American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 189 April 2015 | Page 14

Get SMART about battery
BRIEFS power monitoring

NEWS

Polaris Chairman and CEO
Scott Wine shared $31.3
million with the taxman during
the 2014 calendar year as a
result of bonuses and
exercising $22.9 million in
stock options.
The Harley-Davidson museum will
be sponsoring the Freestyle winner
at its Labor Day weekend custom
show to compete at the AIMExpo
Championship of the Americas with the opportunity to win
participation at the 2016 AMD
World Championship of Custom
Bike Building at the next INTERMOT
expo in Germany.
Advanstar says that over
430,000 visitors attended their
2014/5 Progressive
International Motorcycle Show
Series. The company has
confirmed the first seven
dates and venues for the
2015/6 series:
Long Beach CA, Nov 20-22
New York City, Dec 11-13
Miami, Jan 8-10
Dallas, Jan 23-25
Cleveland, Jan 29-31
Minneapolis, Feb 5-7
Chicago, Feb 12-14
Hero MotoCorp, the giant Indian
conglomerate that owns 49 percent
of Erik Buell Racing, is set to open
in Europe later this year and start
selling motorcycles in Italy, Spain
and France initially. Hero is the
world's largest motorcycle
manufacturer by PTW volume.

IF handled badly, motorcycle
electronics can kill enjoyment of the
riding experience; especially where
poorly maintained batteries or
insufficient battery power is
concerned.
However, if handled well, the power
of a well maintained battery to drive
modern motorcycle and consumer
electronics can massively enhance
enjoyment of the riding experience.
TecMate's new 'smart' OptiMate
Monitor with 4 LEDs driven by a microprocessor not only tells how well the
battery is charged (or not!), it also tells
if the vehicle's charging system is
delivering sufficient charge voltage
when the engine is running.
During vehicle storage the LED
matching the battery's state of charge
will blink every 5 seconds, drawing

or O-19 low profile BIKE (DIN) plug.
The lithium battery version (O-127)
has an LED warning if the battery is
being overcharged and for good
reason, overcharging means death to
a lithium battery!
www.optimate1.com

Armory - also a licensed
manufacturing business.
We here at AMD Magazine
came to know Jeff as a
competitor in the AMD World
Championship of Custom Bike

Building - indeed, he won the
Production Manufacturer World
Championship class at Sturgis
in 2009. Jeff was 55 years old.
Our thoughts are with his
family and friends.

Jeff Kessel
AMD is saddened to learn of
the death of Jeff Kessel.
Jeff was a licensed custom bike
builder and the owner/operator
of Independent Cycle East,
Motowerx Cycle Shop and ICE

Jeff Kessel, seen here on the right, with fellow builder Kenny Williams, who collaborated on 'Green Mile'
with which they took the Production Manufacturer World Championship win in 2009

European performance
exhaust noise management
system specialist Dr Jekill and
Mr Hyde has announced a new
electronically adjustable
system for Harley's Night Rod.
The system is legal in
automatic mode and can also
be used completely closed.
Q-Tech Engineering, the Belgian
trike and quad kit conversion
manufacturer headed up by Sandy
Poglavec, has inked a domestic US
import and distribution deal with
Martin Kline's Wide World
PowerSports LLC set-up.

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very little power (0.2 milliamps) to do
so, in fact 20-100 times less than the
vehicle's circuitry is drawing from the
battery at the same time.
When the vehicle's engine is
running, the LED mode changes to an
arrow, with the pointer reaching the
LED matching the voltage being
delivered by charging system. No
arrow means it is not charging.
Two versions are available for all
lead-acid batteries, including AGM: a
weatherproof battery lead with M6 /
1/4" ringlets (O-124) or an in-line SAE
to SAE version (O-125) that connects
perfectly to any 2-pin SAE battery lead
already fitted to the motorcycle.
The in-line (O-125) version also
works perfectly with all OptiMate
Cable adaptors such as the O-02
AUTO/BIKE plug, O-04 battery clip set

AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - APRIL 2015