Ancel BA-101 automotive battery tester reads low on flooded batteries

[petehall347]

and that bad soldering

[CapLeaker]

only looks like so for some reason. Cleaned it up and shot a photo from my microscope.

[petehall347]

only looks like so for some reason. Cleaned it up and shot a photo from my microscope.

looks better .

[CapLeaker]

Yes, it does… and the 7805 doesn't have a hole in it. Not sure why it looked like that on the pictures that I took the first round. I did find a couple of shoddy solder joints and fixed those, but I still don't think that's the problem.

[CapLeaker]

Put it back together and no dice. Same thing. I think there is a firmware bug.

[redwire]

The whole board looks like an early prototype. The current-sense resistor is jumpered out 0R, so many MCU pins wasted not used, and then the tiny film caps seem to be charged and discharged into the battery or something to measure ESR.
It looks hokey and I wouldn't trust its numbers. Most testers are using one power mosfet and resistor to pulse load the battery at say 6A, measure the ramp down and calculate ESR.

[CapLeaker]

The whole board looks like an early prototype. The current-sense resistor is jumpered out 0R, so many MCU pins wasted not used, and then the tiny film caps seem to be charged and discharged into the battery or something to measure ESR.
It looks hokey and I wouldn't trust its numbers. Most testers are using one power mosfet and resistor to pulse load the battery at say 6A, measure the ramp down and calculate ESR.

Funny thing. If I use the AGM option and test an AGM battery it's like within 3% or so. It just the flooded selection is screwed up.

[redwire]

Did you try use it flipped - set for AGM but on a flooded battery, set to FLOODED and use on AGM?
The voltage verses state-of-charge chart in has small differences, if it's correct in the firmware. I might have a messed up flooded battery table.

[CapLeaker]

Did you try use it flipped - set for AGM but on a flooded battery, set to FLOODED and use on AGM?
The voltage verses state-of-charge chart in has small differences, if it's correct in the firmware. I might have a messed up flooded battery table.

Yes, I did that. That's why I think it was something wrong with the sensing or the firmware, The firmware version is 1.0 after all.

[stj]

maybe there is new firmware
https://www.anceltech.com

[CapLeaker]

There is no firmware for that thing that I can find.