Battery Tester?

[StorminN]

aviken,

How many Watts is your PV panel? If it's a small one, like a Harbor Freight-style dashboard battery topper, it probably does not make over 1A... but you should check the specs if you can, just in case.

DISCLAIMER - I'm not familiar with that particular Ideal meter, and it's hard to tell from the picture exactly how it's labeled... but I believe how you would test DC Amps (and Dan can correct me here) would be:

Take the meter's RED test lead and put it in the R/L1 jack.
Leave the meter's BLACK test lead in the COM jack.
Set the dial to "ADC"

Hook the RED test lead on the meter to the red (or positive) wire from your PV panel.
Hook the BLACK test lead from your meter to your battery's POSITIVE terminal.
Hook the black (negative) lead from your PV panel to your battery's NEGATIVE terminal.

Your meter is now wired in series on the positive conductor of the PV panel, between it and the battery.

Turn your meter on, read Amps.

-Norm.

[leitmotif]

I wish those manufacturers would make the pictures larger.  Cant tell what the jacks are labeled.

I believer Norm was right BUT without a good picture it is hard to tell.  Ideal is OK - if Fluke does not make it Ideal is then my choice.  I would say black in common and red in ADC then set the scale to ADC.  If mine and I was not sure I would use a very small load powered by a flashlight battery - OK there it is use a flashlight bulb ie for 2 D cells and measure current when powered off only one D cell.  I would not worry about polarity most digital meters dont care - you will just get a "minus sign" in the display.

Sounds like the batteries are doing OK give em a good 12 hour charge == check the temp.  Disconnect and see how fast voltage drops.  If it drops only by about .5 volt after a couple minutes then recommence charge IF temp is OK.
IF you are approaching 100 ie 95 plus let cool overnite.  Keep a log of time amps, volts (each battery) temp so you can remember what you did.

Yes stick the thermometer right in the electrolyte.  You can use a metal thermometer just dont touch the cell plates with it.  Candy thermomtert is too high a range you want say 32 to 125 F ideally.
I think the solar cell capacity (max out) was 2 amp so I would be leery of using meter with only 2 amp capacity.

Dan

[aviken]

Hey Thanks for all your help! So I was able to measure the amps of my small solar panel - I found on panel it is rated at 350ma, which is of course under ideal conditions. It was half cloudy when I went out...so it would go from .080 or so up to 0.250A as clouds came & went.

I got a larger panel from my son for my b-day..I haven't hooked it up, but it is made for charging 12 volt batteries too, but it is rated to hit 1 full amp under ideal conditions. I'll hook both up together and should get close to that full amp between the both of them in the full sun.

I'm considering putting them on top of my shop, and setting them up with a small inverter & using a light sensor to control the outside shop light. It's fairly burly, but I think it is supposed to be efficient...the thought is that the battery(s) could charge during day, and the light that lights up a good portion of my yard would come on at sunset, off when it gets light again. In this way, I could take that outside /security light off the main power...self sufficient. I have not idea how much power that light would take though...it's just an idea. I have to do lots of experimenting - and see just how much my load my inverter takes to run, etc.

As for the golf cart batteries - I switched the charger to the other "set" this morning. The one that charged most of day & all night, is reading 12.4 or 12.6...(after sitting for an hour) don't totally remember...not near where I'd like to see them, but it is the first "pass" at resurrecting them. That set also had the one battery that showed only 0.34v for the 6v battery. After this other set gets, up and running, I might throw the charger back on the other set - or change the sets around and try and push some more juice into them.

Not sure if I should partially discharge them and recharge them, if that helps bring them back to life, or if it is a waste of time. I don't have a pulsator...but I'll do what  I can to get some life out of these. It's been a good time to get back out and charge all my batteries....I have 3 others like for trolling motors, etc...all different sizes. Not sure which batteries I will hook to my panels (I have a small charge controller, but if it proves to inefficient, I might take it out - as long as I am drawing current out of my batteries every day). 

Quick question - is there a way I can tell how much electricity is being used to run my inverter? Do I check voltage drop when turned on or what? It's a Husky 750W inverter, with a cooling fan that always runs when on...I think it's probably not very efficient...ideally I'd like a small circuit that would draw minimum mA, and then when conditions met, it would turn the inverter on - and anything hooked up to it.

[leitmotif]

The one that charged most of day & all night, is reading 12.4 or 12.6...(after sitting for an hour)
That should give some hope.  How warm were they and were they gassing when you took em off charge?

Charge the other two seriesed see how they look.  If warm let em cool.
THEN connect both seriesed in parallel and let em charge some more.
No need or reason to discharge.  Chemically speaking you have taken 3 steps so why step backwards and have to retrace?

How to measure current on inverter - AC or DC - what is line voltage - and watts was 750??
Husky Uhhh Home Depot or Harbor Freight - dont have any faith in either.  The Husky stuff is not.

Dan