Had a customer's panel fail because I skimped on backup battery testing

Last Tuesday I got a frantic call from a dentist office whose alarm died at 2pm. Went out there and found a 7 amp hour battery that was reading 10 volts. I used to just slap in any battery that fit and call it a day. Now I always load test every battery with a specific gravity tester before I leave the job. Has anyone else had a false alarm or system failure traced back to a bad battery?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt_fox686d ago

I had a 12v SLA read 12.4v on a multimeter but it dropped to 8v under a 2 amp load. That panel went off at 3am for a cracked window sensor that never even triggered. The battery was just too weak to hold the system in standby. I dunno man, load testing a battery takes like 30 seconds with a cheap tester. Seems like a no-brainer to me. If you're not doing that you're basically asking for a callback in my book.

noahw536d agoMost Upvoted

What kind of cheap tester you running for that?