wonder battery

[The Gecko_imp]

At around $100 USD, my Honda Optimate 3 has been very helpful. I use it as a battery tender, but, if the battery goes bad, it lets you know before it is too late and you don't get stuck somewhere. Nice piece of equipment.

How does it tell you that the batt is about to go bad ?

How does it tell you that the batt is about to go bad ? It has green lights if everything is good and yellow or orange if the battery won't hold a charge. On mine, it would never go to green, even though the battery would turn the engine over and it would start. I knew that battery was on it's death bed.

How does it tell you that the batt is about to go bad ? It has green lights if everything is good and yellow or orange if the battery won't hold a charge. On mine, it would never go to green, even though the battery would turn the engine over and it would start. I knew that battery was on it's death bed.
Doesn't the <orange> light - as on many other chargers - simply show the currently measured battery voltage, compared to the expected max of X Volts ? It may be true that if it does never go <green> there is a problem with your battery. But the problems I have seen in the past are different and cannot be indicated by the tender/changer. The bad battery when charged will quickly go <green>, but when you ride, stop at a gas station (as Corm reported) it fails without warning. The failure is not detectable by measuring voltage.

[GoldOxide_imp]

Voltage alone is not enough of an indicator, Gecko.

True capacity is determined by the amount of current it can supply at a given voltage, in this case around 12 to 14V, depending on battery technology.

Good quality battery tenders will attempt to evaluate battery health prior to commencing their charging sequence.

While on the road, a simple early warning indicator is to monitor battery voltage droop as the headlight comes on or while cracking over the lump. A low droop is a meaningful warning (example might be 9.3V at 20C).

[Nachodaddy]

Or you can just wait until it doesn't start your bike.

[The Gecko_imp]

That's a misunderstanding, my question to Nacho wasn't about the typical voltages seen on good or bad batteries, but about what his tender tender really measures before showing some light. If it can do a thorough test of the battery all is good. But if it only measured the battery voltage (before or during charging) ... it could show a green light (happy rider !) and the Cormanus effect takes place at the next gas station.
My dad's car battery raised mild concerns, so he went to the dealer, and the dealer pulled out a fancy new connected device with display, keyboard, integrated printer and all the other bells. It showed green (or the equivalent to it). My dad insisted, asked again. The guy goes back into the shop, and comes back with a clunky machine from the ice age. It looked like a pre-WW radio. Hooks it up to the battery, and it "really" draws power like a starter in winter, takes 30 seconds not 3. And guess what ... it shows the battery has had it. Time to replace.
@ Nacho, about the byline :

Love it, but if you really wonna "feel" that difference, your m/c ain't enough. Order a movie from Amazon called "The Shallows" if you haven't seen it, and answer this question after the first 8 minutes:
Can you still feel it ?
Don't misread, my question is not about the shark which comes later in the movie.

[GoldOxide_imp]

A good quality modern "smart" charger will pressure load the battery and monitor float charge conditions during the charging sequence. It will fail the battery with an appropriate indication.

A cheapo "smart" charger can give you a false positive and will perhaps fail later when say it is hot and under load (e.g. starter motor turning over).

[peterbaron]

^^+1^^

General: a battery load tester is the ultimate winner, whether it's a clunky Ice Age machine or a modern one, as long as the operator knows how to use and read it. Period.
Move on....

[Nachodaddy]

That's a misunderstanding, my question to Nacho wasn't about the typical voltages seen on good or bad batteries, but about what his tender tender really measures before showing some light. If it can do a thorough test of the battery all is good. But if it only measured the battery voltage (before or during charging) ... it could show a green light (happy rider !) and the Cormanus effect takes place at the next gas station.
My dad's car battery raised mild concerns, so he went to the dealer, and the dealer pulled out a fancy new connected device with display, keyboard, integrated printer and all the other bells. It showed green (or the equivalent to it). My dad insisted, asked again. The guy goes back into the shop, and comes back with a clunky machine from the ice age. It looked like a pre-WW radio. Hooks it up to the battery, and it "really" draws power like a starter in winter, takes 30 seconds not 3. And guess what ... it shows the battery has had it. Time to replace.
@ Nacho, about the byline :

Love it, but if you really wonna "feel" that difference, your m/c ain't enough. Order a movie from Amazon called "The Shallows" if you haven't seen it, and answer this question after the first 8 minutes:
Can you still feel it ?
Don't misread, my question is not about the shark which comes later in the movie.

Gecko, I am glad you like my byline. It is just a little something to make you smile.

[Venteuri_imp]

IIRC some good modern battery chargers, have battery desulphation process which helps prolong batterie’s life

[max]

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.

[GoldOxide_imp]

Helpful yes, max.