Quote:
Originally Posted by coalhot
This. I accidentally put a battery just like this in our robot in 2009, went from 13 to 7 volts after the match started (the battery had been killed by trying to test a motor that was shorted, and happened to find a way into the rotation of good ones).
You can ask Akash, we were allied with 11 in that match. There's nothing worse than losing a match because of an error. 
Edit: I wish I had a battery beak, it would have prevented the mistake from ever happening. Reason being that the battery beak puts a load on the battery, so if it's actually dead, the beak will show it. Best. Tool. Ever. Wish they existed in '09 |
The battery beak is an awesome product for a quick check, but it absolutely will not identify poorly performing batteries.
For that, I strongly recommend what Al has suggested a number of times. A West Mountain Radio battery tester.
Even this year, we found several batteries that would test fine on the battery beak, run fine at a 1 or 2 amp draw, then suddenly dump down so that their final amp hour rating was 13 or 12 Ah, rather than around 18.