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Chronocide
Chronocide
@chronocide@sunny.garden  ·  activity timestamp last week

I replaced the battery for my Dell laptop and was curious to see what was inside. I was vaguely aware you can check how far gone your batteries are by reading out the voltage and to my surprise they read 4.21V, 4.25V and 4.28V. According to my laptop battery information, the total capacity was around 35% (14 Wh).

I know very little about batteries but given all three cells are seemingly fully charged, it is possible there's an issue with the circuit of the battery? I'm just curious to learn more about these batteries as it seems wasteful (and perhaps dangerous?) to recycle these given they're fully charged.

#battery #diy #electronics #laptop

2 media
The inside of a Dell 3-cell 38 Wh lithium ion battery, containing three identical standard lithium ion battery pouches.
The inside of a Dell 3-cell 38 Wh lithium ion battery, containing three identical standard lithium ion battery pouches.
The inside of a Dell 3-cell 38 Wh lithium ion battery, containing three identical standard lithium ion battery pouches.
Close-up of a LiPo battery. The text on the battery reads: + HS 458455 - 3.85V 220227 22/23 10331 H3.
Close-up of a LiPo battery. The text on the battery reads: + HS 458455 - 3.85V 220227 22/23 10331 H3.
Close-up of a LiPo battery. The text on the battery reads: + HS 458455 - 3.85V 220227 22/23 10331 H3.
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Joel Michael
Joel Michael
@jpm@aus.social replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@chronocide remind me to give you a better answer tomorrow. The core issue here is not the voltage - a Lithium-Polymer cell will happily charge to 4.2V and discharge to 3V no matter the capacity. The capacity is usually measured in (mili)Amp-Hours - how long the battery can supply 1A of current for. Watt-hours is a derivative of Amp-Hours that multiplies the current by voltage - P=I•V

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Chronocide
Chronocide
@chronocide@sunny.garden replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@jpm Oh that actually makes a lot of sense! How does that get measured? Is it simply I = V/R and the battery's resistance gets measured or is it more complex than that?

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Joel Michael
Joel Michael
@jpm@aus.social replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@chronocide kind of sort of not really. Each cell follows a discharge voltage curve depending on its charge level, eg for Lithium-Ion the curve starts at around 4.2V, drops rapidly to 3.7V, then levels out for the majority of the charge. Near the end of the charge capacity, the voltage again starts dropping rapidly until the designed under-voltage level is reached. The general shape of the curve is purely a function of the chemical reaction that increases the cell’s internal resistance, so kind of yes ohm’s law applies here. BUT, because it’s a chemical reaction, there are other factors which can change the shape of the discharge voltage curve. The most significant external factor is temperature, but yes the number of charge cycles the cell has experienced is also a factor.

A common discharge curve for Lithium Ion cells: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Hayes-49/publication/346515863/figure/fig3/AS:11431281080394644@1661279687891/Li-ion-battery-cell-discharge-curve-zone-classification.png

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Joel Michael
Joel Michael
@jpm@aus.social replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@chronocide cell capacity is measured in Amp-Hours, which is a constant-current load applied to a fully-charged cell, and timed until the end-of-charge voltage is reached. But there’s devils in the details here - you need to know both the starting voltage and ending voltage, and more importantly the current load, because a higher current load may negatively affect the discharge curve. Beware marketing numbers, especially on USB power banks!

Amp-Hours can be transformed into Watt-Hours by measuring both voltage and current over time, but beware! Watt-Hours should only be measured, however some marketing materials may just multiply the Ah capacity by the cell nominal voltage.

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