Super battery, more power, seconds recharge, virtually never replace. at DVinfo.net

Wayne Morellini · June 9th, 2006, 06:09 AM

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32310

Their is supposed to be a lithium battery with nanotube use this year, claiming 10K recharge cycles.

Jon Fairhurst · June 9th, 2006, 11:25 AM

Just be careful not to short the leads of the battery together - BAM!

Famous last words: "Hey, I wonder what would happen if I touched this to my tongue?"

Peter Jefferson · June 9th, 2006, 11:58 AM

hehehehehe

"The technology would be good for laptops, hearing aids and battery powered cars. Of course having batteries that are recharged quickly take humanity one step closer to total redundancy of the male."

Justin Deming · June 12th, 2006, 06:49 AM

Whoever wrote that article seems to be a bit confused. He uses the terms "battery" and "capacitor" synonimously.

It seems what was developed is a capacitor that has much more storage capacity than previous capacitors. Caps have the ability to suck up power as fast as you can feed them until they are full. They slowly lose some of that power over time, but when you need some power they will release it into your curcuit.

Jon correctly advised against shorting this device, because capacitors will release all their energy instantly when shorted.

Small Capacitors are used in all sorts of electronics to provide stable power by sucking up power when the level is high enough, and releasing it when the levels drop.

Anyway, the idea of making super capacity capacitors to be used instead of batteries would be great! I do wonder if the loss over time issue will be resolved. If not, charging them up, and expecting to have power in them a week later will not be realistic. Of course, they will charge in an instant, so you could do it just before leaving the nearest outlet.

The other ussue is size. The big caps made for sound systems are the size of soda cans. The advance here is density though, so time will tell if they will beat current batteries as far as energy to size.

Just my $.02

Wayne Morellini · June 12th, 2006, 12:36 PM

I understand that is the intention, to make super capacitors an ultimate battery.

Many years ago colour tv capacitors apparently became good enough to store some change for weeks, so I wonder how it has advanced since then. Australian car manufacture has been developing a hybrid car that uses capacitors as temporary storage. I am not sure where ever there is an array of batteries in the model, or if it is mainly super capacitors.

Gints Klimanis · June 16th, 2006, 03:46 AM

This reads as good news from a reuse and recharge time perspective. Though, we're not even sure about how safe the world will be with nanoparticles.

"Safety of Nano-Cosmetics Questioned"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5257306

"Weighing the Potential Risks of Nanotech"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5369304

Marcus Marchesseault · June 16th, 2006, 07:57 AM

repeat post

Marcus Marchesseault · June 16th, 2006, 08:10 AM

Look up DeWalt 36V batteries and go to www.a123systems.com the (www. is necessary) to read about a new type of lithium battery that can charge faster, hold more wattage, last longer, and not explode like some other lithium batteries. They claim stats about twice as good in all areas as any other lithium battery. A123systems is a company formed by some MIT professors to profit from their discoveries. DeWalt is their first customer.

Toolbarn.com has the 36v "nanophosphate" lithium batteries for $159. They claim to have 2-3x the power of the 18v NiCd batteries of the same weight. The site says they were added 15 days ago and the shipping status seems to indicate immediate availability. The maximum power output stated is 750W which is very impressive for a 2.4lb battery. That equates to one horsepower and I assume the battery would need to be able to run that way for several minutes to be functional. The charger is one-hour rated and the recharge cycles on the battery is supposedly 2,000 which is 6x that of lead-acid batteries.

What does a 2.4 pound battery (just over a kilo) that can put out 750Watts mean for a camera operator? It means less weight, more longevity, and faster recharge times. The basic battery is a cylindrical cell, so it is probably going to be easy for manufacturers to make 12V models since the 36V DeWalt is probably a pack of multiple cells in one plastic case.

I'm guestimating one of these batteries to be the equivalent to an 18 amp/hour lead-acid battery that weighs about 14 pounds.

The world may have just changed.

George Ellis · June 16th, 2006, 10:58 AM

I have yet to find evidence that disproves what I read in AutoWeek in the early 80's when they were talking about electric cars and the breakthrough batteries that were coming. On that, someone was quoted as saying, "there are liars, damn liars, and battery engineers."*

I have been hearing about batteries just around the bend since 1994 in mobile devices that were going to last all day. I will cut them a little slack as the devices have been using more and more power. But, they still aren't here. Oh, and in 2002, I was told that we would have working fuel cells in laptops now that would last all day. Sigh.

* for those that English is a second, third, etc., language - each is a step worse when phrased like that.

Jon Fairhurst · June 16th, 2006, 11:17 AM

Regarding fuel cells, you can't get a laptop with an all day fuel cell, but you can get a fuel cell for your video camera...

http://www.jadoopower.com/

Marcus Marchesseault · June 16th, 2006, 06:21 PM

"talking about electric cars and the breakthrough batteries that were coming."

Yes, but these batteries are for sale today. They are sold by a well-established company that got the technology from MIT scientists. I'm not saying that either entity is perfect or miraculous, but it would seem out of character to make wild claims about a product considering they have big business to lose if they defraud their customers. All companies stretch things to best-case scenario figures, but I doubt they are fudging the numbers by a great margin. Also, they are comparing the new 36V batteries to their own 18V products. If this was an random infomercial company comparing themselves to their "competetor", I would be suspicous.

I estimate these batteries to be about 3 amp/hours (AH) in capacity. I base this on their claims (backed up by comparison videos) of 2-3x the capacity of their 18V models. The 18V DeWalt batteries are 2.4AH and double the voltage halves the AH on 36V giving 1.2AH on 36V batteries of the same runtime. With 2-3x the runtime, I assume 2.5 times 1.2AH giving 3AH capacity. Considering a stated 750W output and the power needs of the type of tools they are running, I don't think that figure is too far off. 3AH @ 36V is 108W per hour. Let's assume they are stretching the truth a bit and round down to 100W/hour for simplicity. 750W (7.5 times the battery's AH rating) is one horsepower which seems reasonable for a circular saw. That means that one of these batteries can run that saw for 8 minutes (60 minutes divided by 7.5) . That doesn't sound too impressive, but you can cut a lot of 2x4 lumber in 8 minutes. If the saw couldn't run for about 8 minutes, it wouldn't be considered a professional tool.

One thing to consider is that lead-acid batteries shouldn't be run down past about %50 charge. Lead-acid batteries also put out much less total wattage if they are drained quickly. They only put out full AH rating if drained over 20 hours! A power tool on a job site can't be slowly used over a 20-hour span of time, so batteries must be able to take fast discharge rates. Since lithium and other battery types can be run to full discharge, they are effectively twice as efficient by weight just for that one factor since lead-acid needs so much more capacity to tolerate fast discharge.

Let's put it this way, many car batteries can't tolerate having a 15W dome light left on overnight. 100W for one hour is fairly impressive for any consumer battery, nevermind one weighing 2.4 pounds. One of these new "nanophosphate" lithium batteries is nearly as powerful as a car battery and weighs 1/25th as much. Of course, that also comes with over 4x the price tag not including the $90 charger...

Marcus Marchesseault · June 17th, 2006, 05:01 AM

I found a place that says the DeWalt 36V battery has a 2.4AH rating, so it is the same amps as the 18V, but twice the voltage means twice the wattage at the same amperage. Regardless of a lower estimated AH rating, it is still twice the power at the same weight and supposedly far more than twice the lifespan due to less voltage fall-off over the service life. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe this technology will be a good stop-gap measure for the next decade until something fancier like fuel cells becomes viable.

Justin Deming · June 19th, 2006, 08:00 AM

Jon, I looked into the Jadoo system. I love what they are doing, but the prices need to come down before they will become practical. I looked on their site, and here's what I found.

$999 Fuel cell with 100W output
$499 N-Stor 130W-h hydrogen storage tank (it's tiny)
$599 Small refill station
$59 xlr cable

Total for a starter system then is $2156!! I can understand a high price, the R&D involved in making this happen is enormous, but there is no way it costs near $499 for a canister. They make a larger 360W-h canister that sells for $850.

They give very few details, such as does the 130W-h canister need to stay in the fuel cell while operating, or can it be removed for recharge while the cell is in use? The cpmparison chart did claim the system has a hot swap feature, but there are no details on how long it can run with no cartridge.

If they would sell those caisters at a more reasonable price I would be very interested in this. Being able to carry around a bunch of canisters for refilling it would be sweet, but at $499 each...

Jon Fairhurst · June 19th, 2006, 04:05 PM

I spoke with Jadoo at NAB'05.

Yes, you can hot swap. The fuel cell has residual hydrogen, so it keeps working while you exchange cartridges. I don't know how long it lasts, but if you have a cartridge ready to go in, it should be seemless.

One of the technical challenges is to compress the hydrogen into the cannister. Increasing pressure raises temps, so the charging unit has to cool the hydrogen when charging. The load takes a bit, to avoid overheating.

Also, it think this works best if you live in a city where you can easily buy hydrogen from a supplier. If not near a supplier, it wouldn't make sense.

Some of the best advantages are that you know exactly how much charge you have left in each cannister. Also, the thing doesn't wear out. It holds near 100% of its charge over its lifetime.

Justin Deming · June 20th, 2006, 06:27 AM

Over all I love the idea of this fuel cell system.

I only have issues with them charging $499 for a canister, and $850 for a larger one. There is no way the larger canister (which is the same, but about 1 inch longer) costs $350 more to produce.

I do not have problems with the price of the fuel cell itself, or the refill station.

I am studying business, and I just think if this were my product I would price the cartridges close to my cost, so that I could encourage people to use my product. Being able to buy as many cartridges as we need without feeling ripped off could increase their sales tremendously.

Next all we need is a machine that will make hydrogen for us. The beauty of hydrogen is that it can be made from water using electricity. All it would take is a small machine that can further purify distilled water, then create the hydrogen out of it. A gallon of purified water goes a long way, so it may be easier to just buy purified water.

I have a huge interest in alternative energy, so I have studied this stuff for years. In my view the perfect energy system would be one that harnesses a form of renewable energy such as solar when it is available, uses any excess energy to create hydrogen, then uses a fuel cell to turn it back into electricty when, and where it is needed.

Fuel cells are definately here to stay though. They offer advantages no battery will offer for a very long time, if ever.

June 9th, 2006, 06:09 AM	#1
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Super battery, more power, seconds recharge, virtually never replace. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32310 Their is supposed to be a lithium battery with nanotube use this year, claiming 10K recharge cycles. Last edited by Wayne Morellini; June 9th, 2006 at 09:45 PM.

June 9th, 2006, 11:25 AM	#2
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	Just be careful not to short the leads of the battery together - BAM! Famous last words: "Hey, I wonder what would happen if I touched this to my tongue?" __________________ Jon Fairhurst

June 16th, 2006, 07:57 AM	#7
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	repeat post Last edited by Marcus Marchesseault; June 16th, 2006 at 05:42 PM.

June 16th, 2006, 11:17 AM	#10
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	Regarding fuel cells, you can't get a laptop with an all day fuel cell, but you can get a fuel cell for your video camera... http://www.jadoopower.com/ __________________ Jon Fairhurst

June 19th, 2006, 04:05 PM	#14
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	I spoke with Jadoo at NAB'05. Yes, you can hot swap. The fuel cell has residual hydrogen, so it keeps working while you exchange cartridges. I don't know how long it lasts, but if you have a cartridge ready to go in, it should be seemless. One of the technical challenges is to compress the hydrogen into the cannister. Increasing pressure raises temps, so the charging unit has to cool the hydrogen when charging. The load takes a bit, to avoid overheating. Also, it think this works best if you live in a city where you can easily buy hydrogen from a supplier. If not near a supplier, it wouldn't make sense. Some of the best advantages are that you know exactly how much charge you have left in each cannister. Also, the thing doesn't wear out. It holds near 100% of its charge over its lifetime. __________________ Jon Fairhurst

June 9th, 2006, 11:58 AM	#3
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	hehehehehe "The technology would be good for laptops, hearing aids and battery powered cars. Of course having batteries that are recharged quickly take humanity one step closer to total redundancy of the male."

June 12th, 2006, 06:49 AM	#4
Justin Deming Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Minneapolis, MA Posts: 84	Whoever wrote that article seems to be a bit confused. He uses the terms "battery" and "capacitor" synonimously. It seems what was developed is a capacitor that has much more storage capacity than previous capacitors. Caps have the ability to suck up power as fast as you can feed them until they are full. They slowly lose some of that power over time, but when you need some power they will release it into your curcuit. Jon correctly advised against shorting this device, because capacitors will release all their energy instantly when shorted. Small Capacitors are used in all sorts of electronics to provide stable power by sucking up power when the level is high enough, and releasing it when the levels drop. Anyway, the idea of making super capacity capacitors to be used instead of batteries would be great! I do wonder if the loss over time issue will be resolved. If not, charging them up, and expecting to have power in them a week later will not be realistic. Of course, they will charge in an instant, so you could do it just before leaving the nearest outlet. The other ussue is size. The big caps made for sound systems are the size of soda cans. The advance here is density though, so time will tell if they will beat current batteries as far as energy to size. Just my $.02

June 12th, 2006, 12:36 PM	#5
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	I understand that is the intention, to make super capacitors an ultimate battery. Many years ago colour tv capacitors apparently became good enough to store some change for weeks, so I wonder how it has advanced since then. Australian car manufacture has been developing a hybrid car that uses capacitors as temporary storage. I am not sure where ever there is an array of batteries in the model, or if it is mainly super capacitors.

June 16th, 2006, 03:46 AM	#6
Gints Klimanis Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 2,222	This reads as good news from a reuse and recharge time perspective. Though, we're not even sure about how safe the world will be with nanoparticles. "Safety of Nano-Cosmetics Questioned" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5257306 "Weighing the Potential Risks of Nanotech" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5369304

June 16th, 2006, 08:10 AM	#8
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	Look up DeWalt 36V batteries and go to www.a123systems.com the (www. is necessary) to read about a new type of lithium battery that can charge faster, hold more wattage, last longer, and not explode like some other lithium batteries. They claim stats about twice as good in all areas as any other lithium battery. A123systems is a company formed by some MIT professors to profit from their discoveries. DeWalt is their first customer. Toolbarn.com has the 36v "nanophosphate" lithium batteries for $159. They claim to have 2-3x the power of the 18v NiCd batteries of the same weight. The site says they were added 15 days ago and the shipping status seems to indicate immediate availability. The maximum power output stated is 750W which is very impressive for a 2.4lb battery. That equates to one horsepower and I assume the battery would need to be able to run that way for several minutes to be functional. The charger is one-hour rated and the recharge cycles on the battery is supposedly 2,000 which is 6x that of lead-acid batteries. What does a 2.4 pound battery (just over a kilo) that can put out 750Watts mean for a camera operator? It means less weight, more longevity, and faster recharge times. The basic battery is a cylindrical cell, so it is probably going to be easy for manufacturers to make 12V models since the 36V DeWalt is probably a pack of multiple cells in one plastic case. I'm guestimating one of these batteries to be the equivalent to an 18 amp/hour lead-acid battery that weighs about 14 pounds. The world may have just changed.

June 16th, 2006, 10:58 AM	#9
George Ellis Trustee Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Suwanee, GA Posts: 1,241	I have yet to find evidence that disproves what I read in AutoWeek in the early 80's when they were talking about electric cars and the breakthrough batteries that were coming. On that, someone was quoted as saying, "there are liars, damn liars, and battery engineers."* I have been hearing about batteries just around the bend since 1994 in mobile devices that were going to last all day. I will cut them a little slack as the devices have been using more and more power. But, they still aren't here. Oh, and in 2002, I was told that we would have working fuel cells in laptops now that would last all day. Sigh. * for those that English is a second, third, etc., language - each is a step worse when phrased like that.

June 16th, 2006, 06:21 PM	#11
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	"talking about electric cars and the breakthrough batteries that were coming." Yes, but these batteries are for sale today. They are sold by a well-established company that got the technology from MIT scientists. I'm not saying that either entity is perfect or miraculous, but it would seem out of character to make wild claims about a product considering they have big business to lose if they defraud their customers. All companies stretch things to best-case scenario figures, but I doubt they are fudging the numbers by a great margin. Also, they are comparing the new 36V batteries to their own 18V products. If this was an random infomercial company comparing themselves to their "competetor", I would be suspicous. I estimate these batteries to be about 3 amp/hours (AH) in capacity. I base this on their claims (backed up by comparison videos) of 2-3x the capacity of their 18V models. The 18V DeWalt batteries are 2.4AH and double the voltage halves the AH on 36V giving 1.2AH on 36V batteries of the same runtime. With 2-3x the runtime, I assume 2.5 times 1.2AH giving 3AH capacity. Considering a stated 750W output and the power needs of the type of tools they are running, I don't think that figure is too far off. 3AH @ 36V is 108W per hour. Let's assume they are stretching the truth a bit and round down to 100W/hour for simplicity. 750W (7.5 times the battery's AH rating) is one horsepower which seems reasonable for a circular saw. That means that one of these batteries can run that saw for 8 minutes (60 minutes divided by 7.5) . That doesn't sound too impressive, but you can cut a lot of 2x4 lumber in 8 minutes. If the saw couldn't run for about 8 minutes, it wouldn't be considered a professional tool. One thing to consider is that lead-acid batteries shouldn't be run down past about %50 charge. Lead-acid batteries also put out much less total wattage if they are drained quickly. They only put out full AH rating if drained over 20 hours! A power tool on a job site can't be slowly used over a 20-hour span of time, so batteries must be able to take fast discharge rates. Since lithium and other battery types can be run to full discharge, they are effectively twice as efficient by weight just for that one factor since lead-acid needs so much more capacity to tolerate fast discharge. Let's put it this way, many car batteries can't tolerate having a 15W dome light left on overnight. 100W for one hour is fairly impressive for any consumer battery, nevermind one weighing 2.4 pounds. One of these new "nanophosphate" lithium batteries is nearly as powerful as a car battery and weighs 1/25th as much. Of course, that also comes with over 4x the price tag not including the $90 charger...

June 17th, 2006, 05:01 AM	#12
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	I found a place that says the DeWalt 36V battery has a 2.4AH rating, so it is the same amps as the 18V, but twice the voltage means twice the wattage at the same amperage. Regardless of a lower estimated AH rating, it is still twice the power at the same weight and supposedly far more than twice the lifespan due to less voltage fall-off over the service life. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe this technology will be a good stop-gap measure for the next decade until something fancier like fuel cells becomes viable.

June 19th, 2006, 08:00 AM	#13
Justin Deming Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Minneapolis, MA Posts: 84	Jon, I looked into the Jadoo system. I love what they are doing, but the prices need to come down before they will become practical. I looked on their site, and here's what I found. $999 Fuel cell with 100W output $499 N-Stor 130W-h hydrogen storage tank (it's tiny) $599 Small refill station $59 xlr cable Total for a starter system then is $2156!! I can understand a high price, the R&D involved in making this happen is enormous, but there is no way it costs near $499 for a canister. They make a larger 360W-h canister that sells for $850. They give very few details, such as does the 130W-h canister need to stay in the fuel cell while operating, or can it be removed for recharge while the cell is in use? The cpmparison chart did claim the system has a hot swap feature, but there are no details on how long it can run with no cartridge. If they would sell those caisters at a more reasonable price I would be very interested in this. Being able to carry around a bunch of canisters for refilling it would be sweet, but at $499 each...

June 20th, 2006, 06:27 AM	#15
Justin Deming Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Minneapolis, MA Posts: 84	Over all I love the idea of this fuel cell system. I only have issues with them charging $499 for a canister, and $850 for a larger one. There is no way the larger canister (which is the same, but about 1 inch longer) costs $350 more to produce. I do not have problems with the price of the fuel cell itself, or the refill station. I am studying business, and I just think if this were my product I would price the cartridges close to my cost, so that I could encourage people to use my product. Being able to buy as many cartridges as we need without feeling ripped off could increase their sales tremendously. Next all we need is a machine that will make hydrogen for us. The beauty of hydrogen is that it can be made from water using electricity. All it would take is a small machine that can further purify distilled water, then create the hydrogen out of it. A gallon of purified water goes a long way, so it may be easier to just buy purified water. I have a huge interest in alternative energy, so I have studied this stuff for years. In my view the perfect energy system would be one that harnesses a form of renewable energy such as solar when it is available, uses any excess energy to create hydrogen, then uses a fuel cell to turn it back into electricty when, and where it is needed. Fuel cells are definately here to stay though. They offer advantages no battery will offer for a very long time, if ever.