Modern Vespa

I'm planning on buying a Motobatt MBTX12U battery and was wondering if it has to be charged before use. If so can a battery tender do the job or do I need a "regular" charger and at what setting/amps does it have to be set and for how long?

8)

I bought a Motobatt battery(probably different size) at a local battery dealer for my Honda recently. It came charged and fired the bike right up.

I bought a Motobat at scooterpartsco.com. Why had the cheapest prices by far. I came, I installed it, never looked back. I remember at the time I looked to see if I should use a battery tender on it. It seemed like most didn't think it necessary with the battery keeping its charge for 6 months or more. My scooter gets ridden more often than that so it gets charged by the scooter and I haven't worried about tendering the battery.

Best
Miguel

You ought to charge your new battery. Standard procedure.

A battery tender, made for small batteries as we use, will work. You will have to keep it hooked up for 24 hours or so.

Motobatt claim that it needn't be charged before first use - but it does no harm to attempt to top it up with a proper motorcycle battery maintainer.

The Motobatts I've used have shown fully charged after only a few tens of minutes, so those would have been fine without topping off.

not true with a Motobatt. check out their website, they come ready to install and fire up.

READY TO USE! as are most any AGM battery.
My BMW G650GS uses a similar but slightly smaller size battery as you mention-mine is MBU12U. I bought mine last week from www.batterymart.com on a price match with an ebay seller. These are good batteries and popular with owners of my model MC as not many out there that fit the application. I paid $80/free shipping and your TX model costs ~ $4 more. Amazon has them too for around the same price. Mine came with a very fresh date code. A rider on ADV posted last week asking about the fact they had bought one on Amazon with a 2015 date code.
Fact is these AGM batteries have a good shelf life but still common practice in the battery world is to rotate stock and older batteries in auto parts box stores get discounted and sold off when they reach a certain age.
In that size there are a few other brands to look at.
As for do they come ready to use-YES! I checked mine out of the box and the voltage was high and it cranked like crazy.
ALL!!! batteries need to be maintained, some more than others. Even AGM's like to be kept up via a trickle charger. I learned the hard way that some trickle chargers are inferior after I ruined an expensive deep cycle battery in a short time using a Dis Hard sears trickle charger. It was no better than a cheapo Walmart trickle charger. The cheapo ones can be used but will overdo it as they lack the "construction" to know whens enough.
I have a bunch of Battery Tender brand which are good and one CTEK which is even better.
The same ready to use statement holds for most shelf bought batteries these days.
I won't go out on the limb and say all batteries.
FWIW, my old Motobatt lasted almost exactly 3 years. That battery sat too much as I had several surgeries that had me not riding plus I was less attentive to keeping my battery tender on it as one should do. Most experienced wrenches(like me) know that a machine not used needs an occasional charge and hooking the battery up during longer periods of no use. Ise others who get over 4 years from Motobats.
To sum up-buy where the price is right and where stock is fresh. My battery was a whole year newer than the Amazon battery that guy was asking about! A year matters with even an AGM battery!
The other factor on two wheels is acid-with AGM you never add water. Also the acid doesn't spill on you or your machine in a tip over-IMPORTANT!

Recently bought & installed one of these in my GTS 250ie. So far so good- starts right up immediately. The online retailer I bought from had the following info on their website which I followed:

AGM technology batteries can be charged at normal lead-acid regulated charging voltages therefore, it's not necessary to recalibrate charging systems or purchase special battery chargers.
THE BATTERY IS SUPPLIED CHARGED BUT, IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW TO GIVE YOUR NEW BATTERY THE BEST STARTING POWER AND PROLONGED LIFE.
1. Remove the battery from box
2. Charge the battery for 3-4 hours with a Motorcycle battery charger
3. The battery is now charged & ready for use.
NB, when connecting to a motorbike/scooter, always connect the positive (+) terminal first.
MOTORCYCLE BATTERIES MUST BE CHARGED WITH A MOTORCYCLE CHARGER.
(CAR CHARGERS CAN DAMAGE YOUR MOTORBIKE BATTERY)

I missed the fine print. All my batteries arE MB. Good to know.

I didn't mean to infer that any sort of special charger is required (as with L-ion lithium batteries that do require special chargers) for AGM, as it's not. I do stand by my statement that some chargers are better than others and kinder to your battery. On wet cells the cheap ones easily cook the juice out.
It doesn't hurt to charge an AGM right out of the box but given that they have the volts right then to do their job they will quickly peak out in normal use, as the vehicles electrical system will bring them up.
Depends on the car charger as some have controls, some not. I have an old 3 amp car battery charger (I bought long ago) that will cook a wet cell over time but in a short charge it doesn't harm a MC battery.
This seems to have become the battery version of an oil thread...

here is my ting with with batteries, do you change out your charging system in the bike because you installed a with battery? NO.

so how be it knows what kind of battery is in it to charge it properly?

Automotive replacement Li-ion batteries have their own internal charging circuits, so they can be interchanged readily.

AGM batteries do in fact have a different optimum charging regime as well, but it's close enough to standard wet cells that the vagaries of car/bike charging systems are coped with just fine.

Decent 'intelligent' battery maintainers (and 12V solar chargers) can often differentiate between 'wet' cell batteries, AGM and LI-ion, and adjust their charging profiles accordingly. Others have to be told manually, but do offer the choice. The cheapo ones just constrain the maximum current and voltage, but within limits that won't over-charge. However, these ones never get batteries to their absolute full charge, but hey, 85-90% is far better than dead.

The Li batteries that we deal with pretty much just say do not use a charger that desulfates, otherwise any motorcycle tender/maintainer is just fine. There are some Li batteries out there that have the eletronics built in and any charger will work, so they claim.

That sounds like a lot.

I don't charge them before I throw them in. My mechanic does, and firmly believes you have to, and will explain to me for a good half an hour every time we install a new one why we have to, but he's 70 years old and determined to do things the way he always has.

You can tell him a 73 yr old retired auto tech teacher said he just "throws them in".
On the Li batteries and chargers I got some interest in them as a MC battery early on but lost it after seeing that the prices were gonna stay too high for realistic? normal uses. On ADV there's an ongoing battery thread thats been in place for many years. If you get layed up for a year or so you just might make it all the way through the various statistics and factuals heavily weighted toward Li batteries.
Logically said, HA!my personal body weight after the holidays may add ~ the same amount of weight to a two wheeled ride as the AGM vs. Li battery diff.
As for price point- Motobatt is sold quite few places as listed on there website. The cheapest in my size was the price I paid per google searches.
There are a couple of brands that fit my BMW MC. Lots that are close and a few people have chopped away on this or that to make them fit, I saw no practical way to make more space. I had one guy that chimed in saying he could buy that size in AGM @ Walmart in there store brand but not any Walmart I found in retail or web based stores.
My Vespa AGM came from Advance AP's store. The auto dealer I bought it from put it in there the day I bought it and it coast him ~ what I paid for my Motobatt.
In other sizes for MC's & UTV I've had good service from some people in IN that web sell under the "Pirate battery logo.

If I introduce you, you can discuss it for a few days.

When they first came out, I got a few of the Li batteries. I haven't found them to be particularly advantageous, and given the number of Regulators that I've replaced on large Vespa moderns, I think the risks far outweigh whatever rewards people think are there.
I've boiled over a battery on my Moto Guzzi, and it was dramatic. I don't want to imagine what would happen if you ran 17 volts through a Li battery for a few hours.

particularly like the double set of terminals for all my electrical doo-dad's. they are on 2 out of 5 steeds and will go into the rest when the time comes.

Yes! the 4 terminal arrangement of recessed alu threads with double hole brass bracket & SS hex screw as used on Motobatt's is great (not just for increased sales via bigger application chart) plus the terminals are a better design than the typical old style with the captured nut floating inside a hollow protrusion.