Another battery tester question (sorry).

[_mike_]

I know this subject has been beat to death. I found a simple battery tester at Radioshack that supposedly has the ability to put the battery being tested under a load.

Click here.

Just wondering if anyone has used this unit. It seems a little pricey ($15.49) for what it is, compared to an inexpensive DMM, but if it works as advertised might be a nice little unit to have around.

Comments anyone?

Mike

 

[Cones]

Why not just put a cheap large wattage resistor across the battery to load it up, then measure to volts with a $5 DMM. Should give you similar results.

You could build a load box with pushbuttons to select different load for different battery types.

I have an excellent LED Bargraph scaled Voltmeter that does this for checking 4.8V packs for RC Model Planes. You can then see the difference under load and off load.

HTH

Mark

 

[andrewwynn]

just a matter of somebody else putting the parts together into a pretty package.. the key is deciding the right resistance and what voltages are good cut off voltages under load to be called 'good' or 'bad'.. all these testers are is the package deal.. i charge $75/hr (friends rate) for what i do.. $16 does not sound all that expensive to have somebody else make the purdy package.

that said, my diy nature would rather make a nice bar-graph tester like cones mentioned... and if you build it yourself you can use much more world-realistic loads... put D batteries under a much tougher load than button cells.

-awr