In this era of cheap lithium pouch cells, it might seem mildly anachronistic to build AA batteries into a project. There are enough valid reasons to do so, however, and enough legacy hardware that still takes AAs, that it’s worth spending some time deciding which batteries to use. Luckily for us, [Lumencraft] over on YouTube […]
Economists have this idea that we live in an efficient market, but it’s hard to fathom that when disposable vapes are equipped with rechargeable lithium cells. Still, just as market economists point out that if you leave a dollar on the sidewalk someone will pick it up, if you leave dollars worth of lithium batteries […]
This summer, we saw the WHY (What Hackers Yearn) event happen in Netherlands, of course, with a badge to match. Many badges these days embrace the QWERTY computer aesthetic, which I’m personally genuinely happy about. This one used 18650 batteries for power, in a dual parallel cell configuration… Oh snap, that’s my favourite LiIon cell […]
These days just about any battery storage solution connected to PV solar or similar uses LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries. The reason for this is obvious: they got a very practical charge and discharge curve that chargers and inverters love, along with a great round trip efficiency. Meanwhile some are claiming that sodium-ion (Na+) batteries would be […]
For any mission-critical computer system, it’s a good idea to think about how the system will handle power outages. At the very least it’s a good idea to give the computer enough time to gracefully shut down if the power outage will last for an indefinite time. But for extremely critical infrastructure, like our home […]
Lithium-ion cells deliver very high energy densities compared to many other battery technologies, but they bring with them a danger of fire or explosion if they are misused. We’re mostly aware of the battery conditioning requirements to ensure cells stay in a safe condition, but how much do we know about the construction of the […]
Disposable batteries seem so 1990s. Sure, it’s nice to be able to spend a couple of bucks at the drugstore and get a flashlight or TV remote back in the game, but when the device is a daily driver, rechargeable batteries sure seem to make more financial sense. Unfortunately, what makes sense to the end […]
As is regrettably typical in the cordless tool world, Milwaukee’s M18 batteries are highly proprietary. Consequently, this makes them a welcome target for reverse-engineering of their interfaces and protocols. Most recently the full diagnostic command set for M18 battery packs were reverse-engineered by [Martin Jansson] and others, allowing anyone to check useful things like individual […]
Ryobi is not exactly the Cadillac of cordless tools, but one still has certain expectations when buying a product. For most of us “don’t randomly stop working” is on the list. Ryobi 18-volt battery packs don’t always meet that expectation, but fortunately for the rest of us [Badar Jahangir Kayani] took matters into his own […]
Lithium-titanate (LTO) is an interesting battery chemistry that is akin to Li-ion but uses Li2TiO3 nanocrystals instead of carbon for the anode. This makes LTO cells capable of much faster charging and with better stability characteristics, albeit at the cost of lower energy density. Much like LiFePO4 cells, this makes them interesting for a range […]