House Battery Bank Test Method?

[iggy]

...If you connect one lead to say battery A's positive and the other lead to A's negative it will just read that battery same as if you put a VOM style meter across the terminals to check battery voltage.

That is not correct. The VOM is reading the bank voltage not the individual battery voltage. Unless you have a switch in the circuit or lift a cable to disconnect the batteries in a parallel bank you can not get a valid test on an individual battery.

I agree with Dan on this. It will read the whole bank.

As to how good the loader is or at least the one I own. A $40.00 unit that I bought about 5 years ago. I had a bad battery one spring that blow out my charger. So now with 10 year old AGMs, I do a load test every spring. So far so good.

I will make this story short as I can. I bought a new truck 18 months ago. Than the remote start app on my phone stopped working 3 months ago. I was getting a massage that my truck was in a sleep mode. Which means that the truck has been seating for 2 weeks, but I used it the day before. The truck started up just fine with the key fob or the start button. I had the dealer look at it twice and they replaced a part that connects to the Cloud/web so the app can work. I was still had the same problem! I though about it, "sleep mode?" I did a load test and it come up bad. The counter person tried to tell that it was unlikely, 45 minutes later they handed me my truck with a new battery in it.

 

[NorthernFocus]

As to how good the loader is or at least the one I own. A $40.00 unit that I bought about 5 years ago. I had a bad battery one spring that blow out my charger. So now with 10 year old AGMs, I do a load test every spring. So far so good.

I will make this story short as I can. I bought a new truck 18 months ago. Than the remote start app on my phone stopped working 3 months ago. I was getting a massage that my truck was in a sleep mode. Which means that the truck has been seating for 2 weeks, but I used it the day before. The truck started up just fine with the key fob or the start button. I had the dealer look at it twice and they replaced a part that connects to the Cloud/web so the app can work. I was still had the same problem! I though about it, "sleep mode?" I did a load test and it come up bad. The counter person tried to tell that it was unlikely, 45 minutes later they handed me my truck with a new battery in it.

I tried to be clear in what I wrote previously that my comments on load testing are in regards to batteries in house load service. Load testers work great for starting batteries which is what they are designed to do and what they actually test, i.e. high loads over short duration.

The OP was asking about testing batteries in the house bank. For which load testers can not provide meaningful data as explained above.

 

[iggy]

As to how good the loader is or at least the one I own. A $40.00 unit that I bought about 5 years ago. I had a bad battery one spring that blow out my charger. So now with 10 year old AGMs, I do a load test every spring. So far so good.

I will make this story short as I can. I bought a new truck 18 months ago. Than the remote start app on my phone stopped working 3 months ago. I was getting a massage that my truck was in a sleep mode. Which means that the truck has been seating for 2 weeks, but I used it the day before. The truck started up just fine with the key fob or the start button. I had the dealer look at it twice and they replaced a part that connects to the Cloud/web so the app can work. I was still had the same problem! I though about it, "sleep mode?" I did a load test and it come up bad. The counter person tried to tell that it was unlikely, 45 minutes later they handed me my truck with a new battery in it.

I tried to be clear in what I wrote previously that my comments on load testing are in regards to batteries in house load service. Load testers work great for starting batteries which is what they are designed to do and what they actually test, i.e. high loads over short duration.

The OP was asking about testing batteries in the house bank. For which load testers can not provide meaningful data as explained above.

You were clear, its all me... I am dyslexic, so it times you need to forgive me. As one of my high school teaches said to me. What you lost in reading and writing, you made up in working with your hands.

 

[NorthernFocus]

You were clear, its all me... I am dyslexic, so it times you need to forgive me. As one of my high school teaches said to me. What you lost in reading and writing, you made up in working with your hands.

If you're going on ten years with the same set of batteries you're doing something right. Check that. You must be doing everything right. Soldier on! 😀