I ordered a NOCO Genius 1 and it arrived in a few days. I installed it on my old ATV (or rather plugged it to the pigtails I’d already wired to its battery). It looks like this:
In my last post I mentioned I’d installed a NOCO GC002 X-Connect M6 Eyelet Terminal Accessory on the ATV’s battery. I’d bought that accessory a couple years ago and thought it was necessary. At the time I was trying to swap one maintainer to several machines. If you swap one maintainer to several machines you’re going to need extra pigtails (which I bought while bitching about the price). I forgot that each NOCO Genius 1 comes with pigtails that are fine to be hooked directly to little (motorcycle/ATV/lawnmower) batteries but too small for big car sized batteries.
Given the cheap cost of the little 1 amp charger, I have no idea why I was going through gyrations trying to use multiple pigtails with one charger. Maybe inflation has changed the maintainer/battery cost ratio?
The pigtails (included with a NOCO Genius 1) have a fuse on the hot (red) side (fuse included), their proprietary plug (that fits all of the maintainers I’ve bought so I can swap maintainers at will), and alligator clips. The pigtails look like this:
Alligator clips work on any battery, but I remove them because I’m not a Neandertal. Just kidding. It just feels more civilized to install pigtails right to a battery so that’s what I prefer. That way I can plug in any Noco maintainer without opening the hood or anything.
The pigtails are designed to have the clips removed easily. Just remove the little screw. Since every maintainer has a set of alligator clips and I hate alligator clips (preferring pigtails) I have a pile of leftover alligator clips. I use them to close half eaten potato chip bags… which is the manliest of all potato chip bag clips. BTW: The clips are pretty well built, they’re not flimsy at all.
One other note, the clips for Noco’s maintainers are different than the clips for Noco’s jump starters. The former are pretty beefy, but the latter are much beefier. On the smallest jump starters, the clips are almost as big as the tiny battery itself; as if you’re planning to reanimate a freight train. I don’t complain because thick wires and clips make it work so very well with the high amp task of a jumpstart.
The drawback is that I have to carry jumpstart clips with the Noco Boost Sport GB20 battery pack that lives on my dirt bike. It’s not built to jump start the bike through the maintainer pigtail (though if ever got desperate I’d try it). The big “jump start” clips are an unavoidable extra few ounces I add to my two wheeled mule in the interest of being unstoppable.
Back to the topic at hand, the proprietary plug between the maintainer and the pigtails is idiot proof. One side is round and the other is a pentagon, you can’t plug it in “backwards”. The clip also has a little red lever that snaps the two sides together and holds everything tight while you abandon your beloved ATV/motorcycle for weeks or months at a time. The lever is big enough you can see it in dim light and it’s idiot proof enough you can plug it in while wearing mittens.
This is what the pigtail looks like hanging off a generic old ATV. Someday I’ll use zip ties to “clean up” the install but it was getting cold. I’ve got similar pigtails coming out from under seats or access panels on all of my motorcycles. They’ve ridden thousands of miles that way with no issues. There’s a little waterproof cap on the pigtail too.
Pics or it didn’t happen. Here’s the biggest baddest ATV of two decades ago when big and bad meant “it has 4×4 and a massive 325 cc motor”. I’m rather impressed how well the little ATV has held up.
