12V 500 Amp Carbon Pile Battery Load Tester Alternator Starter 1000CCA Testing

Excellent value.

Trying to test 1200 cca generator battery .Upon arrival there was bolts inside rattling around . I opened the unit up , re installed the bolts and tightened several others . While being amazed at the small fasteners and such to handle large DC current .While testing , i could not get more than 350 amps , and at that point the unit , cables got extremely hot , smoke and cables inside too close to the heat dripped fire balls of plastic .I got two tests ( sort of ) out of this poorly built and designed unit . the connections and component's are just too cheap and way too small to handle the advertised current .Do not waist your time or money , its a dangerous unit .

Better with cord storage

Summary: Cheap Chinesium but does what it says and worth the $80. Beeping alarm sucks and came with loose parts inside. Works as described tho! Better to be used as a load tester with other measurement equipment hooked up a clamp ammeter and voltmeter.Had to deduct 2 stars because of 2 issues. Next day shipping is great, arrived well packed. Unboxed and noticed something rattling around inside and saw a nut through the vent. Pulled the 4 screws on the front and one of the nuts and insulators for the carbon load pile was off and bouncing around. I re-installed and tightened it without issue. Went over all the other fasteners while it was open and the rest were all tight. Bad QC, of they have any.Second issue is the annoying alarm that loudly beeps after 15 seconds of connecting the tester. Such a nonsense feature. If it's supposed to beep to limit the load time to 1t seconds I understand. But with the load knob completely unscrewed until the stop point it beeps with zero load after hooking up leads. Pulled cover again and un-soldered the speaker from the board, problem solved.After all that the load tester works as described. I didn't check the accuracy of the ammeter but the voltmeter is accurate. With 90ah sodium bank and high output alternator I'm able to pull the full 500 amps shown on the gauge but for only a second because the carbon pile overheats very quickly. Ammeter seems accurate because I pulled 180a from the alt and dropped a full volt so the sodium bank had to be putting out a good 300 amps at least.For under $80 to get a real load tester instead of the computerized crap it's worth it.

Works as intended

Nice looking unit. The load dail is stiff and rough when turning and does not have end stops. The carbon pile is suppose to be capable of a 500 amp load but the highest load I got was 325 amps. I have returned this and I am looking for a better replacement.

Product arrived in an unsealed and previously opened box. It had obviously been returned but was sold as new. After trying it out, I see why it was returned. It was a very cheaply built piece of junk made in china. The instructions were even bad and obvious written by someone who didn’t speak English. I tried testing a new 800 CCA battery but it would only load up to 300 amps according to the ammeter. I put my high quality Fluke DC amp meter on one of the cables and it read 390 amps while the built in meter read 300. What good is that??? This unit would have failed a perfectly good battery! I returned this unit and will buy a higher quality one. Don’t waste your money on this piece of junk!

These things were not designed to last very long. You get what you pay for.