You can use any cheapo multimeter for alkaline battery checking.  Just dont
use it for high current applications, check youtube videos of cheapo meter
testing explosions.  There is a good list of battery testing options using
a meter at this forum:
http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/125863/how-should-i-use-a-multimeter-to-determine-which-aa-batteries-to-keep-and-which

Also take a look at alkaline cell discharge curves for your cell size.
This will show you how much capacity is left for different loads.
http://ww2.duracell.com/media/en-US/pdf/gtcl/Product_Data_Sheet/NA_DATASHEETS/MN1500_US_CT.pdf

Cheers,
Matt
On Nov 5, 2015 3:41 PM, "David Beierl" <dbeierl@attglobal.net> wrote:

> At 05:30 PM 11/5/2015, Anthony Egeln wrote:
>
>> I've been looking for a good excuse to buy a moderately priced multimeter
>> for quite some time, and I think I may have one now.
>> Can you use a multimeter to check household batteries? Â I have a box
>> full of AA, AAA and 9V batteries that my late mother had accumulated, and
>> while they may be out of date I want to make sure they are really done
>> before taking them to our community hazmat pick up this Saturday. Â
>> I was going to buy a "battery checker" on Amazon and I started thinking
>> that a multimeter might be able do this just as well and I'd have my excuse
>> to buy the instrument.
>> There are a lot of recommendations on the archive for which multimeter to
>> buy, but none very recent. Â I'd love to have a current recommendation for
>> a moderately priced instrument, digital or analog.
>> Thanks, Ant
>>
>
> Not really.  To test a dry cell or dry battery you have to load it with
> something approximating a working load.  Digital meters in general have ten
> megohms input resistance.  My Radio Shack puts a 50 mA load on AAA, 150 mA
> on AA, C, D cells. 3 mA on button cells and I'm not sure on the rest.
> Ideally you'd dial in your desired load and cutoff voltage for your
> particular applications.
>
> Yours,
> David