Battery

From OpenCircuits
Revision as of 10:47, 2 February 2008 by Russ hensel (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Basics

Many electronic devices run off batteries as their energy source. The ideal battery is a source of voltage, when connections are made to it current will flow, the amount depending on the connections. For the ideal battery the voltage will not fall when current is drawn, or time goes by. For real batteries none of this is true, but may be useful approximations. An improved model of a battery is that it is an ideal voltage source in series with an ideal resistor ( known as the internal resistance of the battery ).

The some of the most imporatant characteristics of batteries:

  • Voltage
  • Internal Resistance
  • Energy content ( often indirectly measured by amp hours )
  • Primary ( not recaragable ) Secondary ( rechargable )
  • Size
  • Weight
  • Chemistry ( lead-acid ...... )


There are a surprising number of myths and urban legends about batteries (such as the "memory effect" near-myth and various ways of "fixing" it). Also the process of charging them up.

Further Reading