Quote:
Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV
I'm interested to know why Al tests all the way down to 8V. We went with 10.5V as that's about as bad as we have ever had a battery come off the field. We don't compete with voltages lower than that (no load voltage) so we didn't feel it necessary to drop them that low. Maybe we should be lowering the cut off voltage.
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Basically the same philosophy with us. I think the 50A test cutoff at 11.5V usually take 6 or 8 minutes or something like that. Again, I'm pulling from memory right now so let me look at the data and verify but the tests go much faster and, well, you know how many batteries we usually bring to competition so it really speeds the testing process up as well. I know there will be comments about this process being harsh on the batteries and that manufacturers test at a lot lower current draw for a lot longer period of time but we aren't using these batteries like that so my philosophy is why test them like that? We stress a battery for 2+ minutes through a 120A breaker. 50A or even 75A draw for a few minutes seems reasonable to me. I actually wish I could figure out how to program the CBA & amplifiers to cycle the current draw to like 100A or 150A for a short time (seconds) then draw less and sort of simulate a 2-3 minute match. That would seem to be a better indicator of how well the batteries will hold up the way we use them.
For what it's worth we used to always charge our batteries using the 2A setting on our chargers. A couple of years ago (through our battery testing) we found the batteries seem to do better charging them using the 6A setting. We just got some of the Autometer BusPro-660 chargers which are 6 bank 5A chargers designed for SLA. I hope they work out well. I guess we will see this coming season.
All this battery testing discussion is great and useful but I really hope the collective community can provide some good insight into what their experiences were this year (good or bad) using battery brands other than the Enersys.