All,

Is there any way to check how much 'life' a battery (AA or AAA etc, non-rechargeable) has left?

I have a multimeter but am a noob at using it for anything other than voltage.

TIA

A most people know, a rough indication is what the voltage is with no load (ie, multimeter + battery with nothing else connected). If it's significantly belower what you need, then it's going to drop even lower once there's a load involved.

I suppose you can look at the curve characteristics of your specific battery. Here's one for enegizer Lithium AA (with Alkaline data overlaid):

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/l91.pdf

Look at the first graph on the second page (voltage characteristic @ 50mA). If you can put a load on there to produce a 50mA current, you might be able to get a rough estimate as to what location on the curve you are using just the voltmeter feature of your multimeter, and how far away from the quick dip when it stops working.

Maybe someone with more knowledge about batteries can step in, but that's just from my generic experience with electronics.

last edited by parabol at 11:56:48 30/May/08

I would try using a battery tester

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Battery+tester&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Tongue test method ftw