Off line test of E bike battery capacity

[liared]

I am in possession of a used litium Ion battery that might be useful for an E bike I intend to buy.
The battery is 36 Volt 10 ah.
I want to test the capacity of this battery “off line” before I buy the E bike.
My idea is to a attach light bulb/bulbs to the battery to see how long they shine thereby deducting the capacity of the battery (amphours delivered).
This setup, would, I imagibne require a 36 Volt light bulb – but 36 Volt light bulbs does not seem to be available.
Could I use 24 Volt bulbs instead? Or will 24 Volt bulbs “fry” atfer short time when exposed to 36 Volt current?

If a lamp test configuration is possible, how do I the deduct the capacity of the battery from the time they shine – I don’t know much about the relationships between watt, Volt , ampere and amp hours.
Someone know of a simple formula for this?!
Are there other ways to test the battery “off line” without the need to buy expensive apparatus?

 

[dogman dan]

Many easy ways to do this, car headlights, and various types of heating elements are the most common. Old electric range elements, hot plates, and old space heaters are good sources of free or nearly free heating elements.

 

[voicecoils]

The answer to your 36v light globe question is...

wire 12v lights in series. Three in series is 36v. Then, you can wire some more in parallel with the first 3 if you require a greater test load.

Good luck!

 

[liared]

Thanks for info about how to create a “virtual” 36 Volt lamp by connecting three 12 Volt lamps in series.
If each 12 Volt lamp is a 45 watt lamp, then 3 of them connected in series will be a 135 watts configuration – right?!
135 watts divided by 36 Volts = 3,75 amperes consumed every hour by the 3 lamps in series.
If the battery is rated 10 ah (ampere hours) and in a healthy condition then I could expect the lamps to shine about 2,66 hours (2 hours 40 minutes).
If they shine less than 2 hours I may have a bad battery.
Am I thinking right here???

 

[Anonymous]

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[liared]

utsandvolts wrote:
“In parallel connections you would add the wattage together, but in series you would not.”

Thanks for your info utsandvolts!
I apparently was wrong in my calculation.
As in this case the lamps are connected in series the expected shine time should be 3 times longer = 2,66*3 = 8 hours
Is this correct!?