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.

[DAWg134]

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.

[My_Roadtrek]

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.

[sch911]

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.

[Sam_Spade]

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.