battery life

Are you interested in the current charge state of the battery or it's
ability to provide power for the duration of the day?

For the charge state you simply need to use a voltmeter. 12.5 to
perhaps 13 volts would be ok. On charge the battery should be getting
13.5 to 13.8 volts.

If you want to test your battery's capacity you need to connect the
battery directly to a large resistor and monitor the voltage on the
battery for a couple hours. A 10 ohm, 25 watt resistor will work and by
using a 10 ohm resistor it's easy to compute what the current is by
looking at the voltmeter. 12 / 10 = 1.2 Amps. Be careful, this
resistor will be hot! The standard "gel cell" should stay above 12
volts for several hours if it's "good". My two cents anyway.

Mark

Paul Feltz wrote:
Does anyone have a diagram of a meter that can be used to determining
the quality of the battery 12volt. Paul