Inside Batteries

Albert Einstein is reputed as saying that everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. In March, Manage Your Electrons, attempted to explain certain concepts and principles without overwhelming readers unfamiliar with batteries and electrical systems. In so doing, we may have violated Einsteins directive, because weve gotten a lot of mail complaining at our oversimplification. So, here is a more detailed explanation of much of what we conveyed in that article.

nganapathy

Monday, April 16, 2018 at 12:00 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The article clarifies fundamental electrical concepts like charge, voltage, power, and current, then details the chemical processes involved in the charging and discharging of lead-acid batteries.
A battery's effective capacity (Amp-hours) is not static; it decreases with higher discharge rates (Peukert's law) and is significantly influenced by operating temperature.
Battery degradation occurs due to sulfation (stable lead sulfate formation), a process accelerated by insufficient charging or prolonged storage, emphasizing the critical role of proper maintenance.

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Albert Einstein is reputed as saying that everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. In March, “Manage Your Electrons,” attempted to explain certain concepts and principles without overwhelming readers unfamiliar with batteries and electrical systems. In so doing, we may have violated Einstein’s directive, because we’ve gotten a lot of mail complaining at our oversimplification. So, here is a more detailed explanation of much of what we conveyed in that article.

The Basics

Let’s start with an explanation of how electrical current, voltage, power and charge are related to each other. We will be using the International System of Units (SI) in the following explanations.