Aston Trickle Charger Chattering & Pulsing

[abanks]

I went out to my car last night (DB9 Volante) which is currently on its Aston Martin trickle charger in the garage. I noticed last night that the trickle charger (made by C-Tek I believe) was making a chattering noise and pulsing with the red battery symbol LED. I turned it off at the mains it reset and was fine. I then went back in this morning and its chattering again. Is this likely to be the charger gone faulty or a problem with the battery ? Anyone else had this problem ?

[divetheworld]

abanks said:

I went out to my car last night (DB9 Volante) which is currently on its Aston Martin trickle charger in the garage. I noticed last night that the trickle charger (made by C-Tek I believe) was making a chattering noise and pulsing with the red battery symbol LED. I turned it off at the mains it reset and was fine. I then went back in this morning and its chattering again. Is this likely to be the charger gone faulty or a problem with the battery ? Anyone else had this problem ?

It could be both. The original AM charger can only supply 0.8A max. That's not even enough to run your interior lights. If there is a battery or car fault thats pulling more than about 12 watts then the conditioner will struggle. Whether that would cause it to fail is anyone's guess depending on how sophisticated the conditioners internal protection is and in what state of repair its in.
I use a CTEK 5.0 because not only can it maintain a battery, it can bring it back from the brink.
First things first, you need to know how much current the car is pulling from it.
I'd recommend a proper conditioner like the CTEK 5.0 anyway.

[abanks]

Thanks for the reply, I have a C-Tek 5 leftover from when I had my Jaguar XKR so I will swap it over and see if it fixes it. I will also check the current draw as you suggest.

[abanks]

Just found some more information on smartcharger.com that says with this charger this symptom can be due to a bad connection or charger is in desulphation mode. Have just been out and reconnected the lead in the boot and all seems well at the moment. Will check again in the morning. I may have disturbed the connection when I put the cover on the car.

[divetheworld]

Your CTEK 5 has a desulph mode. Glad it looks good.

[abanks]

Still pulsing / chattering away this morning - no error lamp on though. I think it is going through a de-sulphering process but I plan to swap out to my C-TEK 5.0 to prove it.

[abanks]

Just to close this out - The Aston Martin charger was in fact going through its desulphation phase and settled down during the day yesterday. (It pulses for a while then switches to charge then pulses for a while, I think the chattering is a small relay in the unit) . I swapped out to my C-TEK 5 last night and this morning the battery is fully charged and all is well. You live and learn !

[divetheworld]

That's great news.

[clarkei]

Mine does the same when the connection is poor. Wiggle the boot connection, a little WD40 seems to help too.