Dumb Question from noob: My 9V battery not working?

[zef]

Hello there everyone,

I am a noob to the world of electronics. I recently bought a multimeter INNOVA 3310 from iEquus. An Energizer 9V battery recently died (it was being used in the personal weighing machine that I have) and I wanted to verify that the voltage was indeed not there. When used my multimeter on it, it gave me a reading of 8.38V. What exactly does this mean? Why was the weighing machine not using this battery? Because it was just a little bit below 9V? Does that mean I can use this battery elsewhere where less than 9V is required or should I just throw the battery away?

It is not about the battery, but about the general concept of non-chargeable batteries if they can be reused even if they fall below their voltage level.

I seek enlightenment Any comments will be appreciated.

Zef

 

[ericgibbs]

Hello there everyone,

I am a noob to the world of electronics. I recently bought a multimeter INNOVA 3310 from iEquus. An Energizer 9V battery recently died (it was being used in the personal weighing machine that I have) and I wanted to verify that the voltage was indeed not there. When used my multimeter on it, it gave me a reading of 8.38V. What exactly does this mean? Why was the weighing machine not using this battery? Because it was just a little bit below 9V? Does that mean I can use this battery elsewhere where less than 9V is required or should I just throw the battery away?

It is not about the battery, but about the general concept of non-chargeable batteries if they can be reused even if they fall below their voltage level.

I seek enlightenment Any comments will be appreciated.
Zef

hi,
When you measure the battery voltage directly with your meter, without any other load drawing current from the battery it will give you a higher than expected reading. [ the battery is NOT supplying any current to a load]

Place the battery back in the weigh machine and measure the battery voltage while its in the weigh machine.

This will give a 'onload' voltage.. tell us what you read.

If you have any resistors handy you could place a 100R across the battery while you measure the voltage.

Do you follow this.?

 

[zef]

Thnx eric. I understand and will comply as soon as I get hold of my weighing machine.

 

[audioguru]

My smoke detectors beep when the 9V battery is low. When I measure the battery voltage of a weak one it measures 8.5V even in the smoke detector.

The circuit in the destector applies a load to the battery every few minutes but only for a moment for it to test the loaded voltage of the battery.

 

[RODALCO]

A healthy and new 9 Volt battery will have an open terminal voltage of around 9.5 - 9.6 Volts.