question

ianto999 avatar image
ianto999 asked

Shunt connection to battery only?

Hello

I have a smart shunt and am about to remove leisure battery from van, can I connect the shunt to the battery alone, without any other load or anything else connected?

I want to measure battery capacity for a used battery to help decide if I want to keep it or not.

If not, what’s the easiest way to add a ‘load’ while it is on a bench in garage?

SmartShunt
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2 Answers
Justin Cook avatar image
Justin Cook answered ·

The shunt cannot itself measure capacity, only throughput, so you'll need to connect a load to the battery. Lots of options really, depends on what you have available to you. An inverter with something plugged into it, a dump load resistor, high-current LEDs, whatever you can come up with.

There are digital battery analyzers that would do a better job of measuring the remaining performance of your battery, like the West Mount Radio CBA-xx series testers (I use a CBA-IV myself), but that may not be a practical investment if this will just be a one-off use.

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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

Yes, but you'll need a load to test the capacity.

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