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Review on 🔋 SOLAR Digital 12V Battery and System Tester: Maximize Efficiency and Reliability by Garrett Craven

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Not suitable for motorcycle batteries

I was disappointed that this pack did not work well with motorcycle batteries, at least as far as the pass/fail test is concerned. The test CCA indication on the Solar BA9 is 2-3 times the nominal SAE CCA for new batteries and for batteries that are a few years old but still good as determined by actual use and conventional stress testing. A notoriously poor battery that will not hold a charge under normal use and will fail the conventional stress test, but was still rated "OK" by Solar BA9 despite the listed CCA being only slightly above the rated CCA. Support was quick to respond to my question regarding this and said it was normal for the device, despite the literature claiming it is suitable for high performance sport batteries and the Revain product page has a photo of the device on a motorcycle seat. I think that with such batteries it can still be useful to set an actual baseline CCA test value if the battery is good and then periodically monitor for CCA deterioration, however the OK/BAD indicator is for motorcycle batteries not reliable. The device provided test CCA values for several good car batteries close to the nominal CCA, with older batteries showing a lower actual CCA than the nominal CCA and a new battery only slightly higher CCA than the nominal. I didn't have a known failed car battery to test, but other reviews seem to indicate that the device is reliable for car batteries.

Pros
  • Best
Cons
  • Weight