Clicking sound with trickle charger

[jjson775]

I keep the battery of my Ford E-350 based Pleasure Way plugged in to a trickle charger when it's in storage. I noticed a regular clicking sound that I believe is electrically related. It seems to click about every minute or two. Does anyone know what this is and will it hurt the RV? I will appreciate any feedback.

[Sam_Spade]

booster wrote:

Sam, the separator takes more power than a smart tender will put out, so that is all done, just like Pleasure-way said.

I am not familiar with that specific piece of equipment so I bow to your expertise with that.

Given the high "parasitic" draw, then the battery should be disconnected immediately upon being parked and then for 3 weeks NO CHARGER OF ANY KIND SHOULD BE NEEDED.

Does a rig with that "separator" also NOT have a convenient battery disconnect switch ??

[booster]

Sam Spade wrote:

jjson775 wrote:
so I started using the trickle charger.

I hope others benefited from this lively discussion.

Apparently YOU haven't.....because you are still talking about a "trickle charger" which can actually be harmful over long periods of time; sometimes even more than just letting them sit.

YOU NEED A SMALL, SMART, AUTOMATIC TENDER TYPE CHARGER......not something that is properly labeled as a trickle charger.

AND......3 week is NOT a long period of time for it to just sit without attention. If the battery shows a significant amount of discharge during that time then there is something wrong that needs to be located and fixed. OR you just simply need to disconnect the battery. Over a period as short as 3 weeks, a charger is NOT NEEDED. It just is not....or maybe more properly, it should not be.

Given the right kind of charger it won't hurt anything though and if it has a reasonable charge to start with it should not be necessary to disconnect the battery. IF....you have a parasitic loss that is more than a small battery tender can keep up with, you have a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Telling people otherwise is not doing them any favors.

Sam, the separator takes more power than a smart tender will put out, so that is all done, just like Pleasure-way said.

There is no voltage rule for generic named trickle chargers, so they can be good or bad. yes, tenders are better, IF you need them.

3 weeks is very typical for a modern vehicle to have a low battery from parasitic losses, not unusual at all. Also as Pleasure-way said.

He doesn't need any tender if he has a separator and a smart charger.

You talk of using unreliable rules of thumb, but nobody is doing that here, except.....

[Sam_Spade]

jjson775 wrote:
so I started using the trickle charger.

I hope others benefited from this lively discussion.

Apparently YOU haven't.....because you are still talking about a "trickle charger" which can actually be harmful over long periods of time; sometimes even more than just letting them sit.

YOU NEED A SMALL, SMART, AUTOMATIC TENDER TYPE CHARGER......not something that is properly labeled as a trickle charger.

AND......3 week is NOT a long period of time for it to just sit without attention. If the battery shows a significant amount of discharge during that time then there is something wrong that needs to be located and fixed. OR you just simply need to disconnect the battery. Over a period as short as 3 weeks, a charger is NOT NEEDED. It just is not....or maybe more properly, it should not be.

Given the right kind of charger it won't hurt anything though and if it has a reasonable charge to start with it should not be necessary to disconnect the battery. IF....you have a parasitic loss that is more than a small battery tender can keep up with, you have a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Telling people otherwise is not doing them any favors.

[jjson775]

I know from personal experience that a fully connected starting battery will discharge over time to the point you can't start the engine, even if you drive it periodically. We live in a hurricane evacuation area and may need to scoot on short notice so I started using the trickle charger. I routinely check the battery electrolyte level so am not worried about it boiling out.

I hope others benefited from this lively discussion.

[booster]

Sam Spade wrote:

booster wrote:
He also said he knows driving every few weeks isn't always enough, which is absolutely true, as it can take hours to refill a cold lead acid battery so you slowly go downhill on charge.

With a healthy fully charged battery that is absolutely NOT true.
The self-discharge loss should be so small that a reasonable vehicle charging system can make up for 3 weeks worth in about 15 minutes......or less.

And trusting the onboard converter/controller to take care of the batteries over a long period of non-use is a mixed bag too. Some (many?) float them too high and tend to boil off the water, just like a cheap trickle charger. That kind tends to recover the charge slowly too. A good 2 or 3 stage controller, OTOH, will charge rapidly AND maintain the charge properly without excessive electrolyte loss.....like a smart tender type charger.

Specifics are needed. Generalities are almost always false and misleading.

You missed the point of what he said. He does not have a full disconnected battery. He has not been disconnecting the starting battery in the past and in 3 weeks the battery would be down. It is very common for a starting battery to go low from parasitic losses in 3 weeks. Even if it only 20-30% down, it will not get full in a normal drive, it will take hours. Take a look at a charging profile to full and see how long the last 5% of charge takes. Starting batteries in cold weather always walk down over time because they don't get all the way full in the time you have driving, so they run in the middle of the charge range most times. I have monitored ours here in Minnesota, and even with nearly and hour of commuting a day, the batteries would settle in at about 70% full for most of the winter.

You will notice that I said that if it is a multistep charger, it will be the best for all the batteries. Batteries recover better and last longer with a multistep charger that has enough capacity to stir the electrolyte in wet cells, so the shore charger will do better than a tender if he is not starting already totally full. Nearly every class b that has a separator like he does is new enough to also have a multistep charger, and if he does, IMO, it will do a great job on all the batteries, without the need to be hooking up anything else.

Obviously, you think otherwise, and that is your opinion.

[Sam_Spade]

booster wrote:
He also said he knows driving every few weeks isn't always enough, which is absolutely true, as it can take hours to refill a cold lead acid battery so you slowly go downhill on charge.

With a healthy fully charged battery that is absolutely NOT true.
The self-discharge loss should be so small that a reasonable vehicle charging system can make up for 3 weeks worth in about 15 minutes......or less.

And trusting the onboard converter/controller to take care of the batteries over a long period of non-use is a mixed bag too. Some (many?) float them too high and tend to boil off the water, just like a cheap trickle charger. That kind tends to recover the charge slowly too. A good 2 or 3 stage controller, OTOH, will charge rapidly AND maintain the charge properly without excessive electrolyte loss.....like a smart tender type charger.

Specifics are needed. Generalities are almost always false and misleading.

[booster]

Sam Spade wrote:

jjson775 wrote:
Even driving the RV every 3 weeks or so doesn't always prevent a discharged battery which is the reason I went to a trickle charger in the first place.

Yes it WILL.

IF you drive long enough to get the battery charged up
AND
You disconnect it when it is parked.

Any battery that shows significant loss of charge over 3 weeks when it is not connected to anything IS DEFECTIVE and should be replaced.

Did you notice the important information I tried to give you about "trickle" chargers ??

He didn't say he was disconnecting the starting battery in the original post, but that is what Pleasure-way said to do because, as speculated, the separator is kicking in and out. He also said he knows driving every few weeks isn't always enough, which is absolutely true, as it can take hours to refill a cold lead acid battery so you slowly go downhill on charge.

"Trickle" chargers may or may not be a problem IMO, as it all depends on their voltage setpoint. There is no required standard. 13.5 volts or less and it would be the same as most mulitsteps on float.

I go back to one of the earlier suggestions. We now know he has a separator, so the starting battery and coach batteries will be on charge when on shore power. Just plug into the main power to the van instead of the plugging in the trickle charger. That way all the batteries will be charged by the (we assume) multistep shore charger. You will always start, and not have to charge the coach batteries with the genny all the time, which is a very slow way to do it and won't get them full unless you run it for many hours.

[Sam_Spade]

jjson775 wrote:
Even driving the RV every 3 weeks or so doesn't always prevent a discharged battery which is the reason I went to a trickle charger in the first place.

Yes it WILL.

IF you drive long enough to get the battery charged up
AND
You disconnect it when it is parked.

Any battery that shows significant loss of charge over 3 weeks when it is not connected to anything IS DEFECTIVE and should be replaced.

Did you notice the important information I tried to give you about "trickle" chargers ??

[jjson775]

I called Pleasure Way about this. They told me the click is a solenoid that closes on a charge signal, as several sharp guys pointed out here. The simple solution is to disconnect the positive battery terminal and put the trickle charger directly on the post. Even driving the RV every 3 weeks or so doesn't always prevent a discharged battery which is the reason I went to a trickle charger in the first place. Thanks for the feedback.

[Sam_Spade]

jjson775 wrote:
I drive the RV every 3 weeks or so and run the generator with the 2 house batteries connected.

That in itself should be more than enough to keep the batteries charged. Forget about the "trickle charger". Don't worry; be happy.

[booster]

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.

[booster]

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?

[jjson775]

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.

[booster]

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.