Mine just arrived today and I've done a quick check its accuracy against my Brymen BM869s multimeter. Brymen measured voltage 4.2030V, TEC-06 4.19V, Brymen 100.30mA; TEC-06 set to 100mA. I'm well impressed with that! The only caveat is that there seems to be a quiescent battery draw of 125uA when it's not supposed to be discharging it, so don't leave the battery in it too long before or after a discharge test. Compare it to the fake "150W" dummy load that VoltLog reviewed which I also have and which measured a voltage 0.1V too high and at a set current of 100mA, the actual current was 179mA (and the reading on the device was 123mA), and which although you can set the current in 10mA increments in the user interface (the only reason I bought it), actually only changes in 100mA steps.
Can you do an accuracy test? The best tester is worthless if the measured values are far off. I've seen blog articles which mentioned bad accuracy at low currents (exactly the use case you used here), draining way less than the 100 mA set.
I'd like to build one of these things except you would wire it up to your actual load in series with the battery and it would record the discharge current levels onto an EEPROM. Then, you could "play it back" with just the battery attached. I'm sure something like that exists already, but I think it would be a fun little project.
How do I calibrate this unit? I just bought one but mine is completely off with the voltage and the mAh is way too much. If I push in the button and power it up it seems to be in calibration mode but I dont know what to do there.
Thanks for the video. If you get a chance, I would like to see an explanation of the two modes shown in the usage instructions step 5 for "Start/Stop". It seems that "mode 1" is started in the "capacity" display state (first LED) and is meant for batteries or cells, and "mode 2" is started in the "voltage" display state (second LED) and is intended for power banks where no internal resistance measurement is desired. Did you ever do that video on internal resistance measurement? It seems the unit does a open circuit voltage check every few seconds and updates the milliohm reading.
I have two of these loads that I picked up on Banggood, one of them does hook up to a PC for more features and battery monitoring. They are very finicky about the cells it will test. Mine has a case around it and I do like this tester, but I want different color LED's for the functions, so I plan on changing those out.
Youmention the non-optimal position of the usb port. I agree, but the location of the fan in relation to the display and the rotary encoder bothers me slightly more. The fan will get in the way if you want to put the battery tester in an off the shelf enclosure. Oh, and thanks to the vid! Thumbs up!
Surely even just 100mA is a very high discharge rate for those small batteries - equivalent to about 1C to 2C. Around 10mA or 100mA intermittently would be more indicative for the sort of application these are meant for.
@@JulianIlett sorry I should have written C2 rather than 2C - but I thought one of them pegged out around 68mAh so that was a 1.5C rate. Either way, that is a very high sustained current for that battery form factor - the cells are pretty tiny. Batteries are more usually tested around C10 or C20 unless there's a special application, it would be proper for the manufacturer to quote the capacity at a 20hr discharge rate by default. Off course that's a whole extra test for you to try - how much difference does each battery show in capacity at C2 compared with C20. That would be interesting.
If you could buy the God P battery for very cheap, it would be a good source of the half AAA sized batteries to use for replacements in solar garden lights, since each of those is around 68mAh that is basically what is in small solar garden lights.
Hi Julian, great video, BUT most 9V power devices I come across spit the dummy and show low battery at about 7.8V. Next time your DMM, if it uses PP3, shows low batt, measure the flat battery voltage.
I have discovered secret settings and wonder what they are for. After powering up the TEC-06 while holding in the button, two numbers appear and can be fine adjusted up and down. The first number is 326 and the second is 5200. Any idea what these do? Enable calibration?
Probably a dumb question, but is the Ah rating of a battery usually calibrated against the nominal voltage, so that the energy content of the battery can be calculated as V(nom) x Ah? Or, does the Ah rating refer to a constant current discharge?
Those 9v batteries probably should be tested at max a quarter c, so around 50ma test current, to get corrent numbers. And yeah, at 100mah the drop in leads probably isn't much, but why not use 4 wire when you can? Would be pretty easy puting thin wires on terminals before cliping on the clip. And also test how accurate it is is pretty important, otherwise the numbers don't really mean much. :p
Well, that depends on the load he wants to put on the batteries. If he's going to put a 200 mA load, he should test it at 200 mA, if it's 50 mA, at 50 mA. That's the most accurate way of testing. If you want to test the batteries for the original capacity, sure, you should test them with a lower C rate. But again, that number is useless. You need the test to mimic the actual load.
What cut-off voltage must one set for testing (discharging) AA NiMh batteries? At the moment I use cut-ff voltage of 0.9V (and discharge current 50mA) (these are the lowest possible settings on the TEC-06. Is this bad?
Sorry to interrupt but I have been trying to find where I could a green pad which is shown in background. I have googled but cannot quite get the proper terminology. Any help would be great.
what are the good places to buy genuine siglent oscilloscopes in london at fair prices ? i am thinking of asking relatives to bring me one sds1202x-e from there.....
I found out that all of those tests out there - none is accurate and it all depends on the chemical material of the battery. They should have the graph how battery current changes over time at certain resistance - it is not linear. It all is correlated with battery mass and maximum discharge current it can take with 1-10 Ohm. Basically the rule is - the higher discharge current with same voltage - the better longer battery life.
Fair bet the L.S.D. batteries will take you on a longer trip than any other batteries! Didnt realise Julian had started to advertise L.S.D. to finance the channel?
Kainkalabs (on RUclips) reviewed this device some months ago on a series of, I think, three videos ( here's one: ruclips.net/video/Wfn3CEVm32o/видео.html). He found the Ah measurement accuracy to be excellent. The voltage measurement accuracy was rather poor, however, but he figured out how to fix that by correcting a design flaw. It's well worth seeing for anyone who has or may want to get one of these.
An "eBay cheapie"? Oh my. Not a disparaging comment from you Julian! Why, I'm sure that 9v battery is a fine, quality product. I mean - it's not like you bought it at the dollar store. Oops - pound store to you people!
One reason because that I bought a lot of zvs drivers from China and modified them like putting it in canola oil so the mosfets don't explode like what happened last time with the other zvs driver it was the same exact type
Наука
Mine just arrived today and I've done a quick check its accuracy against my Brymen BM869s multimeter. Brymen measured voltage 4.2030V, TEC-06 4.19V, Brymen 100.30mA; TEC-06 set to 100mA. I'm well impressed with that! The only caveat is that there seems to be a quiescent battery draw of 125uA when it's not supposed to be discharging it, so don't leave the battery in it too long before or after a discharge test.
Compare it to the fake "150W" dummy load that VoltLog reviewed which I also have and which measured a voltage 0.1V too high and at a set current of 100mA, the actual current was 179mA (and the reading on the device was 123mA), and which although you can set the current in 10mA increments in the user interface (the only reason I bought it), actually only changes in 100mA steps.
Thanks for this, waiting for mine to arrive
This seems to be the best one I've seen on your channel so far :)
Thanks for your published awesome video project, appreciate it very much. :)
Can you do an accuracy test? The best tester is worthless if the measured values are far off. I've seen blog articles which mentioned bad accuracy at low currents (exactly the use case you used here), draining way less than the 100 mA set.
I really like my JLC pen.... writes beautifully.
mine Just work 2 minutes
Write more slowly.
I'd like to build one of these things except you would wire it up to your actual load in series with the battery and it would record the discharge current levels onto an EEPROM. Then, you could "play it back" with just the battery attached. I'm sure something like that exists already, but I think it would be a fun little project.
How do I calibrate this unit? I just bought one but mine is completely off with the voltage and the mAh is way too much. If I push in the button and power it up it seems to be in calibration mode but I dont know what to do there.
Why did you ignore the voltage terminals? Icstation documentation seems to suggest they are needed to measure the voltage properly.
Because it's more difficult to set up.
Thanks for the video. If you get a chance, I would like to see an explanation of the two modes shown in the usage instructions step 5 for "Start/Stop". It seems that "mode 1" is started in the "capacity" display state (first LED) and is meant for batteries or cells, and "mode 2" is started in the "voltage" display state (second LED) and is intended for power banks where no internal resistance measurement is desired. Did you ever do that video on internal resistance measurement? It seems the unit does a open circuit voltage check every few seconds and updates the milliohm reading.
I have two of these loads that I picked up on Banggood, one of them does hook up to a PC for more features and battery monitoring. They are very finicky about the cells it will test. Mine has a case around it and I do like this tester, but I want different color LED's for the functions, so I plan on changing those out.
You have a few of these Capacity Testers now. i have the ZPB30 for those bigger pack tests. Works well
I would be interested in seeing the results of some alkaline 9V batteries for comparison.
Youmention the non-optimal position of the usb port. I agree, but the location of the fan in relation to the display and the rotary encoder bothers me slightly more. The fan will get in the way if you want to put the battery tester in an off the shelf enclosure. Oh, and thanks to the vid! Thumbs up!
Is it possible to set below 50mA load? I'm guessing not, but that'd be a nice feature.
What Mosfet is used under the heatsink ?
Surely even just 100mA is a very high discharge rate for those small batteries - equivalent to about 1C to 2C. Around 10mA or 100mA intermittently would be more indicative for the sort of application these are meant for.
I make it ½C for the Vapex Instant 200mAh and one third C for the Vapex 280mAh - approximately :)
@@JulianIlett sorry I should have written C2 rather than 2C - but I thought one of them pegged out around 68mAh so that was a 1.5C rate. Either way, that is a very high sustained current for that battery form factor - the cells are pretty tiny. Batteries are more usually tested around C10 or C20 unless there's a special application, it would be proper for the manufacturer to quote the capacity at a 20hr discharge rate by default.
Off course that's a whole extra test for you to try - how much difference does each battery show in capacity at C2 compared with C20. That would be interesting.
So what actually IS the load? ie, what does the mosfet actually drive to dissipate the power?
I wish that you had included a normal non rechargeable alkaline battery in that test to compare against the Nickle metal batteries.
Approx 300 to 500mAh at 100mA discharge rate - www.powerstream.com/9V-Alkaline-tests.htm
If you could buy the God P battery for very cheap, it would be a good source of the half AAA sized batteries to use for replacements in solar garden lights, since each of those is around 68mAh that is basically what is in small solar garden lights.
Hi Julian, great video, BUT most 9V power devices I come across spit the dummy and show low battery at about 7.8V.
Next time your DMM, if it uses PP3, shows low batt, measure the flat battery voltage.
I have discovered secret settings and wonder what they are for. After powering up the TEC-06 while holding in the button, two numbers appear and can be fine adjusted up and down. The first number is 326 and the second is 5200. Any idea what these do? Enable calibration?
Probably a dumb question, but is the Ah rating of a battery usually calibrated against the nominal voltage, so that the energy content of the battery can be calculated as V(nom) x Ah? Or, does the Ah rating refer to a constant current discharge?
and we now go to our correspondent in the back yard... and now back to Julian in the studio...
If you start the test in AH mode it will cycle through the display as it discharges.
I've got that one with the big resistor hanging off the side, never could get consistent results from it.
Can this circuit test 18650 lithium battery resistance?
Those 9v batteries probably should be tested at max a quarter c, so around 50ma test current, to get corrent numbers. And yeah, at 100mah the drop in leads probably isn't much, but why not use 4 wire when you can? Would be pretty easy puting thin wires on terminals before cliping on the clip. And also test how accurate it is is pretty important, otherwise the numbers don't really mean much. :p
Well, that depends on the load he wants to put on the batteries. If he's going to put a 200 mA load, he should test it at 200 mA, if it's 50 mA, at 50 mA. That's the most accurate way of testing. If you want to test the batteries for the original capacity, sure, you should test them with a lower C rate. But again, that number is useless. You need the test to mimic the actual load.
What cut-off voltage must one set for testing (discharging) AA NiMh batteries? At the moment I use cut-ff voltage of 0.9V (and discharge current 50mA) (these are the lowest possible settings on the TEC-06. Is this bad?
you can test 18650 with this right?
Wonder why the Ah rating of the GooP is off by a factor of 4. That's quite a bit by any ones standard. : )
nice test and review, what is the power draw of the test unit from the usb port during testing and with fan on and off?
As per the information on ICStation it should be around 240ma.
Also available from IC Station on eBay.
Looks like our Chinese friends are trying to make up for tariffs :)
Sorry to interrupt but I have been trying to find where I could a green pad which is shown in background. I have googled but cannot quite get the proper terminology. Any help would be great.
It's a cutting mat :)
Is there anything for18650 to get accurate capacity test....other than opus, LittoKala, IMAX chargers
what are the good places to buy genuine siglent oscilloscopes in london at fair prices ? i am thinking of asking relatives to bring me one sds1202x-e from there.....
Nice item 👍👍
These are running around $12-$14 USD on eBay, so yet another item that would cost 10x as much for me to build up from scratch.
I ordered one two months ago and still haven't received it.
i bought one those testers. just need to buy a charger now for 4.2V cells
I found out that all of those tests out there - none is accurate and it all depends on the chemical material of the battery. They should have the graph how battery current changes over time at certain resistance - it is not linear. It all is correlated with battery mass and maximum discharge current it can take with 1-10 Ohm. Basically the rule is - the higher discharge current with same voltage - the better longer battery life.
50mA is max current for 9V battery.
Fair bet the L.S.D. batteries will take you on a longer trip than any other batteries! Didnt realise Julian had started to advertise L.S.D. to finance the channel?
Kainkalabs (on RUclips) reviewed this device some months ago on a series of, I think, three videos ( here's one: ruclips.net/video/Wfn3CEVm32o/видео.html). He found the Ah measurement accuracy to be excellent. The voltage measurement accuracy was rather poor, however, but he figured out how to fix that by correcting a design flaw. It's well worth seeing for anyone who has or may want to get one of these.
An "eBay cheapie"? Oh my. Not a disparaging comment from you Julian! Why, I'm sure that 9v battery is a fine, quality product. I mean - it's not like you bought it at the dollar store. Oops - pound store to you people!
This freebie looks hard to decode the labels being in Chinese characters.
it is not linear, it is pwm...
I know where it came from it came from China I saw China language on it and I recognize how it's built
One reason because that I bought a lot of zvs drivers from China and modified them like putting it in canola oil so the mosfets don't explode like what happened last time with the other zvs driver it was the same exact type
Red tape on the red screen does nit make it easier to read...
Try a super capacitor
lsd batteries,.,.,. don't touch it to your tongue
I use 9900maH Li-ion.
Göt mörning to yö.
can i sent you an email somewhere julian?
Who else is here from FB power wall group?
The red digits are hard to see, especially for us older people.
Nice
Good