Act Battery Tester Needed

[matthew.brough]

Maybe make a nice little fire though

[datadiffusion]

Toasty...

[matthew.brough]

I don't see the point if this act testing. It will be obvious which batteries are duff when the power goes off as the nodes will go into Comms fault. Why have a dog and bark yourself.

[james.wilson]

i disagree battery testing is essential imo. granted modern panels do most of it.

[matthew.brough]

i disagree battery testing is essential imo. granted modern panels do most of it.

[arfur mo]

i disagree battery testing is essential imo. granted modern panels do most of it.

Problem is, afaik most panels don't know what size it is testing, it performs it's test by disconnecting the charge and checking the volts for a very short period of a few seconds. Once oer hour.

The bulb load test is much the same test but over a much longer period, experienced engineers would test for longer on the bigger batteties.

TBO i fail ti see the point of hourly panel test on domestics, cause's great distress to elderly, religious or local residents, their children and pets. If they have work next day it just escalates inti a bad time and annoyance..

Make more sense @ 12 hours, perhaps then make it a more severe test.

I'd even suggest a smaller battery is fitted to allow main battery to be disconnected for a longer load tested with more accuracy.

If the software had the ability to be told what size is fitted. Panel could effectively indicate, even order a new one as needed.

Computers have had CPU Heat monitors for decades, so why not for alarm batteries and transformers? I'd bet most engineers check the case heat before taking out their meter, to hot shorting battery or overloaded transformer, to cold not charging due to fuse, power of etc

Hear sensor would cost pennies to add and offer early warning, so go figure.

[datadiffusion]

i disagree battery testing is essential imo. granted modern panels do most of it.

 

It can also be quite surprising sometimes, my older panels are all scannys, and all using Yucel or Yuasa, so its amazing what you find.

 

I have one site where I've let them keep the battery for another year as its reading 6.7 (its a 7 not a 17!) but another the barely 3 year old

Yucel failed spectacularly on the tester at under 2aH. Of course, these are not monitored so whether people have been mindlessly turning

off the electrics on one site for hours at a time, I don't know...

[arfur mo]

Problem being this,

 

Lets say you have a 7Ah battery that's been installed for a few years, You chuck your 10watt car bulb on it,  

How on earth does that prove the battery capacity, If the 7Ah is almost dead at less than 1Ah capacity it will not show on your car bulb.

If thats all you did then your correct, but the idea is to watch the voltage fall rate over say 2 minutes while on test. If your battery is below parr the brightness (or yellowness) it will often give the first indications, or not even light at all.

So, I presume that from this you would deem this to be satisfactory ??  

if you read above of course not any sign of low performance out it go's, i din't need to know by how far it is not upto scratch, just that it is.

The fail replace rate is 4.5Ah on a 7Ah battery, Below this we will scrap it.I still have my old traffic light version,  

i

you can see we actually agree in principle, once a battery starts to degrade goodbye, i will dump one far sooner (15% down if using ACT).

 

If the IBT fails it, I pop the old version on and test it, Gets rid of the surface charge then hit it again with the IBT for a correct reading

I cay correct as meaning this is tried and tested with 3 different IBT testers and with very minor Ah changepp

with full respects, at these prices x 2 to test a battery - and the time involved, for what is a very limited voltage range device, why should you/we ever have to doubt it?

imho it should perform an initial high load test just to 'skim' the voltage off, but it don't, so i wonder what are we really paying this premium price for TBH?

if you need recordings of tests, it us easy enough to state date off load voltage, and voltage drop over a set period.

I conduct my tests as follows -:

with power on i read the battery voltage at the plugs, again with power off.

at this point a sharoe drop can indicate an issue, as this could cause a false alarm on detectors.

Disconnect battery check voltage at lead plugs to ascertain maximum charging volts available

Then same for AUX max volts.

Load test battery, refit or replace as needed

I then check charging current with a meter in series with one battery lead (a faulty shorting battery takes time to get hot, this is to help detect that early).

With meter still in series, a current reading is taken

Finally voltage is checked again both on and then off charge.

Last test is for earths, meter on volts test between battery poles and earth for any voltage which if present shows a possible insulation leak.

You might think the last test is not worth while, but i have found water in domestic detectors where a roof has leaked, with no sign of it externally.