Checking Sealed Battery Health

[WindFarmer]

Greetings

I am working with Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Since MSF uses mostly seal batteries could anyone suggest to me a good test for sealed batteries to reveal their true health. It seams that there are allot of 220Ah ish @12V batteries in the different missions using older Xantrex, Victron and a few OutBAck Inverter/Chargers as a backup when the gen or the unstable grid goes down. Would there be some kind of simple load test that you could share with me?

Marc

[ClassicCrazy]

Not sure there is a simple load test. A load is a load - even if it is a bunch of resistors. You need to log certain amount of amps for amount of time and see what happens to the voltage.

If I was testing them I would put a large load on them and see if the voltage takes a dive. Then go down lower in amps and see where the battery will deliver the most amount of amps for the longest time and that would give you an idea of what it is capable of.  And if they are in series and one of them is not so good then you will have some problems .

There are meters that are supposed to be able to test the capacity . The fire alarm testers would put those on AGM batteries and it would give a reading of capacity - maybe using internal resistance. But I never trusted those since a new battery would read the same as an older one and also seemed like two of the same kind meters would give different readings.

Larry

[Westbranch]

here is a document for testing  my brand of batteries, should be basically the same for all brands
http://www.cdtechno.com/pdf/ref/41_7135_0412.pdf

here is the link to all their documents some good additional reading

http://www.cdtechno.com/resource/support_doc.html

hth

[ClassicCrazy]

here is a document for testing  my brand of batteries, should be basically the same for all brands
http://www.cdtechno.com/pdf/ref/41_7135_0412.pdf

here is the link to all their documents some good additional reading

http://www.cdtechno.com/resource/support_doc.html

hth

They sure have some good documentation and instructions .

[Westbranch]

Hi Larry.

Yes, and their paper on charging is very informative... good all-round knowledge.

[WindFarmer]

Thanks guys for the information. I will check it out.

Paix, Marc

[niel]

if the batteries are sunxtenders or lifelines batteries go to the concorde battery website and read up on how they recommend doing it.

[russ_drinkwater]

Also with smaller batteries look for physical deformities, ie. bulges, general swelling in battery housing.