Battery Tester

What do the gurus here recommend for a battery tester?

I have been eyeing the ZTS-1 at Thomas. Is this pretty good?

www.thomasdistributing.com/zts-mbt-1-battery-tester.htm

Thanks

Looks cool,kinda costly...............

I've had a ZBT-1 for over a year now and I really like it. It may seem a bit pricy, but it can come in very handy when you need it. One note of advice: It does not claim to test rechargable Li-Ion cells.

Build quality of the tester is excellent. It does a good job with Alkaline/NiMH cells (I've not tried testing coin cells).

I definitely give it a high recommendation.

Another recommendation here.

coppertrail said:

I've had a ZBT-1 for over a year now and I really like it. It may seem a bit pricy, but it can come in very handy when you need it. One note of advice: It does not claim to test rechargable Li-Ion cells.

Click to expand...

??
The current ZTS MBT-1 has a tab for RCR123A, 18500, 17650,18650. Maybe you have the old one?

I find the unit useful, though not terribly accurate as it only tests at one, modest current. Your application may use a completely different current and use a battery differently. In addition, I am finding at least RCR123 cells may need up to 20 tests in a row to start showing a more accurate picture of the health of the cell. Still experimenting.

For portable testers, I like them. I've got 3!:twothumbs

I'll offer one more obligatory "me too!" post.

I bought the ZTS-1 over it's cheaper cousin because I felt I'd eventually have a use for the many additional types of batteries that the ZTS-1 will test.
Well, "eventually" took just a few days, and I was surprised to find that I had more oddball types of batteries around the house than I thought I did.

The ZTS-1 is $60+ dollars very well spent, and if you get if from Thomas Dist., you get the really cool case for free that fits the ZTS perfectly.

Thanks all for the input. One ZTS MBT-1 ordered from Thomas.

louie said:

??
The current ZTS MBT-1 has a tab for RCR123A, 18500, 17650,18650. Maybe you have the old one?

I find the unit useful, though not terribly accurate as it only tests at one, modest current. Your application may use a completely different current and use a battery differently. In addition, I am finding at least RCR123 cells may need up to 20 tests in a row to start showing a more accurate picture of the health of the cell. Still experimenting.

Click to expand...

I agree with your assessment of the ZTS MBT-1 with even CR123 cells. I just tested a cell that had been used in my Novatac for over 10 days. I was rather surprised that it still test at 100 percent capacity. After rerunning the test several times (about 10 times) with only a few seconds between each test, it began to register a 60 percent capacity reading on that cell. I then waited a minute, and the same cell seemed to fully recover and register 100 percent capacity. I am sure that a volt meter without a load on the battery would have only showed the 100 percent capacity, and not showed the true state of the battery. The instructions with the ZTS MBT-1, don't begin to warn you how many times you might need to repeat a test before you can trust the readings. It just says to repeat the test to insure accuracy. I haven't played enough with this tester to know if the same issue holds for testing NIMH cells. Because, many cells are quick to recover, during rests, it looks like a single reading is not enough.

Having said all of the above, I am a bit disappointed in this tester. I thought if would help me to match partially used cells of the same capacity, so that I could more safely use them together in a another device that perhaps didn't shut down as quickly as the separate devices did from which each of the partially spent batteries were originally used. I am not sure the test results are reproducible enough and the intervals on the capacity scale are close enough in order to safely use this tester for the purpose of matching partially spent cells. Is there another tester that might be more suitable for this purpose?

louie said:

??
The current ZTS MBT-1 has a tab for RCR123A, 18500, 17650,18650. Maybe you have the old one?

I find the unit useful, though not terribly accurate as it only tests at one, modest current. Your application may use a completely different current and use a battery differently. In addition, I am finding at least RCR123 cells may need up to 20 tests in a row to start showing a more accurate picture of the health of the cell. Still experimenting.

Click to expand...

The claim about the RCR cells came from the owner of ZTS. Just relaying what I was told. It's because the chemistry of these cellls are very compared to standard CR123A cells. I do have the new model.

While I've never really felt the need for a ZTS, I have no doubt they are a great tester. Recently, I bought one of these from TD. If you mostly use AA or AAA batteries, this one seems to be very good. It also tests 9 Volt, CRV3 and 2CR5 Lithium's as well. It will not test single cell lithium CR123, CR2's etc. nor, to my knowledge, any Li-Ion cells, but does work with AA and AAA lithium primaries.

Being designed primarily for the digicam user, it appears to put about a 500mA load on the cell. This is more than the 300mA load (I think) of the C. Crane QuickCharger that I've been using, and it seems just as accurate, if not better. When I bought it, I really didn't think it would be all that good, but was pleasantly surprised.

Dave

I'm not so familiar with the tester, but I've been eyeing on the same one. Just a general question. Will I be able to do the same thing with a multimeter? I'm not an electronic geek, so I don't even own or know all the features in a multimeter.

Hello BabyDoc,

I ran a test that you may be interested in.

I had 4 NiMh cells and wanted to choose 2 of them to use. They had been sitting around for awhile, so I wanted to pick 2 that were reasonably matched.

I had 2 cells that tested at 60% on the ZTS. I took those cells and ran a discharge on the C9000 to see what they had left in them. One came in at 1053 mAh, and the other came in at 1185 mAh.

While it was not the best match, it also wasn't all that bad either.

The procedure we came up with for CR123 cells is to test them 3 times. If all 3 readings are the same, you go with that. If not, you continue to test until you get 3 of the same readings in a row. If this takes lots and lots of tests, there is an "issue" with the cell, and you should reserve it for a single cell application.

The ZTS is repeatable, but not precise. The actual % given does not directly apply to any cell that I have tested so far, but if you do a test, let the cell rest, then come back an do another test, the ZTS will give you the same value.

We have tried to come up with various other test methodologies to see if we could get beter accuracy, but there are such a variety of cells that one test method does not seem to apply to all of them.

When I am using used cells in a multi CR123 cell application, I match them on the ZTS and go with that. So far, so good...

Tom

SilverFox said:

Hello BabyDoc,

I ran a test that you may be interested in.

I had 4 NiMh cells and wanted to choose 2 of them to use. They had been sitting around for awhile, so I wanted to pick 2 that were reasonably matched.

I had 2 cells that tested at 60% on the ZTS. I took those cells and ran a discharge on the C9000 to see what they had left in them. One came in at 1053 mAh, and the other came in at 1185 mAh.

While it was not the best match, it also wasn't all that bad either.

The procedure we came up with for CR123 cells is to test them 3 times. If all 3 readings are the same, you go with that. If not, you continue to test until you get 3 of the same readings in a row. If this takes lots and lots of tests, there is an "issue" with the cell, and you should reserve it for a single cell application.

The ZTS is repeatable, but not precise. The actual % given does not directly apply to any cell that I have tested so far, but if you do a test, let the cell rest, then come back an do another test, the ZTS will give you the same value.

We have tried to come up with various other test methodologies to see if we could get beter accuracy, but there are such a variety of cells that one test method does not seem to apply to all of them.

When I am using used cells in a multi CR123 cell application, I match them on the ZTS and go with that. So far, so good...

Tom

Click to expand...

It is interesting that you found you only needed to run the test 3 times on a CR123 cell to get an accurate read on the cell. I would imagine that is ok on a cell nearing the end in its life cycle, but I found that when I test partially used cells (60 to 80 percent) it usually requires at least 10 reads to get what is probably the correct reading; otherwise it says the cell is 100 percent which isn't true. From my little understanding of Lithium cells, I believe that the voltage doesn't drop enough even under a moderate load unless the cell is 60 percent or more spent. However, with repeated tests (resting only a few seconds between tests), a cell that has only been spent 20 to 40 percent, will finally show its correct capacity (60 to 80 percent). Otherwise, in my limited experience, it doesn't.

Hello BabyDoc,

Here is how I came up with this test procedure...

I had 25 CR123 cells from the same batch. I did a discharge test on several cells to determine their average capacity. I then took a cell and discharged 20% of its capacity and tested it on the ZTS. I then discharged another 20% and checked it again, and so on. I repeated this process several times and came up with similar results.

Now, the actual capacities were off, but I was able to get consistent results by doing the tests until I got 3 results the same in a row. I would say that most of the time I did a total of 4 tests.

When I check CR123 cells that have passivation problems, it takes 5 - 10 tests to wake them up, then another 5 tests, or so, ot get 3 readings in a row that are similar. These are the cells that are very difficult to test.

Tom

SilverFox said:

Hello BabyDoc,

Here is how I came up with this test procedure...

I had 25 CR123 cells from the same batch. I did a discharge test on several cells to determine their average capacity. I then took a cell and discharged 20% of its capacity and tested it on the ZTS. I then discharged another 20% and checked it again, and so on. I repeated this process several times and came up with similar results.

Now, the actual capacities were off, but I was able to get consistent results by doing the tests until I got 3 results the same in a row. I would say that most of the time I did a total of 4 tests.

When I check CR123 cells that have passivation problems, it takes 5 - 10 tests to wake them up, then another 5 tests, or so, ot get 3 readings in a row that are similar. These are the cells that are very difficult to test.

Tom

Click to expand...

Tom, perhaps the cells I have tested are the one you mentioned have passivation problems. Maybe that's why I need nearly 10 tests before getting consistent readings. How long do you wait between each repetitive test?

Hello BabyDoc,

I don't wait...

Tom

I don't wait either, or just a couple of seconds. Otherwise, it seems the battery seems to recovery and read higher than it should. The directions that come with the tester suggest you SHOULD wait several seconds. I found that partially spent Lithium cells that have been sitting idle will often read like a new cell, unless you test them repetively with no time to recover between tests.

People who are unhappy with this tester might be reading the directions and waiting too long between tests or just relying on a single test. People need to understand that a battery's chemistry is changing almost constantly during use and disuse. A single reading with tester will NOT give an accurate picture of the capacity of the battery, not because the tester isn't accurate, but because the battery is often changing. Having said that, you might wonder why a tester couldn't be designed to automatically run a minium of 3 tests in a row, then continue to run tests until a constant reading was obtained with at least another 3 repetitive tests.

I don't wait either, or just a couple of seconds. Otherwise, it seems the battery seems to recovery and read higher than it should. The directions that come with the tester suggest you SHOULD wait several seconds. I found that partially spent Lithium cells that have been sitting idle will often read like a new cell, unless you test them repetively with no time to recover between tests.

People who are unhappy with this tester might be reading the directions and waiting too long between tests or just relying on a single test. People need to understand that a battery's chemistry is changing almost constantly during use and disuse. A single reading with tester will NOT give an accurate picture of the capacity of the battery, not because the tester isn't accurate, but because the battery is often changing. Having said that, you might wonder why a tester couldn't be designed to automatically run a minium of 3 tests in a row, then continue to run tests until a constant reading was obtained with at least another 3 repetitive tests.

SilverFox said:

When I check CR123 cells that have passivation problems, it takes 5 - 10 tests to wake them up, then another 5 tests, or so, ot get 3 readings in a row that are similar. These are the cells that are very difficult to test.

Click to expand...

How would you know ahead of time, or during testing/use if a cell has a passivation problem? And does it matter, if you do enough tests? Would it be useful to have a single cell light handy (say, a medium to heavy load) to "wake up" cells before testing them? Seems that might be the way to go - Do a little wake up call with a light, then see if the cell tests consistently?