If you ever get round to sorting out your man drawer, you’re inevitably going to reach the point where you have a handful of assorted batteries with no idea of their conditional at all. This is where this handy gadget comes in. By placing your batteries against the tester, it will tell you what the state of the battery is and whether it’s good for another year in the drawer or destined for the bin. The tester cost me £2.83 from Amazon.co.uk.
The tester has two contacts on the front for testing 9v batteries, although the feature that’s probably going to get the most use is the 1.5V battery tester on the side. It allows you to place an AA or AAA battery along the side of the device and clamp it with the moving arm. It worked quite well when I tried it – it successfully identified the dead and dying batteries – although the moving arm on the side feels uncomfortably loose. The result of the test is displayed on the analogue display which lacks any units but instead indicates either “good” (green), “low” (yellow) or “bad” (red). The needle on the display also doesn’t rest at the beginning of the scale which does lead me to doubt the overall accuracy of it.
This gadget doesn’t just test batteries though. There are contacts on the front for testing fuses and bulbs. I can’t think of a time when I’ve ever had to test a fuse or a bulb, but it’s great that I’ve got a way of doing it now.
The instructions for operation are on the back of the device although they fail to mention a little sliding hatch revealing a small tray for which I can’t find any purpose what-so-ever. My best guess is that it’s for storing spare fuses as it’s roughly the right size, but I suppose it could be used to store spare button batteries (unfortunately, it’s a bit too small for AA or AAAs).
The only major bad point I can identify with this device is that it requires a 9v battery to operate, which if you don’t have one lying around, can possibly set you back almost as much as the tester itself.
For the price, the Silverline 633909 is a great little gadget although if you’ve got a multi-meter kicking about, you’d probably rather use that for its accuracy and precision. It’s difficult to feel confident about the reading from the analogue display on the Silverline tester, although it seems to work well if you want to get a rough idea 3/5.