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Malta, Valletta
1 Level
704 Review
35 Karma

Review on πŸ”‹ High-performance OTC 3181 Battery Load Tester - 130 Amp Heavy-Duty by Kevin Huot

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Works best in Tools & Equipment

I have some 12v batteries at home. A good one, which I use to start my garden tractor when needed. Replacement battery for lawn mower. and an old 12 volt battery with a hole in the case that caused a cell to leak and dry out. All of these batteries are in my garage for service. So they all showed over 13 volts on my meter. I have a good quality Fluke multimeter which is the first time I have tested the accuracy of a battery charge tester. The tester was fine, no need to zero the arrow at all. I then tested a known good battery under load and also read it with a multimeter. The tester worked properly again, applying a 130 amp load to the battery and showing an accurate voltage drop and a "good" result on the display for the battery. Wait for the tester to cool down. It is not possible to test multiple batteries or retest a battery too quickly, otherwise the tester will overheat. My small tractor battery was "good" with one charge. Then I tested the dry battery. I keep this battery charged and with a multimeter it shows and keeps 13 volts. That's the good thing, during the stress test the needle went all the way to the 'known good' batteries for the first few seconds, but as I counted down the 10 second test the needle kept going into the 'bad' range on the display. . For me it was a perfectly controlled experiment with accurate results showing that this load tester works great. I feel like I can trust the results this will bring me in the future. I bought this because my motor boat has 4 batteries. At the very end of last season I realized I had some issues with at least one of them. Replacing these batteries costs nearly $200. Now I can feel safe testing each one and only replacing the ones that fail. This alone will more than pay for itself because I was willing to replace them all to be safe on the water. I will be testing them this weekend while preparing my boat for the summer season.

Pros
  • Dope πŸ”₯
Cons
  • It's OK