Manbat introduces start-stop battery installation tool

Over the past few years Manbat has told workshops to get ready for more business with vehicles fitted with start-stop systems. The UK’s largest automotive battery distributor now offers garages and workshops a new device for dealing with aftermarket start-stop jobs – it has released its own Manbat ‘Connect + Reset’ battery validation tool.

“As is becoming increasingly understood, the battery in a micro-hybrid vehicle is central to its electrical systems and is therefore constantly governed by a battery management module, which monitors its voltage, current, temperature and operating time,” comments Manbat marketing manager Myles Pemberton. “This information is processed to determine the battery’s state of charge, starting capacity, electrical consumption, energy reserve and optimum charging voltage, to ensure the system applies the correct charging regime and keeps it in the best possible condition.

“Fitting the battery for which the system was designed is therefore crucial, but so also is the process of ‘validation’ to ensure the battery and battery management module are diagnostically ‘connected’ and able to communicate with one another correctly,” Pemberton continues. “Failure to validate the battery can cause issues with the start-stop functionality, the shutdown of non-essential electrical systems and the premature failure of the replacement because the system can ‘assume’ the new battery is in the same derogated condition as the old battery it replaced.”

Pemberton says the Manbat ‘Connect + Reset’ battery validation tool provides technicians with a “simple, effective and inexpensive” way to allow them to install a start-stop battery with confidence.

“When connected to the vehicle’s j1962 diagnostic socket, the handheld tool will go through the validation and fault code reset process, so that the battery is introduced and assimilated into the vehicle’s electronic systems and integrated with the battery management module, to ensure the installation is performed correctly and the vehicle/battery combination is able to operate to its intended capability,” the marketing manager explains. “Although the tool is capable of many other functions, the primary concern for Manbat is to provide technicians with a viable solution to the challenges of fitting start-stop batteries and which allows them to complete the correct battery installation for whatever the vehicle that comes into the workshop.”