And 'amp-hour counter' and 'load testers' are two different instruments.
A 'load tester' is what the guys at Autozone use to test the condition of your battery. It puts a very heavy load on the battery of 30 to 40 amps and then measures the voltage while under load.
pianotuna wrote:
Hi JWR and Harvey,
The problem, with just one exception that I'm aware of, is that the "load testers" or "amp-hour counters" need to first be set to the existing capacity of the battery bank.
Except capacity is affected by (not in any particular order) age, design, temperature, Puekerts Law, and several other factors. So it is a moving target.
So the amp-hour counter only gives a (sometimes bad) guess of how much capacity remains. The very popular trimetric doesn't even bother to do a Peukert adjustment.
The only meter that gets more accurate with use is the Smart Gauge.
At the moment, the 556 amp-hour battery bank is charging at 7 amps. One-half of one percent would be 2.78, so my battery bank is not quite full yet. Voltage was showing as 12.9 before I plugged in.
I was experimenting to see if the solar could return the battery bank to full with no outside assistance while I was running my computer constantly, and a heating pad for 3 hours. It almost succeeded.
JWRoberts wrote:
Again, only load testers can answer that question.
