I've finally acquired enough equipment to measure the remaining
Amp-Hour capacity of my Lead-Acid and Lithium battery collection. The
first result that jumped out is that older batteries suffer from
rising internal resistance as they discharge, enough that the
automatic low voltage cutoff trips short of rated capacity, and then
the battery slowly recovers to well above the full discharge voltage
given in the specs.

http://www.power-sonic.com/images/po...hManual-Lo.pdf

The 5-year-old 12v 4.5Ah UPS battery I tested this AM delivered 2.45Ah
at 3A, which is the average current my laptop draws while browsing.
Table 2 shows in the 1 Hour Rate column that it should be good for
2.75Ah at 2.75A current.

Does anyone know a good reason why I can't measure the true remaining
capacity in two steps by first discharging to 10V at the fairly high
current of my typical loads, then continuing at the 20 hour rate AGM
batteries are specified for until the voltage drops to [the
appropriate endpoint] again?

The run time for a typical load tells me how useful the battery still
is, but it combines the effects of capacity and resistance. I'm
wondering if also knowing the Amp-Hour capacity at the 20 hour rate,
with less interference from the internal resistance, would indicate
how well my long-term maintenance procedures work.

-jsw