I just want to share my recent experience on battery chargers.

- I bought a Vector 1089A battery charger/desulfator a while ago to maintain the batteries of my 2 bikes: the XX and a Suzuki DR-350. It was about $80. The 'desulfator' function is supposed to use high frequency pulses to shake loose and disolve the sulphate collected inside the battery to restore the performance. The way it works was to attach to the battery, start the 'desulfate' process by pushing a 'recondition' button and it runs for 24 hours before it turns itself off. After desulfation, the battery is recharged to full. It kind of works but not very well. Before desulfate-and-charge, my batteries were measured about 12.5V even after a full recharge. After desulfate-and-charge, they showed about 12.65V so there was a little improvement. A new battery fresh from the shelf was measured at 12.9V.

- I then read about the BatteryMinder (batteryminders.com) so I ordered 1 from pacificbattery.com for $50 (after CA tax). I plugged it in, it desulfated and charged the battery automatically. After 24 hours, my batteries were measure at 12.83V (and this is after disconnected the charger and let them sitting over night). I would say that this is much better after only 1 desulfation cycle. The BatteryMinder is also a battery maintainer that you can leave it plugged in to the battery forever.

Did you run a second desulfating cycle with the Vector device without any improvement before you ran a cycle with the Batteryminder?

Yes, I did. I have the Vector for a couple of years. I have run the desulfation cycle several 24-hour back-to-back but the best it could was to bring the battery to around 12.6-12.7V.
I just received my BatteryMinder 2 days ago and I have only ran 1 24-hour cycle day before yesterday on my XX battery and it's still measured 12.83V this morning. I like it so far :-)
I'm running a desulfation on my DR-350SE right now.

-mike-

PS: The battery on my XX is a 4-year old Yuasa.