Investigating the decay of a battery

0. Start the program. Close the switch and let the multimeter record for 30 minutes. If your voltage reading is appearing as a negative value, stop the program and switch the leads of the multimeter to opposite sides of the battery. The red lead should be positioned on the positive (+) terminal of the battery and the black lead on the negative (-) terminal of the battery. Click start again.

1. Once the program starts, do not move your circuit.
   

2. While your data is collected think about and do the following exercises with your group:

   • There are many different types of batteries. Make a chart that shows different kinds of batteries you have found in electric devices at home and in school. List size of the battery, the voltage rating and the device in which you found it. You may have multiple uses for each size battery.

   • Write down your ideas about why there are different kinds of batteries for different devices.

3. After 30 minutes stop the voltage recording and open the switch.

4. Copy the data from your voltage program into a spreadsheet. Refer to Technical Hints to see how to transfer data from the CC DMM program to the spreadsheet.

5. Use your data to make a x-y line graph. Refer to Technical Hints to see how to make an x-y line graph.

6. Answer question 1 in the "Analysis".