Acumen give us the Platinum Black motorcycle battery charger and maintainer, a slightly lower spec alternative to the V&A Smart unit.
Initial Thoughts
Having had a massive drop in outdoor temperatures it was inevitable that my battery would start to show its hand and firing up was more and more laboured, being so cold though and rather than do anything about it I left the bike alone - forgotten in the yard. When the time came to start her up again the battery was no more and despite trying to utilise a cheap charger we had lying around it didnt recover, then jumping at the offer from Acumen to put their new product through its paces one landed on my desk ready for fitting so lets take a peek.
Construction
First up the bumpf I read stated it was splash rated and IP54, this in itself got me excited as we do not have garages or bays in which to charge so its out in the elements and needs to be suitable. When the Platinum black arrived though I noticed it states that the product is not suitable for outdoor use - something worth considering if that is one of your reasons for looking at this unit, fear not though all is not lost...
Being of reasonable practicality I decided that rather than abandon all hope of being able to use the unit outdoors I would get creative and built a nice little bird box type affair of 2 sides, a roof and a ground spike, over the wooden 'box' section I simply glued on a length of roofing felt and despite all the weather that Mrs Nature has thrown at it the unit has continued to work silently in the background. So away from the start of my own DIY show what is the Acumen Platinum Black all about? Well the aforementioned V&A Smart Charger comes with a Volt and Amps display built in that the Platinum Black does not, other than that the functions seem the same in that you have a good and weak battery indicator that informs you of the condition, power on light so you know its hooked up and a nice little recovery function.
So despite previously trying to get my old Gel battery powered up and failing with the old charger I hooked the bike up to the Acumen and as I feared it told me the battery was damaged, reading the instructions it does say though that on the first occasion of this warning you can leave the charger to go into maintenance/recovery mode where it tries to sort out the problem by altering its charging method until it is accepting a normal charge - genius! What is nice though is that you dont actually have to pay any attention to it at all and once you connect it all up you check the LED indicators and let it do its thing - and it did too... My gel battery was showing as good again after a single charge cycle.
For those of us that either leave our bikes out in the weather or not used for periods of time the Acumen is a great product to have, once a battery is back up to maximum the microprocessor drops the unit to zero current and stays on standby until a time when the battery needs topping up, in my case I simply ride up to my parking bay, connect it up and have never had a problem firing up since getting the unit.
The Electronics for the Platinum Charger are contained within a Stylish Splash-proof Black-Anodised Aluminium extrusion of an extremely robust design. The unit comes supplied with;
- An internal Buzzer to warn of reverse Polarity or irrecoverable Sulphated battery
- Wall Bracket with fixings
- A waterproof eyelet lead for permanent connection to the motorcycle battery - and even the Fuse holder is waterproof!
- Crocodile lead for temporary connection to a battery
- 3 metre extension lead
- UK mains leads
- Reverse Polarity protection
- Over voltage protection
- Over temperature protection
Also, the unit has 6 warning coloured 5mm LED's. indicating;
- Power on/off
- Incorrect Polarity (as well as audible warning)
- "Good" battery
- "Weak" battery
- Battery being charged
- Recovery mode - or Irrecoverable Battery (as well as audible warning)
The Platinum will Charge, Test , Maintain and if required, attempt recovery of a badly discharged/sulphated battery.
