Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Never drain these batteries all the way down. This is a technique that was used on old chemistry NiCad batteries, never for lead acid.
Ether, the instruction sheet is very misleading by specifying 200-1000 amps and then specifying 125 amps. A team once showed me a tester they were using to make tests and when they connected it to the battery a resistor glowed inside. Since that day, I have been leary of any automotive type tester.
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I've never seen a load tester intended for automotive starting batteries that loaded the battery except when the momentary switch was activated. When that is done yes you can see a resistor glow in some of them IF you leave in in the "load on" position long enough.
As mentioned above all of this style (inexpensive) load tester I've ever seen applies a fixed load of 100 or 125 amps and is only intended to do so for 5 or 10 seconds. Now there are testers out there that are adjustable and can put a higher load on the battery but I've never seen one that didn't cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
Really there is no reason to be leery of this style of tester. For it to be able to drain a healthy, fully charged, FRC legal battery down to a 0 SOC you better have some serious gloves on because it will become too hot to touch, or you'd have to run the test over and over and over again w/o charging the battery. The key is using it as intended with no more than a 5 or 10 sec load on the battery.