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Company Extends Alkaline Battery Life With Voltage Booster
New submitter ttsai writes: Batteroo is a Silicon Valley company preparing to release its Batteriser product in September. The Batteriser is a small sleeve that fits around alkaline batteries to boost the voltage to 1.5V. This means that batteries that would otherwise be thrown into the trash when the voltage dips to 1.3V or 1.4V could be used until the unboosted voltage reaches 0.6V, extending the useful life of a battery 8x, according to the company. This product has the potential to reduce the number of batteries in landfills as well as increasing the time between replacing batteries. The expected price of the sleeve is $10 for a pack of 4 sleeves.
The article presents some info that just isn't quite right. The device will probably be useful but not nearly as good as they claim. Instead of 8 or more to one times the typical battery lifetime, it will be more like two times. Google "joule thief" and read the articles and comments carefully. This device works the same way; just in a compact package.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
This has been around for years. A device from last year uses the same joule thief circuit.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
It's going to be limited to low power device, which generally don't cut out when the battery drops to 1.4V. A lot of products are designed to get the most out of a battery, which is around 0.8V per cell.
High power devices cut out quicker because the internal resistance increases, and when a large amount of current is drawn the voltage drops significantly.
These little devices don't have much power capability if they're to be so small as to fit in existing products along side the batteries. They're also not going to be 100% efficient, so in a well designed product, they will decrease battery life.
It's just joule thief, thing is not all batteries can tolerate being over discharged and may fail catastrophically.
Since this requires an external sleeve to be mounted on the battery... I expect this will more than likely cause the battery to not fit properly in many types of devices' housing. Some people may try and force the battery to fit, and might end up breaking their devices, often without even necessarily using very much force (since the only force batteries generally require to insert in most consumer devices is against the spring tension of any battery contacts).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There aren't many devices that are both low power and require a steady 1.5V operating voltage. Most will tolerate 0.8-1.2V as their low end. In a high drain device, the number of watts left in the cell when the voltage drops below that low end is minuscule, so this sleeve will only buy you a few more minutes of use. In a low drain device, it can give you a significant amount of time but most low-drain devices that would benefit already have a similar circuit built-in. Logitech's wireless mice and keyboards that use alkalines and last months, for example, have this voltage boosting circuitry already, and tuned to the minimum voltage the mouse requires to reduce conversion loss.
When a device power circuit already integrate a voltage regulator, this is yet another battery scam.
If not, it is either a cheap or old piece of electronic.
This battery extender _is_ yet another battery scam.
Next expand your car mileage by adding a water sprayer, magic canister?
This is not news for nerds.
_This_ is scamvertisement.
Léa Gris
"A completely new alkaline battery is rated to generate 1.5 volts, but once its output drops below 1.35 or even 1.4 volts, it effectively becomes useless to many devices. "
And yet I can't recall any device that didn't work happily with the 1.2v supplied by a rechargeable NiMH.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
Ok, DC-DC converters do have a legitimate place in battery powered systems. You want a blue or white LED in your flashlight without resorting to an expensive cell chemistry or 3ish alkalines in series? Well, DC-DC converter it is. You(for some reason) have an antique filament-bulb flashlight and you don't want it to spend the last chunk of its life putting out relatively useless IR because the filament temperature is too low for visible light? A DC-DC converter will fully flatten the batteries faster(because of its own losses, and because current draw has to increase as voltage droops in order to maintain the same power output); but at least the entire lifespan will be spent putting out usable light.
However, there's a problem here: Most even vaguely well designed widgets already tolerate some amount of voltage variation. Especially because NiCd and NiMH rechargeables are only good for ~1.2v(maybe 1.3-1.4 hot off the charger, for a few moments), alkalines for ~1.5; but with well known droop as they are exhausted or if discharge current is too high; and lithium primary cells in AAA or AA packages are up around 1.7, with less droop; you simply can't build a consumer widget that is too picky about battery voltage. If you do, you'll be flooded with unhappy and confused customers and probably lots of expensive returns.
This seems to constrain the useful market for this product to a very narrow, rather weird, niche: Anything that already tolerates voltage droop well will see very limited benefit. Anything with very low power draw will also see very limited benefit, because even badly depleted batteries slump as discharge current increases. Devices with very high power draw might see a benefit; because they will drive the battery to slump most quickly(and, according to the discharge curves for most alkalines, very high currents will cause substantial slump well before the capacity is exhausted); but the DC-DC converter will need even higher discharge current in order to keep power output constant as voltage drops, which will exacerbate the voltage slump, and likely hit the wall where the effective internal resistance of the battery is high enough that it simply won't deliver any more current.
So what actually gains? Devices that are maldesigned enough to brown out with even modest voltage droop; but also sufficiently low drain that the draw of the converter will remain within the battery's 'best-case' discharge cycle; but not so low drain that the (modest; but nonzero) losses in the DC-DC converter increase the overall drain by a substantial amount.
Anyone have a device or devices in mind?
I have a number of wireless devices ( remote thermometers, rain gauges, etc ) that use AA and AAA cells and I have tracked the failure voltage of most of them for several years. I fresh cell will be a bit over 1.5 volts and good design SHOULD permit operation down to about 1 volt per cell. However, virtually all of the devices I have quit working when the cell voltage gets below about 1.34 volts. The devices use between 2 and 4 cells each, and I have to change batteries in most of them between one and two times per year. I AM an engineer and understand that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" but most of the devices are low average current drain with intermittent higher current peaks (a sensor that transmits a new reading every couple of minutes). A device like this, with an appropriate capacitor for peak current (which most of the devices already have internally), would cut down the number of batteries I use per year significantly. For the price mentioned in the article I will buy a few sets of these as soon as they hit the market.
And there's math behind it, too. To raise the volts, you have to lower the amps. It'll work until it can't provide enough current for the device that it's powering. The form factor is the tricky part, because you need to fit a boost coil and a capacitor in there somehow, and they might have to custom-wind the coil to make it fit, making it more costly to manufacture than it would be with off-the-shelf parts.
It would also have to know when the device is turned off. I think the Joule Thief design puts its power switch before the boost converter. You can't do that when wrapped around a single cell.
Another "too good too be true" is if you have a "pipe"-style battery compartment and the batteries leak, it could be harder to extract them. Tray-style battery compartments should be no problem.
But if they really work like they ought to work, I want some. Even if it's only a 2x lifetime, I want to use them in an IR remote control. One big problem with IR remotes is as the batteries get weaker, contact resistance becomes a problem. You can make batteries last longer by rotating them in place a little, which I guess cleans the contacts a tiny bit. Just boosting the voltage should help things right there.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Because the device can't tell whether you're using an alkaline battery or not, and if you run a rechargeable battery down to an alkaline battery's minimal voltage, you'll permanently damage the battery.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The voltage curve for most Alkaline batteries hits 1.3 volts after about 20 to 30% of it's usefully extracable energy. then the curve flattens out dropping the next 0.3 volts to 1 volt after about 70 to 80% of the energy after which is drops like a rock.
So if you could reclaim that 80% energy that might seem like 4x more or a total of 5x energy recovery. But the boost to 1.5v takes the energy out faster so in terms of time rather than energy recovery the lifetime is not increased so much.
let's make some guesses and see where that gets us. Assume that there is a 0.2 volt diode drop somewhere in the system--- this seems pretty likely for any active circuit. So that means it's effectively boosting to 1.7 volts then the diode takes a cut. I can't do the integral in my brain so lets assume that the mean voltage it is boosting from is 1.1volts. So going from 1.1v to 1.7 volts means it is extracting about 33% more current than is actually in use. Thus it seems like this thing is going to suck down the battery pretty fast.
So yeah it recovers all the energy which might be 5x a normal 1.3 volts cut out. But it wont last 5x longer cause it takes a big cut.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The deceit is obvious if you look at the discharge curve.
Yes, if you throw it away at 1.4V under load, most of the capacity remains. But it is bullshit because nobody does that.
High-drain devices will cope with much lower voltage, and low drain devices (like remote controls) will almost completely deplete the battery before you notice a drop in effectiveness.
For real high-drain devices like cameras, most people use NiMH, which has a nominal 1.2V only.
The boost converter will run as low as 0.6v. That IS an improvement, since most devices DO power down at 1.0v. But I also call hogwash on the "no extra risk of leakage". Alkaline cells use an inner layer of the case as the cathode. This inner case is invariable damaged by discharge. The deeper the discharge, the more severe the damage. Most reasonably modern C/Zn and AM cells have a second can outside of the first one to reduce the risk of leaks. But the battery may still fail and leak, and the fact that you have a weak battery in your device for longer RAISES your risk of a leak.
Plus, more hogwash. The "voltage drop slows at lower voltage levels". Alkaline batteries really do have a fairly linear discharge curve for SoC. The dubious claim that it slows is assuming a continuous resistive load, which by Ohm's law says that power will drop 4x for each 2x drop in voltage.
Not to say these boosters aren't useless. If your device shuts down at 1.3v (not unreasonable for older generation digital devices), you can use that battery for a lot longer. And where these things really come into their own is on rechargeables that OCV at a lower voltage that may fail to drive certain devices.
There IS a caveat though. A very, serious, caveat.
You lose ALL SoC INFORMATION IN THE BATTERY.
When you connect a booster, you forfeit all advance warning that your battery is low. You're at 1.5v until you aren't and you're high and dry.
And of course battery companies are going to be thinking of chemistry. Because implanting a $10 booster into every $1 AA alkaline battery is going to make these cells prohibitively expensive.
It's definitely a cool device, but it's not worth the hype this author is giving it.
Critical warning. This is an active circuit you're placing on your battery. Alkalines have always shined in very low current applications. Attaching an active converter circuit will put a continuous (though light) load on the battery, slashing its shelf- and very-light-duty life.
Over the span of 60 hours in a Game Boy, it's not much. But over the span of a year or two in a desk clock, it becomes significant.
Potentially significant enough to fully offset and even overcome the "unlocked" power now available to you by using it at the lower voltage.
Depending on what you're doing with your battery, you could see -50% through +300% lifespan. Degradations are for microamp-scale super long life devices, where the load of running the Batteriser forms a significant fraction of the running power. Biggest boosts are for devices that shut down at abnormally high voltages.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The problem is that many devices require ridiculously high minimum threshold voltages just to work.
TI, for example, sells a remote control IR encoder that requires a supply voltage of 2.7V. That means two AA batteries in series run down to below 1.35V apiece will not run a device with that IR encoder.
A typical AA battery will deliver only about 0.40 AH before it runs down to 1.35V. That 0.40 AH is of a 2.1 AH total. That's a huge waste.
If it holds a constant 1.5V output the current draw from the device will also remain constant. What *will* happens is that as the battery terminal voltage (input to the boost converter) drops, the current drawn from the battery will go up, not down. It effectively turns the load into a constant power device.
I am skeptical about the life-saving claims. Alkaline battery-power devices are typically expected to operate down to about 1V terminal voltage. Since the primary effect of discharging is ion depletion, the internal resistance of the battery is what is changing, meaning by the time you get to doubling the current at low states of charge, you will be depleting it much faster. So the time of use will fall off a cliff very abruptly at the end.
I get a bit more mileage out of batteries by starting them off in a higher demand item (like an XBox controller) and when the battery is no longer powerful enough for that, I put it in a bin to be used for TV remotes.
It's a battery for your battery.. Where's all the yo dawg shit?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The boost converter will run as low as 0.6v. That IS an improvement, since most devices DO power down at 1.0v.
Funnily enough I actually built something like this for a school project a little under 20 years ago. Naturally the batteries were external and the convertor box was large, but that's not the point. The point is that the battery discharge curves are very far from linear.Just google "battery discharge curve". While they vary, the essential characteristics are the same:
http://robotics.stackexchange....
The voltage quickly drops down to the nominal voltage from the fresh voltage [*]. It then very slowly drops until the battery is exhausted at which point the drop is catastrophic. At the corner, the chemical energy is nearly gone and the internal resistance goes way up. So, probably 95% of the battery energy has gone by the time the cell hits 1V. While you can scavenge the remainder between 1 and 0.6, there's little energy there and the voltage will drop very very fast so it won't last long.
[*]And here's where the deception comes in. They claim that people discard batteries at 1.3V, which is not true. That's the point where the batteries finish the initial rapid drop off and start the long, slow discharge curve. No one throws them out then since no equipment minds---the equipment makers know to expect voltages down to about 1V and build accordingly. NB if they didn't, rechargable batteries with a nominal voltage of 1.2V would never work.
So, their claim is true if people discard alkaline batteries at 1.3V. However people don't.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This will be totally unsuitable for remote controls and will dramatically reduce the life of batteries used in them. Remote controls spend most of their time idle, drawing only a microampere or two from the batteries. Unless you intend to physically switch these cells on/off every time you want to use the remote...
Quality remotes have their own boost circuits to do this kind of thing, controlled by a microcontroller that turns them on when you press a button. Most are designed to work down to at least 1V, if not 0.9V. The 1.4V figure from TFA is nonsense; NiMH cells start at 1.2V when fully charged.
This is the wrong solution. The boost circuit needs to be part of the device, not part of the battery.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Nah...
It also works on NiMH batteries (1.2V.)
Excellent. I like Eneloop NiMH quite a bit, but my camera doesn't. It's very voltage-picky. In fact, its voltage requirement for the adapter is 3.7V, even though it's a 2xAA device. Needless to say, it reports "low battery" from the very first moment with NiMH -- and then runs for many hours flashing that warning. The problem is that I get no warning when it really is about to keel over, and that this happens only about 50% of the way through the charge.
The reason we use Alkaline batteries is for the long shelf life, not the use life.
Eneloops again. They'll hold most of their charge for months, and are shipped ready to use. Now with this fixing the voltage disparity, there's even less reason to avoid rechargables.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
You cannot damage a single NiMH (or NiCd, for that matter) cell by simply draining it down to 0v. Well, you will have to use a "stupid" charger to wake it up afterwards, but the cell will be otherwise ok. Then again, you rarely use a single cell. Generally, you connect 2-4 of them in series. When you discharge them, they will hit the 0v in slightly different moments. The first one that gets to 0 will continue getting a discharge current and will actually go below zero (reverse polarity) with all the nasty things the reverse polarity does (electrolyte depletion, gas build-up and venting).
I feel like the best application, if this works as promised, is to raise NIMH cells from 1.2v to 1.5v. Sure, they work just fine in most applications, but for some they are borderline or don't work at all. I'm thinking specifically of my camera that will only work with Alkaline or NiCad.
The proper usage cycle for NiCd actually REQUIRES that you drain them completely to avoid memory effects.
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