1260 Charger - Do I Need The Ducati One?

When collecting my 1260 from DMC Stoke last week I asked about using an battery optimiser over the winter. Was told that the only one that would work was the official Ducati one due to the Canbus... Sort of smelt BS with that as surely connecting fly leads to the battery terminals would work and not interfere with the bike's electrics?

I have a couple of Optimates; one for regular lead/acid and AGM and another for LiPo (have the LiPo off my MV that may or may not get put into the Mutley, smaller case but 360CCA). The regular Optimate is quite old but has worked well for years, I see no reason to spend yet more money. Any issues I should expect connecting this straight to the terminals?

 

Like one of these?

At £30 it sort of starts to make sense to maybe get the Ducati charger anyway as I would also need one of these for £8, so that's almost £40 down with the Ducati one for £73 delivered it means spending only another £35... The alternative is just straight to the battery with my existing battery fly lead that came with the LiPo charger and just buying the £8 adapter (or getting the soldering iron out...).

 

My older Optimate is a version III (I have the LiPo specific Optimate too and would use that if I put the battery off the MV on the Mutley). I assume that you're connecting yours directly to the battery terminals? If going that route I suppose I could just buy an SAE connector off of eBay (£2 delivered) and solder that to the output of the Optimate replacing the old Tamiya connector.

 

Thanks for your reply. I see that they are an Optimate distributor, I've already mentioned the SAE to Tamiya adapter in one of my posts above.

Expensive for what it is, probably due to the cost of propriety connector at the bike end. Connecting to the diagnostics port with my Optimate III (mine is an older model, looks nothing like the Optimate 3 on their website, confusing) I can only guess might be problematic unless anyone can confirm. The Optimate 4 is listed as being CAN-bus compatible, slightly cheaper than the Ducati charger, until you add the cost of the Ducati connector...

For peace of mind I think I'm going to go with the Ducati branded charger, comes with all the correct leads and will plug straight into my Optimate SAE extension lead (bike is stored some distance away from a mains socket).

Edit... now had a further look at the Optimate 4, seems fully featured and, already owning two of theirs that have worked well, I trust the brand. The cheapest route to buy that plus the required lead to connect to the diagnostics socket runs to about £85... Buying items for the bike is an Alice in Wonderland freaking rabbit hole

I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure...

 

Well, you can go direct to the battery or, using the adapter I mentioned, it plugs into the diagnostic port under the seat. Not too sure why this is recommended by Ducati and what the difference is in terms of how it connects to the bike electrics and the battery this way. The 1260 is definitely electrically active when switched off and the CAN-bus system I accept is sensitive to stuff being plugged into it. Especially when the bike is switched off.

 

I think, from what I've read, with the BMW and also Triumph CANbus systems you plug it into the Hella accessory socket. Although the Multistrada has these, one to the right of the dash and another under the pillion seat it's recommended to plug into the diagnostics port (DDA in Ducati parlance) under the rider seat I believe. This is the DDA port on a Hypermotard I believe. As far as I understand it connecting a charger to this port on bikes before 2010, where fitted, won't work and potentially could damage other components on the bike.

 

I agree that this is the safest route and the Ducati charger does seem, from what I've read, to be reliable despite having a Ducati logo across it...

For about £12 more I could get the Optimate 4 and their DDA lead, leaning in this direction on the basis of sticking with what I know and trust...

Or; further searches seem to indicate, with most informative responses on this forum from a Google search, that connecting any charger directly to the battery works fine (as I had assumed in my first post). Will order up the SAE connector for a couple of quid and solder that to the output on my Optimate III and see how well that works. Not exactly a lot to loose if it causes issues. My first CANbus equipped bike so I have no real-world knowledge.