Looking for a good but not stupidly expensive 2v lead acid battery capacity tester.
I am getting to the position of starting the testing of cells on the ‘Modern version of the PLANTE battery project build’.
I have a very good, and not expensive ANCEL BA101 battery tester, recommended by ‘FRACKERS’, that has an inbuilt resistor and loads the battery for a defined short period, and then depending on the AH you set into its data base, the machine checks against its inbuilt data storage base and gives a good or bad cell. But this machine is only designed for 12v batteries.
Example,...... I have a 12v 110ah, manufacture specified rating, lead acid battery. After a few years the voltage is still good but the amp hours storage of the battery starts to drop as the matrix grid lead oxide falls away.
So I set the ah rating at 110ah, the Ancel ba101 machine ‘fails’ the battery. I then set for a 80ah and it says ‘good’ battery. I then up the ah rating setting on the Ancel ba101, to 90ah and the battery is ‘good’. Then I up the setting to 95ah and the battery ‘fails’.
So the battery has a true reading of 12v at somewhere between 90ah and 95ah storage capacity.I use 12v marine batteries on my 48v 1300ah battery storage so I have 4off 12v batteries in a string. Using the Ancel ba101 tester every few months on my batteries does mean that I can match each battery ah storage in that string so one poor failed battery will not drag the other 3 down.
Photo shows the Ancel ba101 in action, and shows that this fake NEW battery from India, although rated by so called manufacture as 12v 110ah, after good charging the ah storage is weak and only achieved about 70ah.
