape the extension cord over the driver's side mirror when it's plugged in. This will help remind you to disconnect the extension cord from the plug before moving the vehicle. I have a friend who had a set up similar to this and he inadvertently drove off with the battery minder connected with spectacular results. Afterwards, he made a red tag that hangs from his steering wheel as a reminder.
The battery is always strong now and we don't get any messages that the vehicle is going into hibernation due to low battery voltage. Feel free to take from my design and do what works for you.
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