My Trickle charger blinks red?

Old Redneck

Old Redneck

Well-known member
I know I have the battery hook up correct red to pos. black to neg. 6 volt battery out of car. Why is it blinking red? I have another 6 volt trickle charger and it does the same thing.:confused:
 
As I recall, my Battery Tender instructions says it blinks during the last 20% of the charge cycle. You might want to check the instructions for your charger.
 
This blinks Red when you first hook it up. It could be a problem with the battery I just wonder if anyone else had this problem.
 
Battery might not be rechargeable - it might have an internal short....

If you short the leads of the charger together, does it blink red? > Unplug the charger, short its leads together and then plug it back in. Does the charger blink red when you do this?
 
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Is the battery DEAD, or really LOW-charge? If so, maybe you need to hook-up a second healthy battery to the bad one in parallel (POS to POS, and NEG to NEG) to charge the pair. Sometimes, these chargers need to see some "sense voltage" for a reference. DD
 
Just happened to a friend of mine. Turns out there is a fuse in the harness connected to the battery for quick hook-ups (this was on a motorcycle). The fuse was blown.
 
Yes I hook the RED to POS. Black to NEG. I tried it both ways and still does the same thing. It works great on another 6 volt battery. It must be the battery? If you buy a battery from 3 A.s they give you a 6 year warranty 3 full years and 3 years pro rated. That the best I have found. Now I have not tried on a 6 volt battery but I soon will. Plus they bring the battery to your house and install it. The battery was cheaper then Auto ZONE. Now that was a 12 volt battery for our Chrysler.
 
One more question do you leave your Battery Tender hook up to the battery all the time? Will it hurt the battery to leave it hook up all the time?
 
Never though of that but the battery was in the car correct. PoS. post to ground and Neg. post to starter. The battery was in the car when I got it.
 
Thats happened to me a few times, seems battery was to low to use my normal charger so I connected a mini charger, trickle charger for a few hrs then went back to my normal charger and it worked
 
Redneck - As you know, I have a whole fleet of vehicles, ranch equipment, etc: I have 10 or 12 of the Schaumacher battery maintainers, and rotate them from vehicle to vehicle, sometimes leaving them on for weeks at a time with no issues. You need to make sure yours is the type that turns off automatically when the battery reaches a certain charge (usually 90%). If it is a regular charger, it will continue to charge and ruin the battery. Now to your specific questions: if the charger does not "see" any charge, it will automatically "blink red" indicating a bad battery. You can determine if this is the case by simply putting a regular charger on the battery for 30 minutes, then reattach your trickle charger - if it continues to blink red, then in all probability the battery needs replacing. If it now shows charging - continue to charge until you are ready to put it back n the car and try it. If you want another method (and this is how to recharge a deeply discharged Optima) - do as V8Coopman suggests with a good battery. I have Optima batteries in virtually everything on the ranch, most of them many years of age and this is how I recharge one when Mr. Dummy (me!) allows one to become excessively discharged. Hope this helps!
 
I have a trickle charger - it ALWAYS blinks red when first hooked up (means it is charging). Then it switches to solid green when it is charged
 
Yes you should use a battery maintainer. I have a 2004 Lund boat that has 3 batteries in it. When I bought the boat I put the maintainers in it and the batteries are still good to this day.
 
Redneck, I'm just "grasping at straws", here but perhaps the positive ground has something to do with it? What happens if you disconnect everything and try to charge it alone?
 
I have a battery tender for my PU and use it when ever the truck is in the garage, including from Nov. until Apr. When I first plug it in it is usually red, and after 10 to 30 minutes it turns to green. I had called the manufacturer and they said that this is normal and not to be concerned. My light is a steady red or a steady green, it does not blink.
 
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