wonder battery

[Cormanus]

As always, Max, really helpful. Doesn't even look really expensive. I'm surprised.

[The Gecko_imp]

Some time ago i watched a video from "diagnose Dan", he demonstrated a small battery tester on a car battery, the test took 1 minute and showed the battery which had started the car just fine needed replacement because of declining capacity.

This got me thinking and after finding some interesting posts got one of these LANCOL 200 pro testers.
Our bikes have small batteries and there are not many testers which will do the small sizes and do it in Ampere hours, this one tests down to 3Ah.


It can test for cca, state of charge, state of health in % and most important the internal resistance of the battery.


It can also show the minimum crank voltage during a start cycle.


And how well the charging system works, if there are any diodes who have failed ( ripple in Millivolts )


The tester uses " kelvin clips" which have separate wires on each side of each clip, one set for testing the voltage and applying the test load on the terminal and a second set to accurately measure the internal resistance of the battery in milli ohms, which is a very small value hence the special technique.


More to to follow.
The advantage of this method is to record the values of a new battery and test and record over time the measured values to enable you to verify if the battery is still in good shape.
Since i have several batteries we keep this in a separate log with dates and readings;


A sharp eye can see that a lithium battery has about half the internal resistance of a vrla battery ( cb900 ) which is the reason it starts with much more energy.

By the way the test current is a 1 ampere square wave of 200 hz as measured on my oscilloscope to give you an idea, the instrument measures the internal resistance based on this load.

Here is an example of a failing 30 Ah battery test;


Turns out after getting to know the tester it can predict with some accuracy what the state of the battery under test is and a lot quicker than putting the battery under load and testing the capacity in the old fashioned way.

Hope this helps and in no way trying to sell any of these things, just mentioning the fact that they are available.

Hi max, I hope you are doing well !
Unfortunately there are no user reviews on Amazon (yet). Would you please let me/us know more about your "user impressions" of the LANCOL micro 200. I know you say it works fine, and your post very helpful.
It would be useful to also know :
- good, durable quality ... as much as one can say ?
- is the display back-lit (for the garage) ?
- does it come with a usable manual ?
- Amazon says, it uses a battery for it's own power, but doesn't specify which kind. is that true ? I can't imagine it needs a battery.
etc. etc.

Truth is, without your recommendation, just going by the Amazon product page, I would have never seriously considered the Lancol 200.

[Cormanus]

It's Chinese. See https://global.lancol.com/item/micro-200...otorcycle. No reviews, but it has Funcations. What could go wrong?

[The Gecko_imp]

Nothing wrong with Chinese, in particular when max votes for the product.
But are you seriously asking what could go wrong ?
- fail after 2 days, 2 weeks, or 2 months
- damage the battery during measurement
- damage the internal charging circuit during measurement
- start a fire while it's connected to your m/c battery
- predict battery health, and be wrong about it
- burn a hole in your purse, which you don't need.

Chinese hardware has gotten much better in the last years, but you can still find pearls and trash side by side.

[max]

Mainly in answer to the question;
But does it tell you about the health of the battery?

This tester and it's leads is strong enough for workshop use but remember; like all test instruments it needs to be handled with respect, in addition of that i have watched a video where it got connected in reverse polarity and survived fine so it is protected that way and there are no internal batteries, it uses the test battery for the supply ( thankfully ).

Had it for 3 years without failing, the tester draws 1 ampere square wave current from the battery in order to measure the internal resistance which is an industry standard measurement for many years.

The same method is used to regularly test batteries in a telecom setting with much larger cells in series and they test these one by one ( a bit of a slow long video with an unaffordable hioki professional test instrument )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqudut3Z2fQ

And a much more professional one from Hioki in fluent japanese with English explanations ;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaKy6yt1eHs
Remember this video uses an extremely low resistance value so our 200Hz is very suitable for our purposes.

The lancol uses "lookup tables" to translate the measured internal resistance and present the user with more meaningful values like; cca and "good or bad battery".

And the minimum starting voltage is another importand health indication to consider.

So i am very pleased with it and it helps me to accurately assess any of my batteries condition.
Before buying it i watched these helpful video's;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QNtNU5Otuw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB-PMcbDoL0
Apologies for all the yt ads but there are much more video's like these, search for; "internal resistance battery test" on yt, it's not just another gimmick tester, this one works!

Still have my 0 to 20A adjustable discharge load tester i made with built-in ah meter to do a 10 hour discharge test but this is just quicker and does not need to charge the battery back up after the discharge test.

[The Gecko_imp]

even if it was 'domestic' where you think the parts are coming from? lol. those days are long past where you can cherry pick much . that being said, i ordered one just to have it. mostly for the old cars

Thanks m,
I didn’t mean domestic was better, I meant a hundred positive comments on Amazon might be significant

[max]

This is the video link of the telecom battery test i just found;

[GoldOxide_imp]

So Gecko, wad it be?

[The Gecko_imp]

So Gecko, wad it be?

Nice ! I hope this was a typo, or you're not familiar with ... the word bank (in case of any doubts lockup urbandictionary).
Otherwise .... afraid I have to buy the micro 200, max' vouch is enough

[GoldOxide_imp]

So Gecko, wad it be?

Nice ! I hope this was a typo, or you're not familiar with ... the word bank (in case of any doubts lockup urbandictionary).
Otherwise .... afraid I have to buy the micro 200, max' vouch is enough

Nice ! I hope this was a typo, or you're not familiar with ... the word bank (in case of any doubts lockup urbandictionary).
Otherwise .... afraid I have to buy the micro 200, max' vouch is enough
Which word? "wad"?

"wad" is slang for, "what would".