Why You Should Load Test Small Batteries.

[@allmyhobbiesareexpensive2676]

Radio shack was a treasure trove of useful tools

[@Phrequencygod]

I never would have thought to load test a small battery. Thank you for sharing!

[@norcal715]

First! Thank you Dave. Battery ESR is like capacitor ESR, very important.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

I remember hearing this about ESR meters, but I've yet to use one in this capacity Thanks for the info. ;-)

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

@@GrantsPassTVRepair The Blue ESR Meter will test the ESR of batteries. I forgot what the max voltage for it is though.

[@s2003katalin]

Thank you!

[@victoryfirst2878]

YOU are the man Dave. The education you give is KING. Have yourself a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too. Hope we both can enjoy a many more to come Sir. Peace vf

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Thanks, and merry Christmas.

[@tomweickmann6414]

Excellent video. Thank You. Man, I sure miss Radio Shack.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Me too. Some of their products are still found on ebay.

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

Thanks, Dave. I use my VOM to test 1.5 and 9V batteries. It puts a load on the batteries. But yeah, you have to test batteries under a load.

[@ihabphelobos7455]

Yes, this is the right way how to test the Battery, it should be tested through a resistors, thanks for that important information 👍

[@nathana2977]

I miss radio shack, I still have a few different testers they made.

[@tomweickmann6414]

I practically lived there as a kid. Electronic mischief building bugs and parabolic mics. Forget James Bond. I wanted to be "Q".😅

[@starquestman1544]

Very interesting, I picked up an old Simpson battery tester at an estate sale thinking it would just be a neat display piece but it sounds like it might even be usefull!

[@captainboing]

I had a fault like this that kept me scratching my head for a few days on a real time clock module. It had a 3.3 volt coin cell on it and when I check it, sure enough it was around 3.2 volts but when it was on load (i.e to keep the time in the chip when the main power is off) it dropped to 0.6 of a volt. After a few tests I calculated that it had an internal resistance of around 45K!

[@BigMacOrange]

Omg i grew up with that exact radio shack tester. That was so long ago.

[@jackoneil3933]

Thanks Dave Good Tip!

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Thanks Jack ;-)

[@ferrosjewellers4558]

Great stuff..I'm going to make a veroboard setup with those specific resistors to test watch batteries and, 1.5v, 3v and 9v batteries.

[@genrai]

Always love your vids sir

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Thank you.

[@edzanjero353]

Car batteries can act this way. A multimeter measures 10.5 to 12VDC, but under load testing shows a bad cell, with way low voltage. A bad cell means it's kaput.

[@cjdelphi]

As the cell goes bad it's internal resistance increases, that's why relying on voltage alone is not the best way to go... But i'm guilty of sorting by voltage myself, so i bought an internal resistance meter last week lol

[@RiversideRedneck]

Wonder if after checking multiple batteries you find the nominal voltage being higher than rated on the bad batteries being an indicator that there is a possible issue.the ones over 9v were faulty where the one a tick under was a good battery z

[@ke6bnl]

I have the same radio shack battery Tester and keep it for a truer measurement of my small batteries

[@jw228w]

very good info Dave.so I have a fluke meter like in your video, how can I use that to load test my aa,aaa,9v batteries? thanks John

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Your fluke meter can't be used as a load tester by itself, but your volt meter can be used to measure the voltage drop across your battery, when you have your battery hooked up to a load. A load is any device that uses electricity, such as a light bulb, a toaster, a heater, or a motor, but when your testing small batteries, you need to chose a load size that has a pre-calculated amount of current consumption based on ohms law. For example, the load size I mentioned in my test was a 1000 ohm resistor. It didn't pull much power from the battery, but it pulled enough to reveal the battery had a problem , because it caused the battery voltage to drop so low. I hope this helps.

[@jeromewhelan6723]

Thank you for a useful video. I do question your handwritten table of resistances: It seems your table shows a current of 10 amperes son a twelve volt battery - this would be 120 watts dissipation inside the meter when testing a 12 V battery on the 12V scale: Is this correct?

[@v137832258974]

🔍There's an extremely small K next to the ohm symbol (easy to miss). It looks written as a correction. The 12v resistance is 1200 ohms, not 1.2"00" ohms. 👍🏼

[@Rockardo_]

Voltage drop testing baby we do the exact same thing in the automotive diagnostics, but instead of using a resistor we use, a current bearing load like a light or a high amperage bulb

[@ShadowZero27]

my dad has a little light bulb that he has been using to check batteries for decades

[@bernardocisneros4402]

They're all resistors.

[@macdaddypimpping]

Hey Dave, I have a Hisense 75" Smart Android TV and everytime when I power it on it seems like it's working when bootup I see all the apps and then all of the sudden the TV shuts off. The red power LED light blink 19 times when turning on the TV, I Google it and it says Power Supply need to be replace and I open the back cover up I didn't see any bulge capacitors. I thought when bad capacitors it would not allow TV to be turned on? Any idea???

[@polishhotdog933]

I bought a stud sensor but I couldn't get anywhere near it without it going off....🙄

[@jjhack3r]

I've noticed this with 3 volt lithium button cells. It could be at 3.1 and still be no good.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

That's good to know. This small load tester also tests button size batteries.

[@geoepi321975]

What is the equation of the load that should be applied, according to the capacity and the voltage, can you tell?

[@veldin25]

You want to size the load high enough to avoid a high current draw, and low enough that it actually loads the device. Battery voltage / 20 mA would give you a safe lower limit, and probably don't exceed 10k ohms to actually load the cell. Testing will 100, 1k and 10k should cover you for any small cells if you just want a rule of thumb

[@rickybailey7123]

My cheap voltmeter has a load testing built-in for 9-volt batteries and 2 volt batteries

[@dannmann17]

I’ve been using my tongue as a 9 V meter for years🤔

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Me too. LOL

[@diydantex6150]

I purchased a brand new smoke detector and installed it. After we went to bed it started chirping. The brand new battery read 9.6 volts. I thought that i had a bad smoke detector. I put the new battery in the old smoke detector and it started chirping after a while. I load tested it by plugging it into another device and noticed that the voltage dropped under a reasonable load. comparing the new battery with a battery that was a year old i found out that the used battery had less voltage drop than the brand new battery. That is the first time i have seen that happen. It was easier to replace the battery than to ship the smoke detector back.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Thanks for the info. You're the second person to mention smoke detector batteries having such issues.

[@shanesdiy]

This is so crazy. I literally have two 9V batteries sitting on my desk in front of me for a few weeks with the exact same issue that I have been planning to make a video on explaining to folks you might need to do a load test on a battery to get an accurate test or you can get a false positive.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Interesting coincidence. My life has many perfectly synchronized events, It's boosted my faith. It looks like you have a fun channel.

[@shanesdiy]

Thanks, I try to have fun with the channel. My 9V battery in question was on a smoke alarm that kept beeping. Checked the voltage on the battery and it was high so I put it back in and it kept beeping. Checked it a couple times before thinking I better put a load on it. Odd anomaly with mine the volts were higher than normal but fell flat with any load.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

@@shanesdiy Your smoke alarm probably has lithium battery, which tend to have higher voltages.

[@shanesdiy]

@@GrantsPassTVRepair Says "Zinc Carbon 9V" on it. Measures 10.16V currently but drops to zero with even a tiny load.

[@cjdelphi]

​@@shanesdiythinking back, i think i experienced the same issue at some point, the smoke detectors we get now are sealed and the entire thing needs changing (how dumb!)

[@Vajkacii]

Hey man how is it going i dont really know if you remember me but i met you on omegle like 6 months ago

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Hello again. I was sorry to see omegle is no longer available.

[@Vajkacii]

@@GrantsPassTVRepair yes it got disabled for some reasons

[@flojotube]

those batteries (harbor freight) are absolute garbage... there's a few videos explaining the chemistry behind why that is.. but i've had nothing but issues with them UNLESS they're being used in very very low demand situations. I found an entire box of them BRAND NEW in the HF dumpster once... even they don't trust them 😂

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Thanks for the warning. It's my understanding that Alkaline batteries are a far better option.