SLA - checking battery condition

[averhamdave]

Hi all,

I'm off in my motorhome straight after Christmas for 6 weeks and my old Powabyke Euro will go with me as usual. (I'm that age!) The bikes in good nick and well maintained and usually very reliable. Its only used for leisure - when I'm away in the motorhome. Whilst away I'll do a couple of hundered miles - I hope!

The batteries are old - several years old in fact. However they charge well, hold their charge well and on the face of it seem fine. I have, however noticed recently that the "5 LED" power meter drops to about 3 lights under hard acceleration, even on a freshly charged battery.

My question is: How can I test the individual batteries for condition? I have a couple of spare individual batteries also, one of which is relatively new. I don't want the thing to "go down" whilst away and wish to assemble a battery pack from the best 5 batteries I have.

I don't wish to purchase a "watts up meter" or any other piece of expensive kit thanks.

 

[flecc]

Lead acid batteries left idle for long periods can sulphate their plates whih impedes the current transfer. There's not much you can do to test them other than the observations you've made. Old style lead acid batteries permitted checking charge states cell by cell with a hydrometer and testing cell capability one at a time with a heavy discharge tester, basically a large resistance and meter placed across the cell contacts to indicate how well it sustained the discharge rate. If that was possible on your sealed batteries it would show some cells no longer fully capable of sustaining the discharge rate.

Your observation on the performance is dynamically the same thing in effect, just without it being possible to put a figure on it or pinpoint the cell(s) responsible, so it's nearing the time for a new set of batteries.
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