Clicking sound with trickle charger

booster wrote:

jjson775 wrote:
The 12 volt trickle charger is connected to the Ford van battery. I drive the RV every 3 weeks or so and run the generator with the 2 house batteries connected. Then I disconnect the house batteries when leaving the RV in storage. The RV is not plugged in to AC at all while stored (except for the trickle charger). This worked fine with our old PW Excel for years but I am afraid this clicking (a relay of some kind) will give me trouble. Thanks for the input.

What year and model do you have? Do you know if it has an isolator or separator?

To clarify. If you have the coil type separator like the SurePower one that is commonly used, it would be pretty common for a trickle charger to make it cycle. As soon as it sees charging level voltage it will close, and the SurePower itself will take nearly 1.5 amps to hold the coil as it has no low current hold in it. The 1.5 amps is often enough to drop the voltage of the system below charge voltage because the because the trickle charger has less output than that, so then the separator opens, voltage goes back up and it all happens again. There are some delays built in, so it doesn't happen really quickly in most cases. This will happen even if you have the coach batteries disconnected. The solution is to remove the ground wire from the separator so it can't activate, when you are in storage or on the trickle charger. Another option would be to replace the SurePower with one that pulls much lower current.

jjson775 wrote:
The 12 volt trickle charger is connected to the Ford van battery. I drive the RV every 3 weeks or so and run the generator with the 2 house batteries connected. Then I disconnect the house batteries when leaving the RV in storage. The RV is not plugged in to AC at all while stored (except for the trickle charger). This worked fine with our old PW Excel for years but I am afraid this clicking (a relay of some kind) will give me trouble. Thanks for the input.

What year and model do you have? Do you know if it has an isolator or separator?

The 12 volt trickle charger is connected to the Ford van battery. I drive the RV every 3 weeks or so and run the generator with the 2 house batteries connected. Then I disconnect the house batteries when leaving the RV in storage. The RV is not plugged in to AC at all while stored (except for the trickle charger). This worked fine with our old PW Excel for years but I am afraid this clicking (a relay of some kind) will give me trouble. Thanks for the input.

We really need to know what the Pleasure-way has for a shore charger and if it is an isolator or separator before understanding what is going on. Also need to know where the trickle charger is connected, and hopefully what voltage it is at.

If the OP has a multistep shore charger and a separator, there really is no reason to need a trickle charger or tender. If it has an isolator, a small jumper on the separator is often easier than dealing with a separate charger of any type.

At this point there is not any indication of where the click is coming from, engine or coach.

If you have a dual battery setup (i.e., vehicle battery and coach battery), then it is possibly your battery separator cycling on/off. As the battery you are charging reaches around 13.6 V, it'll come on, thereby connecting the two batteries together. As the second battery (at a lower voltage) drains the current from the first battery, the separator will switch off somewhere around 12.6 V. The clicking noise is the relay contacts either making or breaking the circuit.

May I suggest a Battery Tender, or Battery Tender Jr. It's a 4 stage charger, and will maintain the battery with a float charge. I use them every week or so on my cars just to get a full charge into them. Takes a couple of days to bring a 90% battery up to 100%
Sorry, I can't help with the clicking sound except for the voltage regulator may click if the battery is low, or maybe a bad connection from the charger cables.

If you keep the RV plugged in to 120V also it could be the on-board converter cycling on and off trying to charge the same battery. Generally if the RV is plugged in the batt's get charged and no trickle charger is needed. Only caveat is if the onboard converter is not a smart charger in which case it can sometimes overcharge the batteries.

At the risk of stating the obvious......you need to FIND the source of the clicking. Try the charger first. IF it is a smart charger, that might be normal.

You NEED a smart battery tender and NOT a simple trickle charger.

Over long periods of time (months) a simple trickle charger tends to boil out the water from the battery.