battery

404 Articles

Tesla’s New Tabless Batteries Unlock New Levels Of Performance

October 5, 2020 by 104 Comments

Telsa are one of the world’s biggest purchasers of batteries through their partnerships with manufacturers like Panasonic, LG and CATL. Their endless hunger for more cells is unlikely to be satiated anytime soon, as demand for electric cars and power storage continues to rise.

As announced at their Battery Day keynote, Tesla has been working hard on a broad spectrum of projects to take battery technology to the next level in order to reach their goal of 3 TWh annual production by 2030. One of the most interesting aspects of this was the announcement of Tesla’s new tabless 4680 battery, which will be manufactured by the company itself. Let’s take a look at what makes the 4680 so exciting, and why going tabless is such a big deal. Continue reading “Tesla’s New Tabless Batteries Unlock New Levels Of Performance” →

Building A Cell Testing Station For 18650s

September 21, 2020 by 34 Comments

The 18650 is perhaps the world’s favorite lithium battery, even if electric car manufacturers are beginning to move towards larger cells such as the 21700. Used heavily in laptops and flashlights, it packs a useful amount of energy into a compact, easy to use package. There’s a small industry that has developed around harvesting these cells from old equipment and repurposing them, and [MakerMan] wanted to a piece of the action. Thus, he created a cell testing station to help in the effort.

Make no mistake, this is not a grandiose smart cell tester with 40 slots that logs every last iota of data into a cloud spreadsheet for further analysis. Nope, this is good old fashioned batch processing. [MakerMan] designed a single PCB that replicates the same cell testing circuit four times. Since PCB houses generally have a minimum order quantity of ten units, [MakerMan] ended up with forty individual cell testers on ten PCBs. Once populated, the boards were installed on a wooden frame with an ATX power supply which supplies the juice to run the system.

Overall, it’s a quick, cheap way for capacity testing cells en masse that should serve [MakerMan] well. We look forward to seeing where these cells end up. We’ve seen his work before, too – with a self-built laser engraver a particular highlight. Video after the break.

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Improving More Leaf Design Flaws

September 16, 2020 by 19 Comments

[Daniel] was recently featured here for his work in improving the default charging mode for the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle when using the emergency/trickle charger included with the car. His work made it possible to reduce the amount of incoming power from the car, if the charging plug looked like it might not be able to handle the full 1.2 kW -3 kW that these cars draw when charging. Thanks to that work, he was able to create another upgrade for these entry-level EVs, this time addressing a major Leaf design flaw that is known as Rapidgate.

The problem that these cars have is that they still have passive thermal management for their batteries, unlike most of their competitors now. This was fine in the early ’10s when this car was one of the first all-electric cars to market, but now its design age is catching up with it. On long trips at highway speed with many rapid charges in a row the batteries can overheat easily. When this happens, the car’s charging controller will not allow the car to rapid charge any more and severely limits the charge rate even at the rapid charging stations. [Daniel] was able to tweak the charging software in order to limit the rapid charging by default, reducing it from 45 kW to 35 kW and saving a significant amount of heat during charging than is otherwise possible.

While we’d like to see Nissan actually address the design issues with their car designs while making these straighforward software changes (or at least giving Leaf owners the options that improve charging experiences) we are at least happy that there are now other electric vehicles in the market that have at least addressed the battery thermal management issues that are common with all EVs. If you do own a Leaf though, be sure to check out [Daniel]’s original project related to charging these cars.

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Game Boy Plays Forever

September 11, 2020 by 14 Comments

For those of us old enough to experience it first hand, the original Game Boy was pretty incredible, but did have one major downside: battery consumption. In the 90s rechargeable batteries weren’t common, which led to most of us playing our handhelds beside power outlets. Some modern takes on the classic Game Boy address these concerns with modern hardware, but this group from the Delft University of Technology and Northwestern has created a Game Boy clone that doesn’t need any batteries at all, even though it can play games indefinitely.

This build was a proof-of-concept for something called “intermittent computing” which allows a computer to remain in a state of processing limbo until it gets enough energy to perform the next computation. The Game Boy clone, fully compatible with the original Game Boy hardware, is equipped with many tiny solar panels which can harvest energy and is able to halt itself and store its state in nonvolatile memory if it detects that there isn’t enough energy available to continue. This means that Super Mario Land isn’t exactly playable, but other games that aren’t as action-packed can be enjoyed with very little impact in gameplay.

The researchers note that it’ll be a long time before their energy-aware platform becomes commonplace in devices and replaces batteries, but they do think that internet-connected devices that don’t need to be constantly running or powered up would be a good start. There are already some low-powered options available that can keep their displays active when everything else is off, so hopefully we will see even more energy-efficient options in the near future.

Thanks to [Sascho] for the tip!

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Potential Contenders For Battery Supremacy

September 1, 2020 by 47 Comments

Lithium ion batteries have been a revolutionary technology. Their high energy and power density has made the electric car a practical reality, enabled grid storage for renewable energy, and put powerful computers in the palm of the hand. However, if there’s one thing humanity is known for, it’s always wanting more.

Potential contenders for the title of ultimate battery technology are out there, but it will take a major shift to dethrone lithium-ion from the top of the tree.

Dominant For Good Reason

Lithium-ion batteries were first developed by Stanley Whittingham, working at Exxon, who were looking to diversify away from oil in the midst of the major energy crises of the 1970s. Over the years, the technology was developed further, with work by John Goodenough (a superb hacker name if we’ve ever heard one) and Akira Yoshino increasing performance with improved cathode and anode materials. Commercialization was first achieved by Keizaburo Tozawa, working at Sony to develop a better battery for the company’s line of camcorders. Continue reading “Potential Contenders For Battery Supremacy” →

Lithium Sulfur Batteries Slated For Takeoff

August 23, 2020 by 60 Comments

Spectrum recently published a post on a new lithium sulfur battery technology specifically targeting electric aviation applications. Although lots of electric vehicles could benefit from the new technology, airplanes are especially sensitive to heavy batteries and lithium-sulfur batteries can weigh much less than modern batteries of equivalent capacity. The Spectrum post is from Oxis Energy who is about to fly tests with the new batteries which they claim have twice the energy density of conventional lithium-ion batteries. The company also claims the batteries are safer, which is another important consideration when flying through the sky.

The batteries have a cathode comprised of aluminum foil coated with carbon and sulfur — which avoids the use of cobalt, a cost driver in traditional lithium cell chemistries. The anode is pure lithium foil. Between the two electrodes is a separator soaked in an electrolyte. The company says the batteries go through multiple stages as they discharge, forming different chemical compounds that continue to produce electricity through chemical action.

The safety factor is due to the fact that, unlike lithium-ion cells, the new batteries don’t form dendrites that short out the cell. The cells do degrade over time, but not in a way that is likely to cause a short circuit. However, ceramic coatings may provide protection against this degradation in the future which would be another benefit compared to traditional lithium batteries.

We see a lot of exciting battery announcements, but we rarely see real products with them. Time will tell if the Oxis and similar batteries based on this technology will take root.

A Beginner’s Guide To Lithium Rechargeable Batteries

June 11, 2020 by 42 Comments

Batteries were once heavy, awkward things, delivering only a limp amount of current for their size and weight. Thankfully, over time, technology has improved, and in 2020, we’re blessed with capable, high-power lithium polymer batteries that can provide all the power your mobile project could possibly need. There are some considerations one must make in their use however, so read on for a primer on how to properly use LiPos in your project!

So Many Types!

With the first commercial lithium-ion battery entering the market in 1991, the (nearly) 30 years since have seen rapid development. This has led to a proliferation of different technologies and types of battery, depending on construction and materials used. In order to treat your batteries properly, it’s important to know what you’ve got, so paying attention to this is critical. Continue reading “A Beginner’s Guide To Lithium Rechargeable Batteries” →