Testing deep cycle battery with this..

aussie_paul · Guru

Testing deep cycle battery with this..

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) is a standard test for cranking batteries. It gives no indication of the health or otherwise of an RV battery.
Cheers,
Peter

swamp · Senior Member

Hi
best way is to check is to discharge time from full
EG
fully charge 100ah AGM
connect 3 x brake light bulbs approx. 63watts approx. = 5 amps

How long to discharge to achieve the 12.00v /50% capacity . Expect close to 10hrs

T1 Terry · Guru

swamp wrote:
Hi
best way is to check is to discharge time from full
EG
fully charge 100ah AGM
connect 3 x brake light bulbs approx. 63watts approx. = 5 amps

How long to discharge to achieve the 12.00v /50% capacity . Expect close to 10hrs

The best and really only reliable way to know the remaining capacity. We have had deep cycle batteries brought in that tested fine with the you beaut special battery tester that tests internal resistance and they came up fine on that test. We charged them for 2 days with a controlled trickle charger, then put them on the C20 (5 amps per 100Ah capacity) test and they dropped to 11.8v in under an hr. They tested that they would charge and discharge, just had very little capacity remaining.

Some of them will actually respond to those pulse chargers and regain some of their lost capacity, others just drop their bundle completely and one cell bubbles and fumes. If the battery is already virtually dead, what do you have to loose?

T1 Terry

aussie_paul · Guru

Thanks.

Aussie Paul. smile

DeBe · Guru

120AH AGM test.4.JPG Yes I have one & quite happy with it. It does the same tests as what the expensive Midtronics unit does. Picture of the screen when testing my 120Ahr AGM battery. If you note the readings when the battery is new & fully charged, then it will give over time an indication of its health, especialy the internal resistance.

-- Edited by DeBe on Thursday 11th of April 2019 06:09:31 PM

DeBe · Guru

This is the test on an 8 year old NZ70 battery which was in my vehicle. BATTERY TEST.JPG CHARGE TEST.JPG CRANK TEST.JPG RIPPLE TEST.JPG QUICKLYNKS. BA101, TESTER.JPG

denmonkey · Senior Member

thanks Paul, I'll suss one out :)

cheers Brett

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

Read again what Swamp and Terry said.
These devises CAN NOT tell you the health of deep cycle battery.
Cheers,
Peter

DeBe · Guru

75AH AGM test.JPG I think I will stick with my tester as a guide. This is an AGM that is almost at its end of life. Note internal resistance is high & capacity is low. For me its a quick test of the battery state. It has other uses as in using on your vehicle to test altenator for faulty diodes (ripple) also cranking voltage.

T1 Terry · Guru

DeBe wrote:
I think I will stick with my tester as a guide. This is an AGM that is almost at its end of life. Note internal resistance is high & capacity is low. For me its a quick test of the battery state. It has other uses as in using on your vehicle to test altenator for faulty diodes (ripple) also cranking voltage.

What part of that reading shows the capacity is low DeBe? The 18% health says it has past the end of life and is on life support if you use the 50% max discharge regime :lol: 18% of 75Ah is 13.5Ah and 50% of that is about 7Ah.

It is a good pointer to those that believe their 7 yr old battery is still as good as new though, it would be interesting to see a test using the same device on a 7 yr old Lithium battery, the CCA might stretch its capability to measure or display though :lol:

T1 Terry

DeBe · Guru

To me the health reading is very poor which represents the capacity. And the internal resistance has gone too high. I also cant be bothered flattening a battery to see what capacity is actualy left in it. These testers are not designed to test lithium batterys.

-- Edited by DeBe on Friday 12th of April 2019 04:36:08 PM

DeBe · Guru

While we are looking at battery testers, this is a Midtronic Micro-490 around $800 at the time. All Ford dealers were expected to purchase these for testing batterys for warranty claims. If it did not give a fault code number then there was no warranty replacement battery. These testers do the same as the above tester. BARINA.1-MIDTRONIC.JPG

-- Edited by DeBe on Friday 12th of April 2019 04:52:28 PM

aussie_paul · Guru

oh wow. A few replies. biggrin The quick test function asks for the amp hour of the battery to be entered, so I ran some tests today to get a bit of an idea how it works.

Aussie Paul. smile

-- Edited by aussie_paul on Friday 12th of April 2019 07:07:57 PM

Extraordinary Rendition · Veteran Member

Wouldn't this thread be wonderfull if everyone spoke the same language and had mustered a pass in high school physics. As it is the thread is unreadable. There is a reason why trades have a conformity of level of understanding and a standardisation for comparing the performance of the units deployed.

T1 Terry · Guru

Extraordinary Rendition wrote:
Wouldn't this thread be wonderfull if everyone spoke the same language and had mustered a pass in high school physics. As it is the thread is unreadable. There is a reason why trades have a conformity of level of understanding and a standardisation for comparing the performance of the units deployed.

Maybe for a forum involving equally trained people to exchange information, but not many Grey Nomads that know the technical terminology would need to ask the questions in the first place. The difference between someone who really does have technical ability can interpret the layman speak into techno speak, and then back the other way so the average reading can understand the reply. No value in talking techo babble to people who already know the techno speak, you are simply telling them what they already know and boring them silly. Better to talk at a level of understanding that the majority can follow what is being said and ask for clarification for the bits they don't understand. I doubt you knew the tecno babble when you first stated out, so be careful about getting too precious or someone better qualified than you in a different field will reply to any inquiries you have in full blown techno babble leaving none the wiser and probably more confused then when you started.

We already have a member here that likes to quote the electrical standards, I doubt we need any more ....

T1 Terry

T1 Terry · Guru

I have ordered one and hope to have it for Stone The Crows. I have a set of very tortured 7 yr old lithium cells I'm using as a start battery, it will be interesting to see what the gadget thinks of them. It will be good to test the batteries of people who are having power issues and quickly determine if the issue is really a battery past its use by date, or really a charging problem because they are using more than they are collecting from their solar.
I'm guessing the battery guy who makes an absolute killing there each year might not be too happy, but then I might get him a lot more sales than he would have normally, so we will wait and see.

T1 Terry

DeBe · Guru

Be interesting how you fare Terry. Ive used the expensive Midronics unit when I worked in a Ford dealership & found the cheap unit close enough. What I do is when I buy a new battery for the Caravan or my vehicles I make sure they are fully charged then test them & keep a record of the readings. Then in the future I have a reference to go back to as to the relative health of the battery.

Extraordinary Rendition · Veteran Member

Gosh Terry I think I am beginning to see what you mean. Simple Physics cannot be understood by the hoi poli because it is all highly technical jargobabble. Best leave the discussion of these really easy to understand concepts, after all the woo is stripped out, to poets and those that convey the Truthiness of High School Physics and Chemistry by interpretive dance and mime. Have at it Terry.

Extraordinary Rendition · Veteran Member

I posted that in haste and in fairness to you perspective it charactatures the sloppy and misleading nature of the discussion. If you walk into a workshop you calibrate your instrumentation to what the shop uses. Feet and inches ..fine.. Metres and Kilograms fine. You drive on the Left hand side of the carriageway and so will I if I am coming from the opposite direction. Other wise the discussion just becomes a mire of misunderstanding and folklore. Over to you Terry...

T1 Terry · Guru

I do understand your frustration, when talking to other mechanics regarding an automatic transmission problem, the terminology had to be verified so I understood exactly what they were trying to convey. The same when sorting fuel injection and engine management problems. If we didn't use the correct terminology when doing the Adv Dip Electrical and Computing Tech we would get pulled up immediately and have to start again, it was a fail in any test.
When I did the Work Place Training and Assessment Cert4 the whole thing was turned on its head. Techno speak and anagrams were a definite no no and you lost marks if you used even the obvious ones. The idea was that an idea can not be shared unless everyone understood what was being said. My wife was a computer techo and she often shares the story about a young gun nerd explaining what was most likely causing a problem, he said it was the AMD. AMD is a type of processor and this application was using a different processor, finally the young gun explained, the AMD, the Air Movement Device ..... obviously had suffered from the endless puns about a "fan" :lol:

T1 Terry

aussie_paul · Guru

Back to topic. Gradually learning how this gadget works. The 3 pics show old and newer van batteries tested seperately as well as them both connected for use. No input or drain current for at least a day. It looks to me I had better start thinking about new batteries.

Aussie Paul. smile

-- Edited by aussie_paul on Sunday 14th of April 2019 05:14:09 PM

aussie_paul · Guru

Which of these standards should I use? It defaults to GB China National Standard

JIS Japan Industrial Standard, displayed on the battery as combination of the numbers and letters, e.g. 55D23,80D26.

DINGerman Auto Industry Committee Standard

IEC Internal Electro technical Commission Standard

EN European Automobile Industry Association Standard

SAE: Society of Automotive Engineers Standard

GB China National Standard

Aussie Paul. smile

T1 Terry · Guru

SAE is the one most commonly used in Australia, it should give RC (reserve capacity) CCA, (cold cranking amps) it might give Ah capacity remaining, but that would be kinda sus unless backed up by an actual test. Fully charged down to 11.8v under a C20 load (5 amps per 100Ah capacity) and that time in hrs and points of an hr (6 mins =0.1hrs) multiplied by 2 to get an absolutely dead flat figure. Even that is not all that accurate, but actually dragging the battery dead flat would probably only tell you how much the battery had before you killed it ....

T1 Terry

aussie_paul · Guru

eBe wrote:
Yes I have one & quite happy with it. It does the same tests as what the expensive Midtronics unit does. Picture of the screen when testing my 120Ahr AGM battery. If you note the readings when the battery is new & fully charged, then it will give over time an indication of its health, especialy the internal resistance.

-- Edited by DeBe on Thursday 11th of April 2019 06:09:31 PM

What settings do you use DeBe?

Aussie Paul. smile

-- Edited by aussie_paul on Monday 15th of April 2019 10:07:33 PM

DeBe · Guru

On the above battery I put in 120Ah then selected AGM flat plate test out of vehicle. My tester is now 2 years old.

-- Edited by DeBe on Monday 15th of April 2019 10:58:21 PM

T1 Terry · Guru

aussie_paul wrote:
eBe wrote:
Yes I have one & quite happy with it. It does the same tests as what the expensive Midtronics unit does. Picture of the screen when testing my 120Ahr AGM battery. If you note the readings when the battery is new & fully charged, then it will give over time an indication of its health, especialy the internal resistance.

-- Edited by DeBe on Thursday 11th of April 2019 06:09:31 PM
What settings do you use DeBe?
Aussie Paul.

-- Edited by aussie_paul on Monday 15th of April 2019 10:07:33 PM

What does the "Rated 790A mean? The battery is a deep cycle AGM, so the CCA is meaningless because it is not designed as a starting battery. It could be used as a starting battery at a pinch I guess, but deep cycle lead acid batteries have thicker plates than those designed to produce a high CCA such as starting batteries, they have much thinner plates and more of them.

T1 Terry

aussie_paul · Guru

DeBe wrote:
On the above battery I put in 120Ah then selected AGM flat plate test out of vehicle. My tester is now 2 years old.

-- Edited by DeBe on Monday 15th of April 2019 10:58:21 PM

Thanks, which of these did you use please DeBe?

JIS Japan Industrial Standard, displayed on the battery as combination of the numbers and letters, e.g. 55D23,80D26.

DINGerman Auto Industry Committee Standard

IEC Internal Electro technical Commission Standard

EN European Automobile Industry Association Standard

SAE: Society of Automotive Engineers Standard

GB China National Standard

Aussie Paul. smile

-- Edited by aussie_paul on Tuesday 16th of April 2019 02:39:36 PM

DeBe · Guru

On mine as far as I know it doesnot ask for any of those standards. It only asks for what type of battery & its Ah capacity

T1 Terry · Guru

Well, it looks like I won't have one of these units at Stone The Crows. I ordered it Friday to be sent to Wagga Post Office, received an evil bay message at lunch time that they could find the address for Wagga Post Office ...... seriously. Not only that it's taken since Friday for them to contact us that they couldn't find the address, but they couldn't find the address for a post office? I did ask before I ordered it if they could send it to Wagga post Office and they replied that would be ok, now this nonsense?
I've given up and asked for a refund, I wonder how long that is going to take.

T1 Terry