Even a volt meter that puts a load on the battery as it reads it won't tell you how much capacity that your battery pack has. You can buy a recycler/charger or one of the capacity testers. You charge the battery pack and then connect it to the battery tester. It will discharge the pack to 1 volt per cell and shut down. Then you move the switch and the unit will light up and tell you how many ma it took out of the pack in ma. Then you recharge the pack and your ready to go. Then you know exactly how good the pack is. ie. if a pack is rated at 1600 mah and the tester pulls out 1575 ma, then you know that the pack is in good shape. If it only pulls out 1100 ma then you might want to consider replacing the pack. A good one to look at is called Super Test. http://www.siriuselectronics.com/ind...roducts_id=120