I am looking for a small battery tester for alkaline, Ni-mh and Li-ion up to 18700 size.
It must be accurate enough to check Li-ion balance for multi cell lights in the field and therefore small is essential.
It must be a type of slot in or bay tester since I dont fancy myself messing with wires and trying to hit the battery taps and such in the dark fields when the snow and rain storms come in.
I am willing to pay up to 30 USD and I am willing to do a complete build if I can just source the materials and get a little help from someone who know how to do it.
i am finally taking the plunge into multi cell li-ion flashlights and I want to be able to do this in the field.
It would be awesome if it had a backlit display so no flashlight was needed to see the results. But that may be too much to ask at this price point. Although I must admit that I have no idea what the price range is for one like this. Or if it exists at all?
I don't know of any such commercially available product, but you can take just about any multi-size li-ion charger (those with the spring), and replace its electronics with a cheap LED voltage tester (it may need power supply). Should be accurate enough, I think.
Thanks a lot guys - that is some good help right there! :-)
I will look into the last one since it is so tiny and can do just 1 cell without some other power supply.
@ ledoman have you bought this one and used it? Do you know if there is a manual with it (how to hook it up I mean)
It looks like is it a self build thing but that is okay at the price. A lot more room (money vise) to buy stuff for making this thing work!
I am soo loking forward to testing this. Should I buy 2 immediately? What if it turns out so good that I want another one. Hmm. Thinking thinking thinking....
You won't fail if you buy two, but find the cheapest (they are all the same). No need for manual - search Youtube for videos (mostly for 2S-6S, but you'll get the idea).
I've maked my own 18650 cell checker
- see this thread https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2737#node-3054
So you are the one who made that build! I knew I had seen something to that effect sometime and somewhere but did not find anything when I searched for it.
BTW. By re-reading the discription on that web shop I think I already know how it works. We'll see though.
Since I am looking to make it as little as possible I will most likely just desolder the pins for the connector and solder wires directly to the PCB. That should give me a few mm´s of space.
I hope to have a working tool that takes up no more then say a 95*30 mm cylinder. Hopefully with at spring assisted negative end contact in a sort of bay. And hopefully with a rainshower safe design (as long as you dont open it in the rain that is)
But that is just hope - not a finished thing yet and maybe when I get the parts in hands all that will change.
is actually 1S-6S tester with buzzer alarm for 2S-6S mode.
I mean, how bad can they be? Buy 2 or 3 different, keep backups. Don't charge batteries in the field to 4.20V but rather to 4.16V or so. The expected error on the cheapo meters of 0.02V or even 0.05V difference is not much. Also install a buzzer, if applicable.
This was just from DX, there are probably more choices out there.
I dont know about any 50 pounds. I paid 1 pound for each and 2.5 punds for shipping. Dont know what happened to the prices there but looks like a database error to me.
I use one of this for my RC application: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__10952__Cell_Log_8M_Cell_Voltage_Monitor_2_8S_Lipo.html
If you can wire all your cells to a female JST-XH balancing plug then you can check the charge of individual cell and also the charge of the entire pack.
Here is an upgraded version that has data logging capability: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__9282__Cell_Log_Cell_Voltage_Monitor_2_8S_Lipo.html
