Is it my truck or my battery maintainer?

[Waffle34]

so its a 2018 silverado LT with 5.3L. Not experiencing any battery issues but its been parked for 2 weeks while we get this massive salt dumping off the roads. Winter beaters can turn white all they want but trying to keep this truck as nice as i can for as long as i can. Id wash it if all the car washes weren't closed due to below 0*F temps.

 

Anyways i wanted to hook it up to a trickle charger/maintainer. Ive had this barely used Stanley 1amp charger/maintainer - perfect. Let my neighbor borrow it to top off a new battery inside his apartment a few days ago before he installed it so i know it works.

 

So its got 3 lights: one red for wrong polarity, a green light when its full, and a yellow charge light. Normally, hook up battery, plug into wall and yellow charge light comes on.

 

So the truck has that circuit board thing blocking the pos terminal but has that red cap your supposed to jump from. Hook red to red black to black like normal, plug charger in and got no lights on charger. (truck still has dome light, bright headlights, flashes parking lights with key fob so its got enough voltage)

 

Where it gets weird is disconnect red clamp the charger light comes on for charging....hook red back up unclip black, still no lights Disconnect both clamps no lights as it should..

 

Im going out on a limb and guessing its my maintainer that's not happy for some reason. Maybe the truck is drawing more than an amp sitting there with the hood open? Could the intelligent maintainer be interfering with the intelligent  battery circuit board on the truck?

 

Anyone ever had an issue with smart chargers/maintainers on the terminals? Id undo the ground terminal so its just the bare battery post and hook it up to try that but got too cold n dark - how long can the truck sit before radio presets and such get forgotten? (Or is there a time limit?)

 

Sorry for the long post...

Edited February 18, 2021 by Waffle34

[Grumpy Bear]

Good question

 

[Waffle34]

Going to try taking the neg terminal off and trying the maintainer again this AM.

[Waffle34]

Yea still no luck, managed to sneak the pos clamp on directly to the battery and that allowed it to blink yellow at me which means its not charging.

 

Gave up and bought the harbor freight Viking 4A auto charger. Hooked battery back up to the truck, clipped that thing on for standard battery winter mode (as it got to a warm 17*F today) and let it charge. Fully charged and should be good to go.

 

I think that stanley trickle charger is just junk and not rated the best review wise (i got it black friday like 2 years ago for $5 so eh. Can always salvage the clamps from it)

[Grumpy Bear]

Good information all the way around. Thanks!!