battery tender

[Terri Kennedy]

Originally Posted by JST

So this is maybe a dumb question, but what's the best way to hook one of these up so that I don't have to use the clamps every time I want to set it up? Ideally I'd like to hard wire a lead so that I can just plug the car in after driving; most of these come with leads that appear designed for that purpose but they aren't large enough for a 12V car battery.

Or is what I'm looking for dangerous/non-existent?

Here is what I did on the Atom. The ring terminals won't go directly on the battery. However, if you un-do the bolts that hold the battery terminal clamps shut, you should be able to slip the ring over the bolt and re-assemble the clamp. You can pickup the negative from anywhere on the frame. On older cars, some people use one of the bus bars in the fuse box for the positive and a nearby chassis point for the negative.

It is important to remember that you have the tender connected, otherwise things can get exciting when you move the car - hence the "remove before flight" streamer in the link I posted.