battery/charging checking toys

[WD Forte]

I saw Nobby's battery woe thread as I came in for tea whilst checking the car charging
with some of my newish toys.
The battery was bought last September so should be ok as it's a Yuasa and cost a few bob
but this VW 1.9TD PD engine can be an arse for iffy batteries in the winter.
It checked out fine and here's what I was using
My trusty old Fluke meter
Topdon BT200 battery tester
Kaiweets clamp meter which will do the usual metery stuff of course
but I bought it cos when the blurb said it will read both AC AND DC current!
I went all "Shut up and take my money"

Are you all sitting comftybold, two square on your botty? Then I'll begin


I clamped the Fluke to the battery terminals
I'd been using the car earlier so the standing voltage was 12.79V
this will drop overnight because of time, temp and the cars quiescent current
of around 50mA

https://imgur.com/r9GsQj9.jpg

Next I connected up the Topdon, note it reads 0.02V higher than the Fluke
0.02V isn't worth fretting about.

https://imgur.com/zsGE8Td.jpg

you have to work your way through a short menu to start the CCA test
which is easy enough but the only slight faff is when you go from testing
a 100ah scooty battery for instance to a 900A CCA car battery you have keep pressing the button to work it up the scale in 5A steps
it checked out perfick so I is happy
the low internal resistance of 3.25 milliohms is a good sign but my scoot battery
also tests as 'good' at 20 milliohms

https://imgur.com/Ksmj9ua.jpg

Next I did the starting and charging tests and all was fine
note the mere 3 millivolt ripple which is pretty damn good

https://imgur.com/psYTCKB.jpg

Next I read the current from the alternator to the battery using the kaiweets thing
as the engine idled with the lights and aircon on and off
That black lead is the one from the alternator to the primary fuse box where it supplies both battery and car.
the negative figure is because I reckon it uses a hall effect sensor to
sense the current not an inductive one as often used for AC.
If I flipped the jaws it would read positive but be harder to read

https://imgur.com/MSB6Hse.jpg


Finally, I took a reading to see what drain there was from the immobiliser and clock etc when all was off.
It said 31mA so if that's accurate then it's all looking tickety boo.

Summary:
I'd say the Topdon at about £40 IIRC is definitely a useful and affordable tool
for a more detailed checking of the state of a battery and starting/charging system.

The kaiweets, again around £40 IIRC looks promising but is fiddly and bit flakey at low current below the 1A level
It does do other things as well though like voltage temp and frequency
but I haven't tested these functions.

The display suggests it would/should read from 10mA but even after it's been zero'd it sometimes pulls 20-30 mA out of the air so not how accurate it is at the low end of the scale.
I did try some bench tests comparing the Kaiweets to readings from my Fluke in series running a single led at aroun 20mA a while back but it was bit erratic
As its rated up to 60A-DC I'm going to assume for the price its asking a bit too much
for it to be highly accurate at almost the lowest end of the scale.

I do recall it read a 21W flasher bulb at 12v around 1.5A which seemed fair enough.
Ohms law tells us it should be 1.75A but in reality stated figures for bulbs are nominal
and many I've tested were found to have been ballpark/there or thereabouts.

Here endeth the lesson
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bikers smell of wee

[A100man]

Cool beans.

Ironically, your Fluke needs err, a new battery
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Now: A100, GT250A, XJ598, FZ750

Then: Fizz, RS200, KL250, XJ550, Laverda Alpina, XJ600, FZS600

[Nobby the Bastard]

I'm going into the office on Thursday and may arrange swinging over to the lakes of fish to see what your new toys say about my new battery.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[WD Forte]

Sorry old boy I'm away 'up norf' on Weds
one of my lads is going into hospital for an op and I'm up
there on taxi driver, errand running and tea making duties
so wont be back until early the following week I expect
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bikers smell of wee

[WD Forte]

[Nobby the Bastard]

Not a problem. Pretty sure the battery is fine and just wasnt properly charged.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[MCN]

We use the full load volts checker.
It's a massive test and shows a bad battery in seconds.

It's a wee bit risky and not for the faint of heart.

If you don't have a high rate discharger, then the starter motor loads a battery enough to make the blame sort of test. Crank the engine over with the plug leads off.
A good battery should hold its voltage as load is applied.
A bad battery will drop substantially whennload is applied.

Fizzing from any cells indicates shorts in the plates.

Another test is to poke one probe of a multimeter into each cell and one probe on battery negative post. As you work from one end to the other the voltage should change by 2+v each cell. If there is anything much less than 2v the battery is goosed and needs replaced.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.