Cottonpickers Replacement

[ledbetter]

I think the first items I purchased on this forum, and the reason I signed up, were chargers and voltmeters from cottonpickers from England. I still use them, but often use multicell chargers more often these days. Their cheapest item was a little voltmeter with magnets I still use almost daily to test the batteries I use the most - unprotected IMR cells, which I feel have the best balance of safety and performance. Another plus of these voltmeters(they were also sold by Prometheus), is that they were very portable and could be used in the dark.

So after searching the WWW I see nothing available that looks like a replacement for what I have unless I buy the voltmeters and magnets separately and try my hand at soldering, which I haven't done in forty years! It's never too late? Or is there another source ? What do most people use to measure their batteries? My multicell chargers and Olight single only have light indicators.

 

[light-modder]

I too have a couple of these and love them. I'm not aware of anything similar. Thought about trying my hand at soldering some magnets on one as well but the cheap voltmeter I bought doesn't seem as nice.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Seems like I read that soldering onto a magnet is a challenge. Do you need to check Nimh or alkaline? If not, the little USB voltmeters can be made to work by sacrificing a USB cord, stripping and exposing the leads.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I've seen an alternative to soldering. There are magnets with holes and countersunk that you could put a flat head screw through.
If you take a brass flat head screw and a nut and solder a wire to the screw and put it through the magnet using the nut to keep it tight you could use that to make contact and the magnet to hold it there. You could also just use a long enough screw and a crimp on connector with a hole in it and another nut and clamp the connector between the 2 nuts.