Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

wrote:
Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

Dunno if this is any use, but you can get smart NiMH / NiCd chargers
now which feature diagnostic and quick capacity check modes, such as
this one picked at random.

http://www.nimhbattery.com/ansmann_b...er_5407013.htm

wrote:
wrote:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.


Dunno if this is any use, but you can get smart NiMH / NiCd chargers
now which feature diagnostic and quick capacity check modes, such as
this one picked at random.

http://www.nimhbattery.com/ansmann_b...er_5407013.htm

-
Thanks, but that's not really very useful. These batteries are usually
spot-welded together and made up into packs of all sorts of odd sizes
and shapes. Breaking them out into individual cells is rarely an option.

wrote:
Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

Go to WWW.cadex.com. They mfg battery analyzers.

lakewood wrote:
wrote:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.


Go to WWW.cadex.com. They mfg battery analyzers.

-
When I win the lottery, you betcha. That thing is like a solid
platinum, diamond-encrusted screwdriver.

wrote in message
m...

When I win the lottery, you betcha. That thing is like a solid platinum,
diamond-encrusted screwdriver.

When in doubt, emulate normal use. Charge pack and discharge through lamp
load and see the results.

wrote:
wrote:
wrote:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

Dunno if this is any use, but you can get smart NiMH / NiCd chargers
now which feature diagnostic and quick capacity check modes, such as
this one picked at random.

http://www.nimhbattery.com/ansmann_b...er_5407013.htm

Thanks, but that's not really very useful. These batteries are usually
spot-welded together and made up into packs of all sorts of odd sizes
and shapes. Breaking them out into individual cells is rarely an option.

So add 2 sewing needle probes to your tester/charger. They go thru
plastic wraps into inter-cell gaps without a moments hesitation.


NT

"lakewood" wrote in news:1157564112.742958.213130
@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:


wrote:
Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

Go to WWW.cadex.com. They mfg battery analyzers.

Sounds like a winner. From the website:

Cadex Electronics has developed a technology to measure the state-of-
health (SoH) of a battery in 3 minutes. QuickTest™ services batteries for
cell phones, two-way radios, laptops, scanners, medical equipment, video
cameras and more. The program is built into the Cadex C7000 Series
battery analyzers and services lithium-ion, nickel-metal-hydride, nickel-
cadmium and lead-acid batteries.

wrote:
Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

If I was in the middle of nowhere and was tasked to determines which
SLA out of a lot of 100 units of various sizes and shapes and shapes
are bad, there is a quick test anybody can do. Pick up the unit
(remember SLA only since they don,t spill) and turn it upside down a
few times and listen for a fait noise like uncrushed pepper in a
shaker. If not, gently shake the unit. If you here noise, it is
likely bad.
If the lot that is left have more than three that are same in the lot,
you can do a field load test. Most likely you are stuck in the middle
of nowhere with a car that went south. Put the 12v motor out of the
washer unit and see if the 3 or more batteries run the motor at the
same speed ( you will hear a pitch difference if not). If the same,
they are all likely to be good than bad. (NiCad and Mh can be tested
this way also but do a volt test for these if available because usually
a cell goes bad and the voltage drops more than 1 volt)
Do not try these methods with Lithium batt. technology. Risk of fire
and/or explosions are high.
Once again, these are test for emergencies in the middle of nowhere,
the previous post cover everything else.

davidlaska wrote:
wrote:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

If I was in the middle of nowhere and was tasked to determines which
SLA out of a lot of 100 units of various sizes and shapes and shapes
are bad, there is a quick test anybody can do. Pick up the unit
(remember SLA only since they don,t spill) and turn it upside down a
few times and listen for a fait noise like uncrushed pepper in a
shaker. If not, gently shake the unit. If you here noise, it is
likely bad.
If the lot that is left have more than three that are same in the lot,
you can do a field load test. Most likely you are stuck in the middle
of nowhere with a car that went south. Put the 12v motor out of the
washer unit and see if the 3 or more batteries run the motor at the
same speed ( you will hear a pitch difference if not). If the same,
they are all likely to be good than bad. (NiCad and Mh can be tested
this way also but do a volt test for these if available because usually
a cell goes bad and the voltage drops more than 1 volt)
Do not try these methods with Lithium batt. technology. Risk of fire
and/or explosions are high.
Once again, these are test for emergencies in the middle of nowhere,
the previous post cover everything else.

or you could put your tongue across the 12v terminals and see what
colour it glows. In fact this would work, if you drop the batteries at
your feet then any good ones you'll throw further away by reflex.
Either that or your tongue will wrap itself round the terminals and
hold on for dear life.


NT

wrote:
davidlaska wrote:
wrote:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

If I was in the middle of nowhere and was tasked to determines which
SLA out of a lot of 100 units of various sizes and shapes and shapes
are bad, there is a quick test anybody can do. Pick up the unit
(remember SLA only since they don,t spill) and turn it upside down a
few times and listen for a fait noise like uncrushed pepper in a
shaker. If not, gently shake the unit. If you here noise, it is
likely bad.
If the lot that is left have more than three that are same in the lot,
you can do a field load test. Most likely you are stuck in the middle
of nowhere with a car that went south. Put the 12v motor out of the
washer unit and see if the 3 or more batteries run the motor at the
same speed ( you will hear a pitch difference if not). If the same,
they are all likely to be good than bad. (NiCad and Mh can be tested
this way also but do a volt test for these if available because usually
a cell goes bad and the voltage drops more than 1 volt)
Do not try these methods with Lithium batt. technology. Risk of fire
and/or explosions are high.
Once again, these are test for emergencies in the middle of nowhere,
the previous post cover everything else.

or you could put your tongue across the 12v terminals and see what
colour it glows. In fact this would work, if you drop the batteries at
your feet then any good ones you'll throw further away by reflex.
Either that or your tongue will wrap itself round the terminals and
hold on for dear life.


NT

I have done that up to a 9 volt square and still do, I found that this
is the only one that you can tell. Maybe some of the 3 volts. In an
emergency you can quick charge nicads by touching each cell to a car
battery, your safety switch is your hand wrapped around it. When you
let go, it is because it got to hot to hold and further charging will
render it useless unless you wait to pick it up again. Your 500- 1000
thousand expected charges will be cut to 50 times. Don,t do it with
anything less than a c size though. Be aware that there are fake D
sizes that have a C size suspended inside and that will not trigger
your "let go response" in time. You can ID them by how light and low
miliamps rating. It can get crazy if the emergency is bad.

On 2006-09-06 08:42:17 -0700, said:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

(caution ad follows)

I can't promise that this will work for your application but the ESR
kit we sell (designed by Bob Roberts and kitted by Dick Smith in AU.)
can be used to check the internal resistance of batteries up to 50VDC.
If you are using our new (recommended) MOV protection you can still
check the ESR of batteries up to around 18V (the MOV is 20V as I
recall).

http://flippers.com/esrkthnt.html#battery

If you think the resistance of the batteries will give you a clue as to
the condtion it is a pretty inexpensive piece of test equipment, plus
you can check your electrolytics at the same time!

I would love to know if you buy the kit if it works for you in testing
batteries!

John :-#)#
--
(Please post followups or tech enquires to the newsgroup) John's
Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call
(604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they
just flip out."

This might work. Start with a charged battery. Calculate the proper
resistance and wattage values of a dummy load to run the battery with a
max load and measure the voltage. If it drops too low, the battery is
bad. If it will not supply the rated current for the rated time, it is
bad. Just a thought.

wrote:
Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none
more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes, some
of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging and
discharging is not a winner.

davidlaska wrote:
wrote:
davidlaska wrote:
wrote:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health of
NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here, none

In an
emergency you can quick charge nicads by touching each cell to a car
battery, your safety switch is your hand wrapped around it. When you
let go, it is because it got to hot to hold and further charging will
render it useless unless you wait to pick it up again.

foolish. If my life were on the line, sure, but its a dangerous thing
to do in peace time.


Your 500- 1000
thousand expected charges will be cut to 50 times.

optimistic


NT

John Robertson wrote:
On 2006-09-06 08:42:17 -0700, said:

Anyone out there know a way to get a quick reading on the health
of NiCd, NiMH and SLA batteries? We get a lot of them through here,
none more than a few AH in size, and have seen a lot of failure modes,
some of which are not immediately obvious. A long time spent charging
and discharging is not a winner.


(caution ad follows)

I can't promise that this will work for your application but the ESR kit
we sell (designed by Bob Roberts and kitted by Dick Smith in AU.) can be
used to check the internal resistance of batteries up to 50VDC.
-
Actually, I built one of these some years ago. It certainly doesn't
have any MOVs in it. I'll give it a try.

foolish. If my life were on the line, sure, but its a dangerous thing
to do in peace time.


Your 500- 1000
thousand expected charges will be cut to 50 times.

optimistic


NT

I agree that all I wrote is dangerous, But I don,t mention lithium ion,
they are dangerous to a point that their charge control is processor
controlled with at least two fail-safes. (Makes me wonder about the
recalls though). I grew up in a country where they had just modernized
and goods were plenty but parts had not made to the market there and
improvising was the only option, money was no good when a part was not
available. The methods I stated have no value here and life
threatening situations do not occur here either. Not only parts are
plenty, the trend is to replace the whole thing lately.

wrote:

Actually, I built one of these some years ago. It certainly doesn't
have any MOVs in it. I'll give it a try.

I like to here an opinion of this, mainly the danger if present. I
have a 6 amp sla low end model, I think they are for back lighting. It
is 6 volts and run lights at 10 watts or sometimes 20 watts by turning
on the second one. I had a sony handycam that had a 6 volt pack of
nicad and the charger had a output for the camera and one with slightly
higher volts and lower amp for the battery , I think around 7 to 9
volts. The use to charge the sla and have done so many 200 times and
the camera charger goes through its routine ending hours later ( 45
minutes for the camera pack) in trikle mode as the led indicate.
Nothing gets to warm during this whole deal.

Google West Mountain radio and they have a software-controlled battery
evaluation system.. very nice and low cost.

Joe KB9LZB