Topdon TB6000Pro Battery Charger & Tester Review

Jul 25, 2023

The Topdon TB6000Pro Battery Charger & Tester is not your typical trickle battery charger. For $100 MSRP, you expect more and get a whole lot more. The TB6000Pro tests your battery, rejuvenates it if needed, and then keeps it fully charged. It works with your smartphone to provide Bluetooth wireless remote control of charging and keeps you apprised of diagnostic characteristics.

The Topdon TB6000Pro is two functional units in one small, waterproof housing.

Charging is the first duty at hand. The TB6000Pro can charge 6-volt and 12-volt lead-acid batteries, as well as 12-volt lithium batteries. If you have both lead-acid and lithium batteries in your vehicles, the ability to switch between lead-acid and lithium, by itself, will save you the cost of a second charger. Remember, you can destroy a lithium battery using a lead-acid charger with its equalization mode. However, keep in mind that the Smart Charging function only works with 12-volt lead acid batteries.

The second function of the TP6000Pro is to prolong service life by restoring the internals of lead-acid batteries. According to Topdon, lead-acid batteries build up sulfates on their plates, and then they lose their ability to recharge and hold a charge. The unit has a mode that will clean the plates and restore the battery’s cranking capability. According to Topdon, a battery showing less than eight volts is probably unrepairable.

I opened the box and took out the Topdon TB6000 Pro, an 18-inch battery connection pigtail, a 20-inch battery clamps pigtail, and a tiny three-by-five-inch printed manual. Nothing was obvious about how to operate the TB6000Pro, so I turned to the manual.

To accommodate 25 pages of instructions in six languages, the manual is physically tiny, and so is the print. I scanned the manual and, even though I wasn’t reading every word, I got the feeling this thing does a whole lot more than trickle charge. To make things easier, I downloaded the manual as a PDF file from the Topdon website. Once readable, the manual is concise and easy to understand.

I then downloaded the Topdon app for my iPhone 14; the TB6000Pro connected via Bluetooth immediately. That is when all the functionality appeared—Smart Charging, Quick Charging, and Testing Options.

I connected the four-pin cylindrical connector of the battery clamps to the battery terminals on the two years old Ultimate Motorcycling Yamaha Ténéré 700 Project Bike’s lead acid battery following the step-by-step instructions in the app and the manual. It all makes sense as you go through the individual steps, and there’s an Expert Mode for those well-versed in electronics—I went with the simple DIY Mode. The hardest part was pulling the battery up to see the information written on its side. The TB6000Pro uses that information to determine how to best approach different batteries.

The Topdon TB6000Pro tests the health of your batteries before they go out of warranty, and keeps them healthy longer than expected.

My neighbor put a brand-new lead acid battery in his trailer, went for one short trip, and then parked the trailer for 18 months. Due to self-discharge, lead acid batteries lose as much as five percent of their charge per month. My neighbor’s battery lost about 3.2 percent per month just sitting there. Being the neighborly type and having a new Topdon TB6000Pro to run through its paces, I offered to try to restore it for him.

The lead acid battery started at 6.9 volts on the initial test; 12.4 volts is normal. I called Topdon USA support for advice on how to proceed, and got a very knowledgeable customer service rep. He explained about sulfates covering the plates and how a weak battery with a resistance of 166.6 MΩ (mega ohms) had very little chance of recovering. He told me the internal resistance needed to be 6 MΩ or below to act like a restored battery. He suggested I run the 12-volt Repair cycle for several days and see what happens.

The Repair cycle pulses power to the battery to magically—my words, not theirs—melt the sulfate layer off the plates. I checked the battery status every 12 hours and saw the resistance dropping and the voltage increasing. After four days, the battery was back up to 12.8 volts, and resistance was down to 5.4 MΩ.

Next, I had the TB6000Pro trickle-charge the good-quality Yamaha Ténéré 700 battery. In the process, the unit also showed me the test results for cranking and bike charging.

Quite simply, the Topdon TB6000Pro works.

My only issue with the TB6000Pro is that the battery pigtail for convenient trickle charging does not have a protective cover. I will have to inconveniently keep it stored under my locked seat and tape the end to keep it from touching anything that could cross two of the pins and cause a hard battery short.

Resurrecting just one battery justifies the Topdon TB6000Pro Battery Charger & Tester’s purchase price. If you have a stable of batteries, you will effectively make money by not having to replace them as often.