Battery Capacity Test-SOLAS

Daily On Load / Off Load test

On load / off load test is done to ensure that

1. GMDSS equipments can have the power from battery. This ensures that all the

connections from the battery to the GMDSS equipment are intact.

2. Battery is able to provide power during operation of the GMDSS equipments. That

is when load is put on battery it does not drain out too quickly. For the on Load / Off

load test, Following procedure should be followed

> First Switch off the AC power to the GMDSS station. The power button is usually under

the GMDSS panel or on some ships in the radio room (if you still have one). If you have

different AC source for charging the battery, that too need to be switched off. This is

because if the battery is on continuous charge, this will not show any drop in voltage

which we intend to find out with On Load/Off Load test.

equipments. Switching off the AC power automatically ensures batteries are not on

continuous charging during test. So after the GMDSS equipment are on battery power,

note down the voltage of the batteries.

> Press the PTT button to transmit on a non-distress and idle R/T frequency. Note down

the on-Load voltage while the PTT is pressed.

> The drop in voltage should not be more than 1.5 volts.

2. Capacity Test

All batteries have a life span. The capacity of a battery can reduce with age. There has to

be a way to measure the capacity. And with Capacity test we do exactly that.
 We can understand the capacity test with the comparison to a water tank. We do not

know how much water it can hold. The one way of measuring its capacity would be filling

the water tank to full and then measuring it by draining. Measurement can be with flow

meter or with smaller measuring buckets/container.

With capacity test, we measure the capacity of battery by same method. We charge the

battery to full and then measure it by discharging. To discharge the battery, we apply a

known load to measure its capacity. Capacity of the battery is measured in Ampere hour

(Ah). So 200 Ah means the battery can give a current of 200 Ampere for one hour or 20

Amperes for 10 hours and so on.

Before we proceed further, let’s agree on these two statements

1. The voltage is not the measure of capacity of the battery.

2. A battery 100% full (Fully charged) does not mean that it will or can produce the

rated capacity.

Looking at the first statement, if the voltage is not the measure of capacity, what is ? As

we already discussed, The measure of capacity of a battery is “how much current it can

produce for how many hours”. With capacity test, that is what we aim to measure.

It would be easier to understand the second statement with example of a laptop. A new

computer with 100% battery might last for 8 hours . After few years same battery 100%

charged would only last 4-5 hours. This is due to the ageing of the battery.  With age,

battery looses its storage space.

example. If the capacity of the water tank is 2000 Litres and if it is 100% full, does that

mean it contains 2000 litres of liquid. We cannot be sure of that as we do know know

what is in the bottom of the tank. There could be number of stones at the bottom. This

figure can better explain what we are referring to here

Avoiding Deep Discharge

There is another SOLAS requirement about deep discharge of the battery while

performing capacity test. In the simplest of the terms, deep discharge means the least

voltage a battery can be brought to. If we discharge the battery below this voltage, the

battery can loose its capacity to a level where it cannot be used again. For Nickel based

batteries this voltage is 1.0V per cell. So for 24V battery pack (1.2V x 20 Cells), the

deep discharge voltage will be 20V. While performing capacity test, we should never

allow the battery voltage to go below 20V or 1V/Cell.

Now we all must be knowing this basic physics

 Power = Voltage x Current

We need to test if it still has 200Ah left in it. For this we need to remove the batteries

from charging and the existing load (connections to GMDSS station) and attach some

known load to it. Usually a rig which consists of number of 100W bulbs in series is

attached to the batteries terminals. Say, if 6 bulbs (600W )are attached to the battery, it

would draw 25A of current from the battery bank. This is because

600 watts / 24 Volts = 25 Amp

Once the load is attached to the battery bank, we need to measure the voltage and the

current across each battery bank terminal. We need to do this at least every hour. This

will continue and we shall stop the test only if

than others. In this case we need to isolate this failing cell and then continue the test.

2) The voltage has reached the deep discharge voltage. SOLAS requires that while

performing the capacity test, deep discharge of the battery shall be avoided. We have

already discussed what deep discharge is. During the test we need to measure the

voltage of each cell. The voltage should not go below 1V in any cell or 20V for the

battery pack.

3) The test has performed for sufficient time to show that battery has 100% of its

rated capacity. Say it has been 8 hours since the test started. And for 8 hours the

current measure was 25A. So the battery has already delivered 200Ah (25A x 8 Hours).

This shows that battery’s capacity is still 100%. In this case, this would conclude the

test.

If we stop the test because of 3rd point, the battery is fine. If we stop the test because

we have come to deep discharge voltage. We need to measure how much Ampere Hour

has the battery delivered at this point. If it is less than 80% of its rated capacity,

the capacity test has failed.

Charging the battery after capacity test

If the measured capacity is more than 80% of the rated capacity, we can move to next

step where we measure the time required to charge the battery. There are two

parameters to show the percentage level a battery is charged. These are terminal

voltage reading or the specific gravity of the electrolyte. A 24V battery when fully

charged would show a voltage of around 25.4V and specific gravity of 1.265.

Determining the state of charge with voltage can be tricky as voltage can change with

temperature. Specific gravity of electrolyte is considered more accurate way to

time a battery takes to charge to 100%. SOLAS require this time to be less than 10

hours.

3. General maintenance required on GMDSS Batteries

The onboard batteries do not need much of maintenance as such. There are two things

that need to be checked. First is the electrolyte level and second is the specific gravity of

the electrolyte. If you have maintenance free batteries onboard, you do not need to

check anything on that except the conditions in which it is stored.

Level of the electrolyte

The level of electrolyte can reduce due to various reasons but it is important that the

level is maintained as per the manufacturer’s instructions. If the level is low, the battery

cell must only be refilled with distilled water.

 Checking specific gravity of the electrolyte

Specific gravity of the electrolyte is considered more accurate measure of state of charge

of the battery. Specific gravity must be checked daily and recoded in battery log

alonwith voltage. Specific gravity can reduce because of sulfation which causes the

charging plates to be deposited with crystals. This causes reduction of holding charge

and thus the capacity of the battery is reduced. BCI (Battery Council Internation

defines specific gravity of 1.265 as 100% state of charge. 1.225 is considered 75% state

of charge. It is still better to refer to manufacturer’s instructions as some manufacturers

can go upto specific gravity of 1.280 as the sign of 100% state of charge.
Conclusion

GMDSS batteries are important equipment which ensures that emergency equipments

gets power in real emergency. It is thus important to maintain these batteries in an

excellent condition. Various tests/checks ensure that GMDSS batteries would provide the

required power. Daily on load/off load test ensures that all connections are intact and

when on load batteries do not drop voltage too quickly. Annual capacity test measures

the capacity of the battery in Ampere hours. We should replace the battery if capacity is

less than 80% of the rated capacity. Finally we should daily check the batteries state of

charge by measuring the specific gravity and level of electrolyte.