Using a multimeter's conductance tester for checking small b

Is conductance a reliable measure for checking usability of used and
new consumer and camera batteries? What about button cells and laptop
battery packs? If not, why does it work on automotive and gel
batteries? Thanks for all replies. If there is already a thread of FAQ
on this subject, I apologize for this posting, and would appreciate a
LINK to such threads or websites. Using a multimeter's conductance
tester for checking small batteries OK?

 

[Roger Lascelles]

<tunesandballoons@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1108926812.029612.300750@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Is conductance a reliable measure for checking usability of used and
new consumer and camera batteries? What about button cells and laptop
battery packs? If not, why does it work on automotive and gel
batteries? Thanks for all replies. If there is already a thread of FAQ
on this subject, I apologize for this posting, and would appreciate a
LINK to such threads or websites. Using a multimeter's conductance
tester for checking small batteries OK?

Battery internal resistance (conductance - 1/resistance) is often measured

with AC techniques, such as applying a small sine or squarewave current
waveform and measuring the ac component of the battery voltage.

Unless you have a multimeter which measures conductance this way, do not use
a multimeter on the ohms or conductance range. The readings won't mean
anything and you can burn out the meter.

Google for "battery resistance" and "battery conductance" and you can spend
hour learning.

Roger

 

[Winfield Hill]

Rich Grise wrote...

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:13:32 -0800, tunesandballoons wrote:

Is conductance a reliable measure for checking usability of used and
new consumer and camera batteries? What about button cells and laptop
battery packs? If not, why does it work on automotive and gel
batteries? Thanks for all replies. If there is already a thread of FAQ
on this subject, I apologize for this posting, and would appreciate a
LINK to such threads or websites. Using a multimeter's conductance
tester for checking small batteries OK?

NO. ...

The closest thing to a "conductance meter" I've ever heard of is
an ohmmeter, which measures resistance, which is the reciprocal of
conductance, and applying a power source of any kind will instantly
destroy the meter, and runs a real risk of damaging the power source,
in this case, the battery.

High-quality multimeters include a conductance or Siemens mode for
measuring very high resistances. For example, 10.0nS corresponds
to 100M. Many meters go offscale at such high resistances. Even
a 10G resistor could be measured, and showing 0.1, etc.


--
Thanks,
- Win