Advise on battery tester equipment

[Eastcoast71]

Im looking for a tool to test batterys. Packs of 17s8p mainly. Is there a tester that can test it for capacity in every 17 series and ir. Have been looking at the dt50w-16 but it is only 16 channel. Does enyone know this model is it good and riliable?

 

[amberwolf]

Are you only testing capacity and internal resistance? Of the entire pack, or of individual groups of paralleled cells within the pack (without disassembling anything)?

If you're trying to test each parallel group, you don't have to test them all at the same time. You only need to test one group at a time, or one set of X groups at a time, so you could use just one tester, but it will take longer.

Alternately, if the testers are electrically isolated (input power completely separate from output power with no internal connection from input to output), then you can use multiple testers at the same time (for this case, two 9s testers would test up to 18s).

If there are a lot of packs to test, doing the above is likely to be the quickest way, if it's possible with the equipment you choose. (assuming there's no 17s+ version of the equipment that's either affordable or worth using for the purpose vs other methods)

 

[Eastcoast71]

Hi Amberwolf

Is there more to test then capacity and ir?

Yes i would like to test all the parallel group in a pack. Some packs are out of ballance.
And some datalogging would be very nice.

Do you use any sort of tool that have there features

 

[amberwolf]

I don't, myself, but other members on here use various equipment in their cell-testing threads (pajda, etc)

 

[DogDipstick]

I use a hopbby grade datalogging charger.... 32s... 5700w... pair of Powerlab DPL-8s ( ea handle 16s)
for a daisy chain of 4 channels, 32s, and regen, datalogs to .xls, .cba, and the powerlab format too. I can datalog 32 cell groups in series up to 40A ea. About 1200$.

 

[john61ct]

You do know that to get useful data, parallel groups must be atomised and the individual cells tested?

In parallel there is no visibility to cell health.

 

[DogDipstick]

You do know that to ...
In parallel there is no ...

You can always use processes of elimination and extrapolation. However yes,, not empirical.

For instance, lets test a 2p group on one charger input... 1 cell supposed to be 18mOh, so the group would be 9mOh f both were good health.. you measure and read .75x the group capacity, ( not 1x the group capacity) you can extrapolate that one of the cells has lost capacity. You can measure the IR and see that the group is say.. 13mOh, much higher than the "supposedtobefromthedatasdheet".... 9mOh... and you suggest one of the cells is bad. Assuming the one cell is the correct IR ( 18mOh) the other would have to be 46mOh (oh there is the heater bad cell!!) to have a group IR of 13mOh.

Yes, no discerning of which ( bad cell) it is without a thermal camera or InfraRed measurement, thermometer.. see which one is wasting power on charge or discharge ( with high ir)... You can come to some conclusion. If you are savy.

 

[Eastcoast71]

Hi John61ct and DogDipstick

Yes i know i cant find the exact bad cell with out dismanling the battery completly. But was hoping for some way to see what cellgroup that was bad or the whole pack was at end of life!.

Yeah maybe i should monitor the pack with a thermsl camera.

Really hopede for some pointers at trusted supliers of gear to balance charge and capacity test and ir. Did find a Company in india but its a bit pricy 2,5 lakh

 

[john61ct]

we don't know from lakh

everything comes from China these days

 

[Eastcoast71]

2,5 lakh is just over 3000 US dollar.

The firm was semcoinfratech i think, in india

 

[Eastcoast71]

But they maybe selling stuff from china too

 

[The Battery Doctor]

If you want a good tester then these are recommended, they are only 150W, but work with up to 150V and are very accurate, have been using such tester daily for more then 5 years, the newest version is great, review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTzYgee3fHc
Aliexpress link: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DkSDvn5

 

[gobi]

Eastcoast71,

The simplest/cheapest way to test capacity is

battery > watt meter > some load

watt meter:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/304598329425

you can get similar ones from Aliexpress much cheaper probably

load:
depending on the volts, you can use an incandescent bulb or motor, I use a small inverter with a desktop heater (bought inverter at bigazz truck stop in Davenport, IA 20 years back and desktop heater from walmart for $5)

hope that throws some ideas your way.

way prices are going, pretty soon we will probably see quotes of 2.5 Crore