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SIMPOWER's Battery Knowledge Base

Wednesday 1 September 2021, 5:39PM

By Beckie Wright

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The SIMPOWER battery knowledge base aims to provide you with a range of useful information and articles covering different types of batteries, battery chemistries, chargers, battery management and battery safety. If you are looking for more information about batteries, you can read through some of their articles and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact them for more information.  

These articles are based on over 40+ years of battery design and experience and are designed to help you make better informed decisions At its most basic an 18650 is a Li-Ion cylindrical cell that uses its dimensions as it’s designation. The first two digits are the approximate diameter, in this case 18mm and the following 3 digits are the approximate height in tenths of millimetres, in this case 65mm. Hence the 18 65 0 designation. These cells have a nominal open circuit voltage of 3.7V per cell and a full charge voltage of 4.2V. 

18650 cells have been used for some time in laptops, power tool batteries and numerous other battery pack applications. However, they are increasingly finding their way into more and more diverse consumer devices such as high powered LED torches to door bells. Some of the advantages of Li-Ion include a high energy density, low maintenance, low self-discharge rates and depending on the cell a high maximum continuous discharge rate. 

Generally Li-Ion cells in most consumer devices will have a protection circuit module (PCM or PCB). The PCM will help to protect the cells or battery pack from over charging, over discharge and over current and short protection. The PCM will help protect the user from potential fire and explosion. 

A battery management system (BMS) is a similar circuit, with far more features. A BMS can or may monitor such things as the batteries charge state, balance the battery, report data, temperature, voltage, state of health. 

It is extremely important to use caution when working with and using lithium ion batteries as they are very sensitive to charging characteristics and may explode, burn, or can cause a fire if misused or mishandled, and for more information on solar light batteries and battery tester machines please go to https://www.simpower.co.nz .