Analong or Digital load tester?

[David Conway]

What do you prefer? Analog or digital load tester?

Topic

[dreamer2355]

Digital 🙂

[David Conway]

They both do the same thing right?

[Michele Pensotti]

Hello, I have both analog and digital.
There are two main differences between the two types:

First of all the analog one actually puts a load on the battery, and this is quite a stress for the battery, especially for the weak ones.
This also means you cannot test a battery if it isn’t fully charged.

With the digital one there is actually no load on the battery, so it doesn’t get stressed and you can read it even if it is in a discharged state.

The second , and maybe more important feature of a digital tester is that , since it has to read the capacity of the battery with no load, it actually has to measure the battery’s internal resistance, which in turn is a very very important indicator of the effective state of health of the battery.

The internal resistance is very important because, in practice, it is inversely proportional to its capacity and cold cranking capacity.

Here in EU digital testers are quite costly, but in the US they are cheaper, in fact I bought mine on ebay.com from the US; I almost payed more for the shipping cost than for the tester!!! :woohoo:

Hope this helps!

Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!!!)

10nico

[celticbhoy]

Digital is just easier to operate/read, but I have no problem using an analog. We use a snap on AVR machine at my school.

[Nick Warner]

I personally prefer a carbon pile load tester over a digital conductance tester. Take something like an Optima battery for instance. A digital tester doesn’t test them properly. But no matter what type of battery you have, a load tester gives it an absolute pass or fail by forcing it to put out the required amperage. I’ve got my Snap-On dealer keeping an eye on some of his other stops for an old VAT-40 for sale.

[John B Kobberstad]

VAT-40 on Atlanta Craigslist for $250

[Nick Warner]

sweet! Thanks John

[Author]

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