ANCEL BST500 Car Battery Tester with Printer, 12v 24v Automotive Battery Load Tester, Cranking Charging System Analyzer, 99.99% Accuracy for Car Motorcycles Truck SUV ATV RV and More

Is your battery still good? Use one of these and you'll know. No more wasting time on a dead battery that can't be charged. I haven't been disappointed since buying and using this tester.

I work in the motorsports industry (motorcycles, ATVs, UTV's, PWCs, etc.) and have specialized testers for the batteries used in these products, but I didn't have a tester for larger batteries and decided to try this one from ANCEL.Once received, the first thing I noticed was that it is easy to operate, even without reading the manual. You basically just have to hook it up to a battery and follow the onscreen commands. (The backlit screen is easy to read.).Instead of writing these steps out I have provided some screenshots below that show the different screens you will encounter when checking a battery. (see 1st 4 pics)*Battery Type: 12V Model*RESULT: Replace Battery*VOLTAGE: 12.38 V*INT RES: 14.12 mΩ (internal resistance, anything over 10 is not good)*SOH: 15% (state of health)*CAP. Act: 198 CCA (current cold cranking amp capacity)*CAP Std: 500 CCA (rated cold cranking amp capacity)*DATE/SER. NO: 00000000 (insert date here if you want)At the end of the test you can choose to print the test results, a sample of a tested bad battery below.Note: The printer uses thermal paper which requires no ink.This tester can also test the charging system of your vehicle, providing results of the charging system while the vehicle is running with a load. I've included a few screenshots below and will update this review once I have had a chance to use these features more. (see last pic)Overall I think this is a very nice battery tester and charge analyzer. It is very easy to use and the ability to print out the test results either for your own personal reference or to attach to a customer repair order is extremely handy. The only slight negative is I wish it came with a case, but cases are cheap so this is not a big deal to me.I will update this review once I have used this tester a little more.

As a service adviser, this is a great tool to have in your arsenal when you can quickly grab and test a battery and give a print out to show the customer. Of course at the shop, we do have professional Snap-on equipment to test batteries, but can never find it when you need it in a hurry. So it definitely helps to have a personal item that I have handy.All in all, it works great, just as accurate as our Snap-on tester, but at a great affordable pricing.The reason why it's getting 4 stars instead of a full 5 star review is that it could definitely use improvement.I do understand that this is a budget tester that comes included with a printer when competitors are charging more than twice the amount for a printer, but small things could be done better.The "rugged grippy case" that's in the description is definitely not the case for one, it's just hard molded plastic. A little bit of rubber padding on the sides would be nice. Speaking of the case, a magnet on the back would be nice to keep the cables in check, and to attach it to a body panel while doing testing.The printer, although a very good selling feature on this unit is a bit flimsy. The paper feed slit is not very large, and paper would get curled back up inside the housing, causing you to need to open the cover to remove the printout or requiring you to first pull some paper out before printing. A larger slit or a paper feed button would've been nice.The last thing is not being able to print out readings for alternator or starter results. The only thing that's able to print is a the battery reading. With it having a printer, I would say that was a huge oversight.

I am disappointed in my ANCEL BST500. When I first tried it, I knew the battery was fully charged and in good condition. However, my BST500 showed the battery voltage to be 12.42V and the state of charge (SOC) to be 62%. At the same time, my ANCEL BA101 showed the battery voltage to be 12.64v with a 96% SOC. A digital voltmeter connected to the same battery at the same time showed the battery voltage to be 12.64V, the same as the BA101.After using the BST500 for a period of time and comparing it to the readings of a digital voltmeter and my ANCEL BA101, I was convinced that the BST500 was off.I sent an email to ANCEL tech support asking about the apparent error and requesting information on the expected accuracy of the BST500. I received this reply:"From: Ancel <[email protected]>Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 2:59 AMTo: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXSubject: 回复：回复：RE: Ancel Tech SupportHello,The normal battery voltage is between 11.8v-12.8v, so engineers set 11.8V as 0%, 12.8V as 100%, and the voltage error is 2%. The error of starting current is 5%Regards,ANCEL Team"A starting current error of 5% is OK and is accurate enough for that test. However since the voltage can only be expected to be within about ± 0.24V, the SOC cannot be tested accurately with my BST500. A half a volt error range is just too much.I will continue to use my BST500 for starting tests and load tests, but I will rely on my BA101 for SOC tests.