ARTICLES

Active cooling provides substantial performance benefits—but it isn’t always necessary or cost-effective Charging and discharging batteries generates heat, and heat hamstrings battery performance. Long-term operation at high battery temperatures can shorten cycle life, harm cell health, and create safety hazards. Effective temperature control is essential both for battery performance and to pass the various safety…

Battery regulations are all about safety To bring a battery or a battery-powered device to market, compliance with regulations is essential.  Before you can sell batteries and battery-powered devices, you must comply with a laundry list of regulations and standards. Batteries have to meet various safety standards to be sold in different jurisdictions. Aside from…

High cell-count applications present unique battery management and thermal management challenges Battery pack design is a complex, multi-step process with many decisions. After cell chemistry, perhaps the two most important decisions in battery pack design are the number of cells and the arrangement of the cells. Chemistry determines, among many other properties, the nominal voltage…

A BMS collects data, calculates vital statistics, and controls battery function All batteries work safely and effectively within certain optimum conditions. Using them outside these conditions can shorten productive life and create hazards. For instance, overcharging a battery may both reduce its capacity long-term and be dangerous to users. However, the outside appearance of a…

Battery chemical reactions are at the heart of battery design Well-designed batteries power your equipment efficiently, reliably, and safely for a long lifespan. To achieve this combination of ideals, engineers evaluate certain design parameters, including voltage and power needs, length of duty cycle, temperature conditions, price, and more to guide their design choices. Battery chemistry…

For battery safety and performance, invest in a battery thermal management system Battery thermal management allows batteries to safely and effectively provide power. At their heart, battery packs are conveniently-packaged electrochemical cells. When the battery is charged or discharged, a chemical reaction occurs. Like many chemical reactions, these reactions depend on temperature. Thermal management is…