Well that's it the two most important things to do with the powerlab 8 in our case is charging the cell up to full and discharging to test the amp hours of the cell ....


there is other things the tester does but really the important two are these ...


hopefully this explains the useage of the powerlab 8 unit for our use if there is any questions or if it does not make sense on a step let me know and I can change it to make it easier to understand ...


Thanks and have a great EV day ...........................

You could do the math from how long it took but you can hit the inc button  times and it will take you to this screen which will show the exact amps of the cell remember this reading is what I call the useable amount in the cell since you are going from full down to 3.0V which is pretty much all the useable amount of the cell safely ...


these cells I am testing are supposed to be 60ah cells so as you can see that is pretty true ....   now you can charge the cell back up to full and it will also show amps used to charge the cell back up to full and you can compare them but this is the really true amps of the cell

when it is done it will say how long it took to discharge remember this is at the standard draw reading of 25 amp draw ...  this is the standard that most all batteries are tested at for their amp hours test ..............

IF you want to watch it while discharging press the inc

button 6 times to get to this screen and you can see it removing the amps to test it ... it will show the amps going out when it is done it will say done and how long it took to discharge and how many amps is available ....


once this is all done be sure and charge the cell back up to full as in the first section here .....

If everything went right it is now discharging the cell and counting the amps out ....

That will charge a cell to full ...  if that is what you want is to charge the cell up before putting it in pack that is it ... you now install it in the pack and it should be good to go ... 


Below is now how to test a cell for capacity ...  you will hook up the tester and since you have already set up the settings it should always keep the settings you put in it ...  the cells I am using are full at 4.2V (I charge them to 4.15V) for longest life ....    I test the discharge to 3.0V as that is the lowest you are to take these ...

even the calb it is fine to test to 3.0V discharge as you really should not take it much below that anyway this will give a good useable amps that can be taken out of the cells you are using safely ....  set the calb to charge to 3.65V and discharge to 3.0V .....

This is how it looks charging when it is finished it will say done ...............

Press the enter button over and over it will cycle through the settings until you get to the end it will say enter to confirm press it one time and it will start charging and let it go until it is done this will fully charge the cell

Press enter to get to this screen and set the discharge voltage to 3.0V  there is not much below 3.0V in any cells  then hold the back key ... this will put you back to the high power screen .... 


 Press the enter key and using the inc and dec as your up arrow and down arrow and press enter to accept the choice I use the battery because we hook it up to a 12V battery ....

Hook up the powerlab 8 to the 12 volt battery source

and hook it up to the cell you are testing ..............

This is a quick run on how to charge a cell and then discharge it to check the amp hour capacity of a cell ................................ using the Powerlab 8 tool

When you see this screen press enter one more time and it will start the discharge the screen will look like the next picture

when you see this screen be sure it says Y then press enter again until you get to the last screen

you will then see this screen .. press enter to go to next screen

Press enter until you get to this screen .. then press inc once

hook up the powerlab 8 to the 12V source battery and hook it up to the cell you are testing ...  be sure and fully charge the cell as above before running this test .......

Press enter to get to this screen and set to 25 amps

press enter then set the charge to voltage (I am doing 4.2V cells so I am setting it to 4.15V) a calb you would set this to 3.65V

use the inc and dec to set the charge rate I like 20 amps

Press inc and dec at the same time to get this screen and then press enter to set the charge rate

press enter until you see the high power setting that is the one I use most ....