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Serbia, Belgrade
1 Level
707 Review
26 Karma

Review on ๐Ÿ”‹ SOLAR Digital 12V Battery and System Tester: Maximize Efficiency and Reliability by John Hill

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Solar BA-9: Works pretty well and is based on CCA or CA (and others).

Well, I have an ABT-GOLD Plus battery tester. and when i bought it it was $600! The device only tests SLA (Sealed Lead Acid) or car batteries up to 200 Ah (ampere hours). I was beginning to wonder why a recently purchased 100Ah AGM (absorbed frosted glass) battery only read 80Ah. As a result, I've bought a ton of different chargers over the past year and ended up speaking to NOCO tech support. Basically they told me that no AGM batteries, which include flat and wound versions, can be accurately tested with most AH testers. The reason for this is that amps/hour is the amount of current that a battery can continuously supply until it is depleted. This is very different from CCAs (Cold Crank Amplifiers) or CAs (Crank Amplifiers). Car batteries and certain types of dual-use deep-cycle marine batteries (for boats, you may have batteries that only power household appliances, or you may have deep-cycle batteries that can start both appliances and boats), and they tend to charge CCA and have CA values completely different from amperes per hour (AH) values. it's the battery type (SLA, AGM etc etc) - you give it a way to use the chemistry (e.g. AGM can have flat plate or spiral winding) * - you give it CA or CCA (CCA only if the temperature zero F or slightly lower, otherwise use CA) - you press the test button! I do not know). In my case the two batteries that were at the battery repair shops reported 1064 CA and 1104 CA and they are dual purpose AGM flat plate deep cycle marine batteries rated at 1100 CA. It is very nice. It's also very nice because you don't have to disconnect the battery. it is small and easy to use. Remember, unless you're using a standard SLA (sealed lead acid) battery or a classic car battery, you REALLY need to know what type of battery you're testing. Also, you need to know the battery's CCA or CA rating to test it.

Pros
  • Hands-free device
Cons
  • I don't remember