The EL97xx series of electronic loads available from Intepro Systems, market providers in power component and power system automated test equipment (ATE), offers users a simple means to test or characterise individual battery cells or multi-cell stacks.
Models are available with power ratings from 150 to 6,000 W for use as simple front panel controlled bench test or repair instruments to components in complex, automated test and burn-in systems. Applications include repair of power supplies and equipment through to testing batteries used for high reliability UPS and data-protection systems. Comprehensive battery testing can identify individual faulty cells allowing battery stacks to be rebuilt, reducing waste and recycling while improving reliability. Battery manufacturers can use the Intepro EL97xx series of electronic loads to characterise the performance of new designs, establish life expectancy and for production test. Automated testing provides repeatability and offers storage of test data for quality control, analysis and traceability. Test results may be fully interrogated and exported as spreadsheets or word documents into a SQL database.
All Intepro EL97xx electronic loads are supplied with comprehensive free software to simplify set-up and testing of batteries. Dynamic burn-in and discharge tests with user control of waveform may be simply performed with all test parameters available for user setting, live data is shown on a virtual control panel and a clear “capacity plot” is displayed. The user can add additional markers by using the icons on the tool bar to set a visual indicator to show the expected performance range. As well as being a standalone instrument the EL97xx electronic load is also designed for integration into larger automated test systems and may be controlled by Intepro’s open-source PowerStar software suite.
Simon Tanner, European Sales manager of Intepro Systems said, “Battery testing can be difficult and time consuming. Our new EL97 range of flexible competitively priced electronic loads provide built-in battery test functions with easy to use computer control which go together to make the process of testing batteries simple, repeatable and low cost. The inbuilt test reporting also provides data for traceability and quality assurance which add up to providing confidence in your product for your end customers.”
Intepro EL97xx electronic loads are competitively priced from around $600 to $8,000 and well suited for research and development, inspection, service and test requirements in industry, research laboratories, training centres and education. The loads have an input rating of 0 to 500 V, may be combined to provide greater than 6,000 W of load, a 2 year warranty and are available on a four week lead-time.
Intepro EL97xx electronic loads enable testing of any current carrying component (e.g. connectors and terminals) and a wide range of dynamic load conditions may be simulated including solar cell and fuel cell loading, LED testing and battery discharge profiles. 6 modes of operation (CC, CR, CV, CC+CV, CR+CV) are available with fast rise-times and dual range 16-bit resolution measurements are performed with the accuracy of a digital multi-meter and the convenience of a single connection. The loads are fully protected against OP, OC, OV, OT and reverse polarity ensuring operational reliability and protection for the device under test. Special features include 999 measurements/hour, constant current mode soft-start, dynamic pulsing and programmable duty cycles.
