I've got this Ancel BA-101 battery tester for a few years now and discovered an issue testing flooded car batteries. The damn thing reads always low compared to other battery testers. I mean low in the tune of 25 to 30%! AGM's read comparable within margin of error. I wonder if all these have the same problem or mine is defective somehow?
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25% off is pretty bad, so it's reading 9V when a DMM reads 12V ???!?!
What numbers are we talking about here? -
Voltage is fine, but the SOH (state of health) and capacity is way forking off when I test flooded car batteries. Why I don't know yet. The measurements of spiral and flat plate AGM's are o.k. calculating in margin of errors. I verified this by a current draw test this morning as well. If you look that unit has good ratings online.
All it came about was when I tested my 4year old Magnacharge flooded H8 (Group 49) battery that tested replace and a 43% SOH. After taking out the battery, cleaning and delsulfating, I got 70% on this Ancel BA101. Measured this battery on a load tester and I got 95%. Measured it again with a borrowed Topdon 101 (about the same thing than my Ancel) I get 98% SOH.
I trust my load tester, so this makes the Ancel BA-101 lading in the bin.
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TBH a lot of these capacity testers are estimates anyway so I don't have much confidence in any of them. What "load tester" are you using? ESR/internal resistance doesn't necessarily accurately measure capacity...Comment
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The old fashioned manual kind with the heat coil and the analog meter. Between it and my homebrew charger-desulfator and a logging DMM, I can tell you a lot about the SOH. I just found it nice having such a tester, when I scrounge around the junk battery pile to be recycled by me when I need Group 31 batteries.Originally posted by eccerr0r View PostComment
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the old big-load type combined with a digital voltmeter is the best way to judge.
load it and see how much it drops.
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See that's basically an internal resistance/DC-ESR tester... It's only an indication of whether it can supply current to a starter, but you can't compute exact capacity with that.Comment
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Here is a trick. If you let the headlights on for 20 mins and then start your car, you got nothing to worry about your battery. We don't need an exact capacity measurement on a battery. It changes all the time due to temperature alone. What is more interesting is the internal resistance of a battery.
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Okay so now you're saying the 25-30% error on the Ancel is just fine???
What was the point of this thread now?Comment
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eccerr0r Nope, didn't say that. The next problem with the Ancel is that the internal resistance measurement is off too. I use that tester actually not much for checking good batteries, rather for junked ones that I want to restore coming from the junk / return pallet from a commercial outfit. It saves me time, vs me going there with a DMM and or an old fashioned manual current tester. One problem is most of them in that pile are group 31, flooded. Not quite sure how exactly that thing calculates SOC and SOH, but it must have to do with battery voltage, measuring current, internal resistance and selected parameters.
Maybe I'll open that sucker up some time for shits and giggles.
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