ORIGINAL: FlyingGreg
DaRock-- in an earlier post, you mentioned using a volt meter to check the battery capacity. My voltmeter will put a load on the batteries but will only read the voltage, not how much is left. The only way I know how to do this is to discharge the battery and see how much has been used. I know some cyclers will do this, but i don't know how to check capacity with a volt meter. Am I missing something?
No they don't read capacity. But the couple I've used over the years had faces that showed the voltage reading within a range marked in a color swath. And the location within the swath was supposed to suggest the capacity. When a 4.8V pack for instance is fully charged, it's voltage will read appreciably higher than 4.8V. When that pack has more than half, and usually more than 3/4 capacity, most ESVs will show a reading over 4.8V. If you were to use an ESV as I was suggesting, you'd not have a capacity readout, but you would get a clue if the pack was more than half capacity or not, which was my point. I should not have assumed an understanding of the method in that single sentence, but did. You didn't miss anything. Voltage readings are not capacity readings. But can give a rough estimate of capacity above and below half full.