Best ATV Battery Charger

If your battery on your ATV keeps dying or if you want to keep your battery in tip-top shape then you’ll need a good battery charger.

Batteries on quad or compact motorized equipment often have smaller batteries that can lose charge much faster than a standard vehicle battery. You can’t use just any charger to recharge the battery of your quad or utility task vehicle (UTV). You need a charger that is optimally suited for the specific battery used in your off-road vehicle or side-by-side.

Types

There are many ways to charge your battery. But there are only a few right ways to go about it.

One of the questions you need to ask yourself is where are you going to be keeping the machine? 

If you keep your ATV or Side by Side in your garage or anywhere that is covered and near an electrical outlet then all you need is a battery charger like this here (ad). We cover what type of smart charger you need down below.

If you keep your off-road machine somewhere that is either not covered or lacks a power source then you’ll need something else.

That something else is a simple solar panel charger. If you never had a solar panel battery charger before then you’re missing out. It uses no power. The right one keeps the battery in great shape and the best part is it doesn’t need to be in direct sunlight.

Solar panel chargers have come a long way. These new Solar Panels work great to keep a battery from dying on you when you need your machine the most. It works great for places like barns where you don’t have power or the ATV is not near a plug. Just run the wire from the panel outside and either lean the panel on the wall or screw it to the wall. You don’t really need to place it on the roof, modern panels like this work perfectly.

You’ll need at least a 2.5-watt panel. Don’t go past 5 watts unless you got something to regulate the panel’s power. Here is a solar panel I use for keeping my battery from dying at my storage place.  (ad)

The goal of the solar panel is to not charge but instead smack the battery to life every day. If the battery sits doing nothing it basically goes to sleep. If it sleeps too long it goes into a coma and dies off. But the solar panel is the alarm clock to wake it up.

Smart Battery Charger

I highly recommend the solar panel option if you can. If your garage has a window you can hang it from the window on the outside and charge your battery on your ATV and not use any power to do so.

Sometimes people want perfection. This is where these smart chargers come into play. Battery chargers have come a long way since the 80’s and 90’s. Too much charge and you damage the battery. Too little charge and the ATV won’t start. Smart chargers fix this.

Now they do sell trickle chargers, but you want to avoid those. Even though trickle chargers slowly charge they don’t shut off correctly and just like how a drop of water in a bucket can overfill the bucket left alone long enough so will a trickle charger.

The best kind of battery charger for your ATV will be a smart battery charger. You want something that gives at least 0.75amps and does not go over 2amps.