Battery test thread

[Omega5002]

Still love this thread

[P4killer_]

and i guess i dont understand the testing.. you put a load on each bat. should be the same exact load obviously. and say that 10v is your floor.. which ever bat has more output at 10v is the strongest? but why the time intervals? shouldnt the battery output drop the longer you keep the load on it right? i think i saw you turning the load down and then turning back up.. idk why..

forgive me im prolly ignorant but i just dont see what it all means

[B-Sh0t]

Who's Battery

Sears- Diehard: Lead Acid- Johnson Controls, Platinum AGM- Odyssey, Gold Advanced AGM- Eastern- Penn.
Interstate- Johnson Controls.
Walmart Everstart- Johnson Controls (Exide Contract Cancelled).
Autozone Duralast- Lead Acid- Johnson Controls, AGM- East-Penn.
Pep Boys (including Bosch)- As of Aug 2012 Exide
Napa- Lead Acid- Johnson Controls; AGM- East-Penn.
Optima- Johnson Controls.
Varta AGM- Fall 2012- Johnson Controls in a new US plant.
Costco-Johnson Controls.
Northstar- Northstar and also distributed by Batteries Plus as the X2Power and Exide under the Northstar label.
Duracell- East Penn (Deka)
Rayovac (Batteries Plus)- Lead Acid- Johnson Controls; AGM- East Penn (Deka)
Deka- East Penn

[Hollow Dog]

What was the objective of this?

honestly, with the extremely high amount of knowledge you have with car electronics and this being a car audio forum, that question does seem quite rhetorical.

Well, I truly did not understand the objective. Guys, you all know I love stuff like this. I also own a similar Snap-On AVR analyzer, only several models newer. They are the best machines of their kind, but as you can see in the videos it is quite difficult to provide consistent loads from one battery to another. More importantly, this is not how the machine was designed to be used.

I see the following problems:

1. The battery clamps on the analyzer itself appear to have been cut off and SWWS (smash wire with screw) eyelets installed on the ends of the cables. This type of eyelet would not be my first choice as there can be considerable voltage drop in these kinds of connections at 500 Amps. The battery clamps that Snap-On shipped the machines with are 800 Amp clamps, designed for minimal voltage drop - the best clamp available.

2. Not all of the batteries tested are new. Some look to be quite well used. Although a battery may still rest at a respectable voltage, the plates within it can be compromised by deep cycling, sulfation, etc. Only absolutely brand new batteries could be tested and each would need to be fully charged before the testing to provide the best data.

3. One can't make a determination on how a particular battery performs by testing a single sample. To obtain meaningful data, a certain number of the same battery (say like 50) would need be tested, all of that data recorded, and then one could summarize how a particular battery performed by averaging the results, discarding the highest and lowest performers of that model in any one criteria.

4. The load must be consistent across all batteries tested. One can't load one battery at 503 Amps and another at 524 Amps. Each battery has to have the EXACT load for the EXACT amount of time.

5. I don't see the correlation between a battery loaded with a static load, like the 500 Amp carbon pile load in the Snap-On AVR analyzer, and the load of an audio amplifier, which would be vastly different as amplifiers gulp current based on the frequency of operation of the power supply. Depending on the design of the amplifier, that could be 30,000 to 50,000 times per second. Although one may think that a 500 Amp static load is the same as a 500 Amp load of a power amplifier, it really isn't. A better load would be that of an audio amplifier connected to a resistive load bank with a test tone of a given level input into it's preamp section. Even then, the gain control on the amplifier would need to be adjusted slightly with each test to get an exact 500 Amp load.

6. The very act of pulling current from a battery causes it's voltage to drop. A larger battery will have less voltage drop than a smaller one. To that end, one could not compare Group 34 batteries to Group 31 batteries and load them similarly and draw meaningful results.

Finally, if you read the instructions on the Snap-On Analyzers, they have very specific criteria for testing batteries, mainly to determine if a battery is GOOD or needs to be replaced. That is really the purpose of the AVR analyzer. They were not intended to be used in this fashion.

Guys - if we allow science to guide us, we will find fact. If we guess at it, we will create rumor.

1) while I too am not a big fan of the screw type ring terminals, it allows for quick change to alligator style or screw type battery terminals to be aplied. However not only did we cut the clamps off but we cut the wire down from around 8ft long to 2ft long. There is no way we have limited current draw from this machine (at least not in the workable range we are using). However even if we had done as you said and limited current draw it would not change anything since the snap-on machine measures its own current draw with a clamp meter placed "after" the terminal end. So its xxxamp reading will still and always be correct.

2) all batteries tested are less than a year old. While I agree that testing new batteries would be more "fair", im not interested in what my battery would do the day I get it and never again. I want real world test results. All batteriers were pulled from cars that charged it (maintained for specifics) on a regular electrical system. Sorry but I can't afford all new batteries.

3) I completely agree that the more of a sample tested, the less margin of error. Still I can not afford 50 of each battery or have that laying around. The results speak for themselves.

4) Again I agree that an even load would do a better job for posting results from one battery to the next but I dont see us compaaring one battery to another. We just posted videos of the batteries we tested. Anyone on this forum can take the time to watch the video and see the load varries some. They can make their own assumptions that battery A at 523amp at 9.57v might be better than battery B at 493amps at 9.58v. Lastly Im not sure that any audio system would hold a perfect "amp" load without varying. yes?

5) You don't see a correlation to this test and an amplifer draw? We kicked around the idea of doing a car audio amp draw as we have the power here. However I personal don't want my 5ks going down to 9v you? A load is still a load and good for doing the test.

6) this one I agree on again. We had no intentions of testing GR34s but we just had these two here so we decided to put them on. We talked about possibly running a 300amp test because we know that 500amps is way way to much for any battery but especially the gr34s. In the end though they were our batteries and we said screw it, 500amps it is.

This thread is what it is. Its batteries being load tested. It started out as something we were doing for ourselves but enough people wanted to see the results so we posted.

While I seriously ( I mean it too) appreciate the constructive critism as it helps to point out some of the margins in error with this test (we are not perfect) remember its easy to knock someones test when you don't have to invest the time or money into one of your own.

Now the good news. Stormcell is sending us a battery, we have a shuriken lined up, cresendo is sending us a battery.

[Hollow Dog]

and i guess i dont understand the testing.. you put a load on each bat. should be the same exact load obviously. and say that 10v is your floor.. which ever bat has more output at 10v is the strongest? but why the time intervals? shouldnt the battery output drop the longer you keep the load on it right? i think i saw you turning the load down and then turning back up.. idk why..

forgive me im prolly ignorant but i just dont see what it all means

Watch the video carefully. The turn knob on the load tester is not exact. You might see the amp draw drop a little on accident but it shouldnt drop a lot.

[alaskanzx5]

result might not be 100% accurate but it still not a bad idea to load test them like this. there is more info out there that should be researched before buying a battery but this is a good start.

[snafu]

I stand by my reply. Let me elaborate briefly.

You should re-read my point # 1 in regards to voltage drop through an SWWS connection. Such a voltage drop would absolutely have an impact on the measurements you are obtaining, especially considering that the probes of the Fluke DMM are down stream of them. If you lose .2V in each due to voltage drop, your voltage measurements will be off by .4V. And this is entirely plausible, as Ohm's Law tells us that 500 Amps passing through a junction with a resistance of .0004 Ohms will result in a .2V drop. [.0004 = 4 ten thousandths . . . ] Shortening the cables on the AVR is not necessarily a good thing as it was engineered to work properly with the length of cable that originally came with it.

Listen guys, anyone that knows me also knows that I LOVE this kind of stuff. However, I'm also a huge proponent of the truth and fact. One of the reasons that there is so much confusion in car audio is because there is so much mis-information. Having good equipment, which you clearly do, is 1/3 of the equation. Using that equipment in the way it was intended to be used, which you are not, is 1/3 of the equation. The other 1/3 of the equation would be data collection, and collecting data on a single used sample is meaningless.

Hollow Dog, welcome to our community. Rest assured that I am not picking on you. Rather, I am challenging you to re-think you testing procedures.

[Hollow Dog]

I stand by my reply. Let me elaborate briefly.

You should re-read my point # 1 in regards to voltage drop through an SWWS connection. Such a voltage drop would absolutely have an impact on the measurements you are obtaining, especially considering that the probes of the Fluke DMM are down stream of them. If you lose .2V in each due to voltage drop, your voltage measurements will be off by .4V. And this is entirely plausible, as Ohm's Law tells us that 500 Amps passing through a junction with a resistance of .0004 Ohms will result in a .2V drop. [.0004 = 4 ten thousandths . . . ] Shortening the cables on the AVR is not necessarily a good thing as it was engineered to work properly with the length of cable that originally came with it.

Listen guys, anyone that knows me also knows that I LOVE this kind of stuff. However, I'm also a huge proponent of the truth and fact. One of the reasons that there is so much confusion in car audio is because there is so much mis-information. Having good equipment, which you clearly do, is 1/3 of the equation. Using that equipment in the way it was intended to be used, which you are not, is 1/3 of the equation. The other 1/3 of the equation would be data collection, and collecting data on a single used sample is meaningless.

Hollow Dog, welcome to our community. Rest assured that I am not picking on you. Rather, I am challenging you to re-think you testing procedures.

Wouldn't the .2v drop be a standard margin of error in every test? So the test stands to still show comparable results from one battery to the next. Yes results might vary a little but they are all varying in the same way.

[snafu]

Well, since you're collecting voltage readings, I would say those should be incredibly accurate otherwise you really wouldn't want to report them . . .

In addition, anyone that were to draw a conclusion that the Yellow Top Optima was a poor quality battery because the side post melted may very well be drawing an incorrect conclusion. Why, you ask? Because the resistance I'm speaking of generates heat. Can you be absolutely certain that wasn't a factor?

[Noel989]