guide me on a battery tester

[airwolf41]

Lets please try to keep this simple.

I don't have a desire to buy a multi meter right now and would need to learn how to use one

I want a very SIMPLE battery tester to be able to test just alkaline batteries, energizer lithiums, CR123 primarys and Eneloop batteries, as these are the only batteries I use.

I have on of those very cheap testers from amazon that has a slider and a needle that swings to "good" or "replace".

That tester seems to work fine as a general guideline, but it is generally accurate for Eneloops?

If not, I'm seeing a lot of reccomendations for these ZTS testers, would one of those meet my needs?

Again, I want to keep it simple, I have no technical expertise when it comes to batteries and voltages, etc.

 

[chillinn]

My story on finding a decent tester with links.

Testing cells is kind of winging it. You can get a good idea of remaining Eneloop capacity when you become familiar with Eneloop capacity and what SoC voltage corresponds to it, but it's not an exact science. Apparently testing voltage under load is more accurate, but also pretty inconvenient.

It is still holding out like a champ. Price has gone down a few bucks, too.
ANENG 168Max

 

[airwolf41]

My story on finding a decent tester with links.

Testing cells is kind of winging it. You can get a good idea of remaining Eneloop capacity when you become familiar with Eneloop capacity and what SoC voltage corresponds to it, but it's not an exact science. Apparently testing voltage under load is more accurate, but also pretty inconvenient.

It is still holding out like a champ. Price has gone down a few bucks, too.
ANENG 168Max

That has a very reasonable price, how does that differ from the ZTS tester which is a good bit more money.

ZTS says its testing under a pulse load test, it that accurate?

What is SoC voltage?

 

[chillinn]

That has a very reasonable price, how does that differ from the ZTS tester which is a good bit more money.

Well, it's a lot cheaper. It's a lot more compact. It's also a lot simpler to understand and probably to use. I don't know the ZTS tester, but it looks like a monster with a complex interface.

ZTS says its testing under a pulse load test, it that accurate?

Presumably, but is 10% accuracy gains worth the money when testing NiMH cells that really don't need tested?

What is SoC voltage?

State of Charge. The resting voltage. For example, when the resting voltage of a Li-ion cell is 3.6V, you know the capacity is depleted. I'm not sure what benefit testing that cell under load and seeing that it is really at 3.3V is going to tell you. The cell's empty either way. Same with NiMH. What does seeing 1V SoC rest voltage vs seeing 0.95V under load give you when the cell is empty either way? Or even when it is half full, seeing 1.28V rested vs. seeing 1.26V under load? Cell is still about half full. Made up numbers btw.

 

[louie]

ZTS testers are not complicated. All you do is touch the cell to it, touch the other probe to it, wait a second, and read the percentage.

IIRC, ZTS patented their method that they call pulse load testing. Their products have an internal comparison "chart" that ZTS came up with, to compare cell voltage under their brief load to come up with the percentage figure. This is pretty helpful for the wide range of chemistries and capacities of interest.

Is it worth it? Are they accurate?
They are kind of pricey. IMO, they are likely more accurate than unloaded voltage testing, or single/constant load testers, but nothing is really that accurate at predicting exactly how much life is in a cell without a complex analysis like a computer or phone does. ZTS' are pretty good at being consistent and doing one thing quickly and easily. I can't do a voltmeter test on a random chemistry cell, or a test with a random junkbox load of some sort, and remember what it should be for a given charge percentage, except at the extremes.

I'll note that you can do a dozen tests on a cell in a row and the reading may comedown, sometimes dramatically. And the test terminals aren't really cell size dependent - all alkaline 1.5v on one, and all LiIon on another.

I don't use the ZTS obsessively and write down the exact percentage numbers on everything. It is nice for checking random cells you run across that are unknown, but then, a low cost checker is probably about as handy. MBT-1 is the one I have.

 

[airwolf41]

ZTS testers are not complicated. All you do is touch the cell to it, touch the other probe to it, wait a second, and read the percentage.

IIRC, ZTS patented their method that they call pulse load testing. Their products have an internal comparison "chart" that ZTS came up with, to compare cell voltage under their brief load to come up with the percentage figure. This is pretty helpful for the wide range of chemistries and capacities of interest.

Is it worth it? Are they accurate?
They are kind of pricey. IMO, they are likely more accurate than unloaded voltage testing, or single/constant load testers, but nothing is really that accurate at predicting exactly how much life is in a cell without a complex analysis like a computer or phone does. ZTS' are pretty good at being consistent and doing one thing quickly and easily. I can't do a voltmeter test on a random chemistry cell, or a test with a random junkbox load of some sort, and remember what it should be for a given charge percentage, except at the extremes.

I'll note that you can do a dozen tests on a cell in a row and the reading may comedown, sometimes dramatically. And the test terminals aren't really cell size dependent - all alkaline 1.5v on one, and all LiIon on another.

I don't use the ZTS obsessively and write down the exact percentage numbers on everything. It is nice for checking random cells you run across that are unknown, but then, a low cost checker is probably about as handy. MBT-1 is the one I have.

Will a ZTS let me take random Eneloop batteries that have been sitting on a shelf for months or longer and get a reasonable idea of how much charge it left?

Or is the accuracy not close enough to make it worth it. I'm starting to understand eneloops may be complicated to assess in a simple way for someone like me who has no technical expertise with this.

I though ZTS may be the answer, but now I'm not sure.

 

[troutpool]

The ZTS is fine for all your primaries. Someone else will have to advise you on smart chargers for Eneloops.

 

[chillinn]

Just knowing the SoC gives you a decent idea of remaining capacity, once you have become familiar with Eneloops or whatever the chemistry cell it is. You learn when new Eneloops terminate charging, it's around 1.55V. You learn where they rest an hour later, around 1.46V. You learn what their charge might be two weeks later, maybe 1.36V. They're still full for all intents and purposes. After you run them at half an amp for an hour and look again, you might see the SoC at 1.26V and a few minutes later it might be 1.29V. You'll just know it's still at 75% capacity. If you use your cells, this insight doesn't take long to acquire. Is it really so confusing that if the SoC on a hot cell is 1.05V you know it's just about time to swap it out? If the most accurate reading from a load tester told you it was really 1.03V, is that any advantage?

If you have money to burn, which I am sensitive about, get the $99 tester. But I assure you that in at most a year of using your cells regularly, you will arrive at the same place had you spent $8. You'll just know what the remaining capacity is from the reading you get, whether it is a more accurate reading under load or whether it is a less accurate reading of resting voltage. I guess with the ZTS you won't have to think about anything, it will show you lights to represent remaining capacity. The 168Max shows you voltage to hundeths of volts (e.g. 1.22V), which you have to interpret. But it's easy because it will just come to you once you're familiar with the cells. When we learned to walk, things were tough, but now we hardly ever think about what our feet and legs are doing.

 

[hsa]

I just ordered the Aneng 168. It looks like it would be handy. Reviews indicate it is quite a crapshoot whether you get a good one, a bad one or even get one at all. Oh, well it's cheap and looks handy. I will let everyone know when I get it.

 

[chillinn]

Hope you got 168Max, not the BT-168Pro, which is complete junk. I read the 1 star reviews, and I'm a little surprised because mine has been deployed several times daily since it arrived in late Nov., and abused, as far as being dropped to a hard floor a lot, knocked around, and since this rescue is the worst kitten I've ever heard of, likely will continue to be. Hope you're not disappointed with it, because I thought I found a real gem of a tester.

 

[hsa]

Whew, just checked. I ordered the Max.

 

[chillinn]

Sorry, I mistakenly called it 168Pro in my last post last night, which I corrected this morning. ><

 

[The Hawk]

I have been using the same battery tester for at least 15 years. So far, so good. It's one of those cheap testers with the needle that moves from red to green. I use it on my Eneloops as well.

 

[Nisei]

A good battery tester needs to put a load on the battery and that load has to match the type of battery you're testing.
An LR44 1.5V button cell needs a different load than a 3000mAh 18650
That's why testers like the BT-168 Pro are useless. They treat every battery between 1.5V and 4.8V the same.
I have a camera that uses 3V CR123A batteries. The tester measures 3+ V but the camera doesn't work because there's not enough juice left in the batteries. As soon as you put a decent load on them the voltage plummets. Even the most expensive multimeter won't give you better results.
I also have one of those old meters with an analog meter display that has several contacts for different sized 1.5V batteries (AA, AAA, C, D etcetera) and each of these has different resistors attached to it. That thing is great but you don't see these anymore.

 

[chillinn]

That's why testers like the BT-168 Pro are useless. They treat every battery between 1.5V and 4.8V the same

There is chasm of utility between "less accurate than" and "useless." A tester that provides resting voltage within 0.25V of accuracy indeed does just that. Resting voltage may not mean anything to you, but it reveals remaining capacity to those with experience and familiarity with their cells. For the purposes of having an idea of remaining capacity of a cell, outside of laboratory conditions, the difference between the utility of a tester like 168Max and instead having a scientifically accurate reading within 0.00001V is negligible at best because the discrepancy would probably only be within a dozen or so mAh or single digit percents. A tester that tests cells under load can cost 8-10 times as much as a cheap tester that only provides resting voltage. It's a fair trade off and not remotely useless.

That said, BT-168 Pro is less than useless because it is junk. The 168Max is far more durable and is not as accurate as a $100 tester, but it's less than 10 bucks and provides resting voltage reasonably accurately for its cost.

 

[Nisei]

Resting voltage indeed means nothing to me.
Why? Because I only had negative results.
2032 measuring 3+V - not working in a remote.
CR123A - not working in a camera while measuring 3+V.
What use is resting voltage when the actual application doesn't work?
I trust my Brymen 869S for showing me the right voltage. But without a load it can't show me if a battery can still perform.

 

[chillinn]

We might be talking about apples and oranges and special situations compared to less special situations. I'm going to go out on a limb and talk about something I do not know much about, but when I have experienced primaries that test nominal resting voltage but are actually capacity depleted, there was something different about how it was depleted. Most of my lights are constant current, and the only other other thing I use replaceable cells for is smoke detectors. But I have a tailcap called a Lightsaver Miser that uses PWM to provide two lower modes of brightness, one half and one quarter of max, with a corresponding increase in runtime. What I have noticed consistently is that if I use it with a primary CR123A, that cell will test resting voltage at 3V when it is absolutely empty. When using a CR123A on direct drive and constant current, I don't see that at all; resting voltage will drop below 3V, 2.5V, and beyond. So what I am suggesting is that perhaps you are taking your exception and making it a rule to live by, when perhaps other times, maybe even most of the time with other devices that aren't drawing power with pulses from primary cells, you may not see the same thing. I could be wrong, and I'm not really comfortable talking about something I don't understand and can not explain, but when I see a Lithium primary read 2.6V, I know it's pretty much done, but according to your experience, that measurement doesn't mean anything. Do you think it is possible your remote and camera draw power in pulses? Is it reasonable to assume that the behavior seen from similar devices should be assumed as the same for completely different devices? I do think it is clear that with those types of devices, the only way you're going to get an accurate reading of capacity is to invest in a load tester.

 

[hsa]

What type of load does your load tester put on the various batteries.

 

[chillinn]

That's a sticky question, hsa.

 

[hsa]

Sticky is good.