Battery tester recommendation

I’d like to be able to test my starting and trolling motor batteries before taking the boat out soon. Anyone recommend a good brand, price, etc? TIA

You have to read the fine print because a lot of so-called battery testers on the market just check for voltage. You probably already know this, but that’s only part of the story, a battery can have the right voltage and still be bad. To really test a battery, you need a load tester.

Obviously, the IDO answer here is go the gold-plated route and spend $2700 and get the Snap-on off the tool truck. Then you can be totally satisfied that each of the two times per year that you use it, you will absolutely know that you massively overkilled it.

Or for something like $25 I bought the Harbor Freight battery load tester and it works great. It doesn’t sing, it doesn’t dance, it has an analog readout, but hook it up and throw the switch and it loads down the battery and 15 seconds later you have a good/not good answer and you know how many amps the battery can still deliver. You can also test alternators.

I’ve used mine a lot and it’s nice to know for sure that the battery is shot and not just guess. Also, over time if you keep track you can see a battery’s amp-hour capacity decline as the battery gets older. Basically you can get ahead of replacing it before you end up with a dead battery. That was the case with Mrs Grouse’s SUV last winter, it just sounded different when it was starting. A quick test of the battery and yep, after sitting in the garage all night, the Harbor Freight tester said it was right on the fail line as far as CCA delivery. So I got a new one installed without the Mrs calling me from somewhere saying my battery is dead.

Great answer Goruse, and although I had $2800 budgeted I think the Harbor Freight route could work well for what I need it for

Is this the one?
https://www.harborfreight.com/automotive/diagnostic-testing-scanning/battery-testing/load-testers/100a-612v-battery-load-tester-61747.html

I have an older version of this tester. It has a setting to test deep cycle batteries. Most load testers I’ve looked at don’t recommend using them on deep cyles.

Pat, just to clarify it will work to test both starting battery and TM batteries? Thx

FryDog62 wrote:

Pat, just to clarify it will work to test both starting battery and TM batteries? Thx

Yes it will

Pat K wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>FryDog62 wrote:</div>
Pat, just to clarify it will work to test both starting battery and TM batteries? Thx

Yes it will

FryDog62 wrote:

Great answer Goruse, and although I had $2800 budgeted I think the Harbor Freight route could work well for what I need it for
Is this the one?
https://www.harborfreight.com/automotive/diagnostic-testing-scanning/battery-testing/load-testers/100a-612v-battery-load-tester-61747.html

That’s the one.

I would be interested to know how the little digital testers work as far as amperage testing. Most of the size of the HF style battery testers is because of the test coil which is basically a large heating element that tests the battery’s ability to provide amperage.

How do those little tiny meters accomplish the same thing? To really test amperage, you need more than putting a 1 second load on a battery I’d think< so how does this work?

Really can get by with out a tester charge batteries unhook from everything let sit for a couple of days if voltage is below 12.5 they are on there way out. 12.3 or lower they are toast. Just an FYI a Load tester will not always show a bad battery.

Have had too many batteries under warranty that they load tested as good that were bad. Then the fight starts have won every time had them charge them and let them sit replaced no questions. Just happened at Walmart load tested as good would not replace them as there good charge, discharge tester was not working took to another store replaced both.

TFG, I’m not sure how the digital testers work. When I retired I delivered parts for a couple years. When I was looking at load testers I noticed the analog one we carried said not to use it on deep cycle batteries. I check out the one from Harbor Freight and a couple on Amazon and they all had the same disclaimer. I asked the 2 part guys I trusted and they both recommended the Ancel tester even though we didn’t carry it.
To Tom P., a lot of the batteries we tested for returns would test as a good battery with either an analog or a digital tester. In most cases we’d go to the back and grab a known bad battery and test it just to get a code to exchange the bad battery that was testing good.

Pat K wrote:

I have an older version of this tester. It has a setting to test deep cycle batteries. Most load testers I’ve looked at don’t recommend using them on deep cyles.

<div class=”ido-oembed-wrap”><iframe loading=”lazy” title=”ANCEL BA101 Professional 12V 100-2000 CCA 220AH Automotive Load Battery Tester Digital Analyzer Bad Cell Test Tool for Car/Boat/Motorcycle and More” type=”text/html” width=”850″ height=”550″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”” style=”max-width:100%” src=”https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?preview=inline&linkCode=kpd&ref_=k4w_oembed_SwPVeTPsX2gdiS&asin=B01M0ARG3X&tag=kpembed-20″></iframe></div&gt;

Pat, sent you a PM… -Fry

I have the harbor freight load tester also. Cheap and works great

Pat K wrote:

TFG, I’m not sure how the digital testers work. When I retired I delivered parts for a couple years. When I was looking at load testers I noticed the analog one we carried said not to use it on deep cycle batteries. I check out the one from Harbor Freight and a couple on Amazon and they all had the same disclaimer. I asked the 2 part guys I trusted and they both recommended the Ancel tester even though we didn’t carry it.
To Tom P., a lot of the batteries we tested for returns would test as a good battery with either an analog or a digital tester. In most cases we’d go to the back and grab a known bad battery and test it just to get a code to exchange the bad battery that was testing good.

A real battery tester will take any where from one to two hours to run a test. It will run it threw a charge discharge cycle to determine health of the battery.