CLOCKS AND WATCHES

Can I check the remaining strength of my batteries using a multimeter?

I have so many AA batteries in the home and I don’t usually throw them away unless they don’t even make a wall clock work. Is there a way to use my cheapie multimeter to accurately check the remaining strength of these batteries the same way that the little battery-strength indicators that are on some Duracell packages do?

A cheap multimeter will only check voltage. And as long as any given battery has over approximately 10% of its service-life remaining it will make its nominal voltage. Those little ‘strength’ indicators do not check voltage, they check the actual ability of the battery to deliver current at its nominal voltage – not hardly the same thing – essentially, they are a tiny color-changing resistors that heat up when shorted across the battery – and the amount of heat generated by the short indicates actual battery strength remaining.

You could make up a little test rig that would do about the same thing – but with AA batteries unless it is very carefully designed, the load you will put on the battery doing the test will pretty much wipe it out if it is that far gone in the first place.

Recharging common alkaline batteries can be an interesting process – most of the time you can recharge to a limited degree. Sometimes you cannot. Sometimes they explode during the process. Many times even those that take a charge and do not explode will leak in very short order.

Good luck with it. When you do finally decide to throw away the dead ones – some of the Big Box stores recycle them (or at least suggest that they do).

One more note: On recharging NiCd (nickel/cadmium) batteries – “topping them up” is generally a bad idea as they will soon start to demonstrate a “memory effect” – that is reach a point during the discharge process where they seem to stop working – at approximately the point where it was topped up. This can be overcome, but it is a painstaking process. NiCd batteries function best if they are very nearly totally discharged before charging. Not true of other rechargeables, by the way – so if you can afford it, go to the Nickel-metal hydride or similar types..

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