Greatings from Norway. A rule of thumb about electric cars is that they in general provide about 60% of the summer driving length in the winter, but there are variations. Some cars have problems in the summer if the battery do not have cooling - they can not handle more than one full charging cycle within a certain time - otherwise they will overheat. So this limits the driving length. Many were sceptic about how long the batteries would last. It turns out that they are likely to outlast the rest of the car, at least that is what car producers say, but I think we should wait and see. The latest news is that although about 40% of the cars sold i 2018 in Norway were electric, the gas/diesel consumption does not go down, so electric cars may not have the expected influence on the climate ... people drive more. But, ok, things would probably have been worse without electric cars.
If you think car batteries will outlast the rest of the car just have a look at how well first generation Nissan Leaf batteries are holding up. The 30 kWh Leafs batteries have degraded at 9.9% per annum.
@@MrZiemwit 1) Non sequitur. 2) Electric cars are exempt from VAT in Norway, so if an electric car is expensive here, it is not the fault of the Norwegian tax system. Fossil cars are heavily taxed though.
@@KingJanIIISobieski First generations are old technology, old chemistry and poor battery management. Tesla NCA batteries hardly degrade at all because people have learned from experience and do science. They will get even better as more knowledge is gained, and research is accelerating rapidly.
@@MrZiemwit Yes, many of the wealthier Norwegians buy new electric cars for EU prices. The less wealthy Norwegians are less likely to afford electric cars. Not sure if I see your point, to be honest.
The regular lithium batteries (e.g. CRV123 3V 1800mA Varta) or AA/AAA (1.5V) are good for cold environments, another benefit that they can deliver the required power to serve an ESP8266, ESP32 or similar. My intensive testing showed that lithium batteries (e.g CRV123 Varta 3V) deliver 90% of their capacity above 2.9V. This is perfect or many MCUs. For this reason our ECO Power LoRa boards for Arduino are using this CRV123 lithium batteries, which last for 5 years using our ESP32 LoRa board with regular LoRa communication. Regards from Arduino Hannover, Helmut Great video as always.
Interesting stuff! I now found my Lithium batteries. I will do the same tests as with the others. Good to know they deliver most of the energy above 2.9 volts. I just ordered battery holders to be able to use it in my projects...
While LiPo cell’s are commonly identified as being different from Li-Ion cells that isn’t entirely true. LiPo cells use a standard Li-Ion chemistry, lithium-cobalt-oxide (LCO), but can have a polymer (gelled) electrolyte. Many so-called LiPo’s use the standard liquid electrolyte though and those are a different chemistry Li-Ion cell. I’m wondering if the increased voltage drop at higher current levels of the LiFePO4 cell you had was due more to increased internal resistance versus any differences due to chemistry. There can be huge differences between different cells unless their capacities, current ratings, and internal resistances are similar. You mentioned that there were no other real advantages to LiFePO4 cells but they use the most thermally stable of the commonly available Li-Ion chemistries. The thermal runaway threshold temperature is the highest and the temperature of reaction, once in thermal runaway, is the lowest. They can offer real safety advantages and many LiFePO4 cells offer significantly longer cycle life than the other li-ion chemistries. I strongly urge everyone to never charge a Li-Ion chemistry cell if it is under 0°C as that encourages the plating of metallic lithium inside the cell. This can eventually pose a real safety issue. EV’s typically preheat the cells or, as you mentioned, the charging current is reduced. It’s just easier to just not charge when they’re cold. :-) E-One Moli Energy Corp has some very high performance cells that are rated for use down to -40°C. The low temperature charging limit is °C though. That was a very interesting video. Thank you for doing it!
Good Input. Thank you! Do you gave information about this plating and how dangerous it is using small currents? I mentioned the advantages of LiFePo4 in another video. Here I only referred to the „winter“ usage.
Andreas Spiess I haven’t seen the safety issues quantified as I suspect it is very chemistry and/or cell specific. My apologies, I should have remembered that video. 🙂 Here are a few links I had saved about plating... www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhe_Li36/publication/315506201_Investigating_Lithium_Plating_in_Lithium-Ion_Batteries_at_Low_Temperatures_Using_Electrochemical_Model_with_NMR_Assisted_Parameterization/links/594a34c84585158b8fd8d0ea/Investigating-Lithium-Plating-in-Lithium-Ion-Batteries-at-Low-Temperatures-Using-Electrochemical-Model-with-NMR-Assisted-Parameterization.pdf?origin=publication_detail www.researchgate.net/profile/Qianqian_Liu23/publication/308273320_Understanding_undesirable_anode_lithium_plating_issues_in_lithium-ion_batteries/links/5ad01068aca2723a33469e02/Understanding-undesirable-anode-lithium-plating-issues-in-lithium-ion-batteries.pdf?origin=publication_detail jes.ecsdl.org/content/164/13/A3403.full.pdf
Undefined Lastname yea, the existing Li-Ion cylindrical cells using the higher voltage li-ion chemistries (instead of LiFePO4’s lower voltage) top out at a 35A true continuous current rating. The pouch LCO (LiPo) Li-Ion cells can higher current ratings though due to their very low internal resistance.
Andreas Spiess there is the JEITA standard but I usually see it stop at 0°C. It does identify reduced charging rates as the temp goes high or low though. home.jeita.or.jp/page_file/20110517171451_cub9MvYFEh.pdf www.ti.com/lit/an/slyt365/slyt365.pdf
Battery Mooch : I read a lot of should and could in these documents. It seems that not a lot of investigation went into this topic. Maybe we really will learn from cars in cold climate. I would be interested in hard facts on how much life time a battery looses while charging in low temp and at low current. Do you know a source for such an investigation?
Excellent summary. I was wondering about this while watching a previous video and now you have gathered some good information and done basic testing to confirm manufacturer claims all in one video. Nice job. The temperatures presented here are extreme for my location as we rarely go below zero in winter and rarely go above 25 in summer, so I seem to be well within all ranges.
How about a super cap? I remember shooting with my DSLR in Poland one winter. I had several LiPo batteries, they would die as they cooled down in the camera, so I'd swap, and tuck the recently frozen battery inside my clothing... They had plenty of charge left, just no enthusiasm to release it when they were that cold! I kept going all day like that, never needed to charge them, just warm them up.
@@AndreasSpiess I think so, yes. They are chemical after all, and chemical reactions tend to slow down with a temperature drop. I think my freezer will get below -25c, I'll have to see what batteries I have to hand, and what I can test them with. (I think I'll be checking the freezing point of dilute sulphuric acid first though, I don't fancy the lead acid's splitting!).
Thank you for another great video Andreas. I'm using two 18650 Lifepo4 batteries from Soshine in parallel for a remote monitoring device (ESP8266). The device is in a northern country and this year I saw a peak cold of -31.5°C, while VCC (read on the ESP using ESP.getVcc()) was 3.13V. At -20°C VCC was 3.22V and at -10°C VCC was 3.25V. So voltage drop increases with lower temperatures, but they still worked fine.
Nice work Andreas.👍👍👍👍 I overheated 2 lipos in the snowy winter.. now i know why. And worst of all... i always have alkaline AAs leaking in my expensive gadgets with low current.. so lithium AAs for those from now on.
Great timing. In the last week I have been experimenting with Li Ion batteries. I put up three videos. One on a cheapo charger, another where I opened a swollen Nokia phone battery and a third on a Macbook battery. I am considering trying to build a home made charger. Like you I am hoping to avoid the explosions. Also I am taking the same precautions. The batteries I got are from old laptops. They are being stored in a metal tin that I insulated with a flame retardant plastic. The entire arrangement is then placed in an old microwave oven. I am hoping my risk of fire is practically zero now.
Systems utilizing battery chemistries sensitive to cold weather charging typically include a heater to warm the cells themselves for charging. Tesla has a dedicated battery heater, and I'd presume most other competitors do something similar. This is why Tesla owners in Norway etc are able to charge at cold temperatures - a heater is actively warming the batteries before going into full charge, particularly when utilizing the SuperCharger fast-charge systems. I'm not clear on your testing methodology from the video - were multiple charge/discharge cycles run below zero? I wouldn't expect the cells to be damaged with just one charge cycle below the rated minimum temperature, but I would expect total life to be substantially shortened if this experiment is run several times.
I read about the Tesla heaters. But I also read that the new model does not have a heater. I also cannot believe you have to wait with charging till the batteries are heated to 0 degrees before charging. Maybe others will add what the other manufacturers do. It is well possible that the life time is reduced. But I did not find information about that. Many applications also are high current applications which is not the case here. I expected that I would not be able to charge the battery at low temperature. But this is definitively not the case.
@@AndreasSpiess Checking into it - it appears the battery heater was removed from the Model 3, because they are now able to use the motor itself to warm the pack without a dedicated heater, even while the car is not in motion. So, they're still heating the batteries, but not with a resistive wire as before.
luma Well, it is still a "resistive wire" :D it just isn't a dedicated one running through the battery pack. Instead everything is just piped where it is needed with coolant, since the battery pack syill has a coolant loop. It is a pity there aren't cost effective E-bike batterypack/motor systems with similar setups. :(
Have you heard about the Edison battery? It is made from nickel-iron. It is very heavy, but there are a lot of environmental advantages and they last decades. Maybe you should investigate testing this type of battery. I really enjoy your channel! Please keep up the good work!
No, I do not know these batteries. Wikipedia says they are no more produced for the mass market. So they would not be interesting for most of my viewers.
great video for "cold" situations. im always concerned with "hot" situations, especially when soldering the "power" part in my circuits...always feel its gonna explode and never sure if it is an urban legend or if it could happen...
Hello Andreas, good to see that your channel grow-up. Please, consider to notice on videos if batteries (mostly li-ions) are protected or unprotected that you use in your video. I see li-ions in your video are not protected. Some people trying to learn stuff and using whatever they find. However, unprotected li-ions could be dangerous for people who is trying to learn. Regards
Beware when using car or motorcycle batteries! They’re shallow cycle Pb-acid batteries, which means they can’t be fully discharged without being damaged, and they only withstand a few full cycles, in exchange for more current. If you want a general purpose Pb-acid battery, you need a deep cycle battery (which is slightly more expensive). Also, ideally, you should use SLA batteries, which are sealed and can be used in any position except downwards.
Thank you for your feedback. I think I mentioned the low voltage protection at 1.75 volts per cell. This was the only battery I got easily. And the gel batteries in this shop were about 3x the price. I thought the curves would not be completely different for the one I used. In the meantime, I found the batteries you are writing (from Duracell) on the internet...
0:39 Andreas: "Because this is a German fridge, and as we all know, these guys ..." The voice in my head: "... don't fuck around." Andreas: "... love precision". Oh well, same sentiment.
Most lead-acid motorcycle batteries are "sealed for life" units these days. No need to fill them up once you have done the initial pour and gently tapped the supplied plugs into place (usual supplied on a single strip.) Haven't seen the "top up" types for at least 10 years on my Honda's.
As you see you still get them ;-) The sealed ones were double the price where I bought mine (in a hurry). So I decided to purchase this one for the video. In my Harley, of course, I have another one :-)
*The often used distinction between Li-ion and Li-polymer has nothing to do with chemistry* (it is used wrongly. *Pouch and cylindrical cells are just different form factors.* There are different chemistries within that class, but again that doesn't have anthing to do with the shape. The main difference is that the different form factors are built for different applications (high current vs. high energy density). They are *all* Li-ion batteries. There are so many different combinations of electrode materials and electrolytes that just putting them into "li-ion" and "li-po" category, even if that were a correct distinction, would be pointless. My guess why "li-po" as a name came to be is marketing. Cylindrical cells were the norm when the somewhat "freeform" pouch cells came along. Someone heard about the "new" cell chemistry of real li-po batteries at the same time and slapped that label on their batteries, because, hey, they got a polymer sheet separator in there (as all of those cells, even the cylindrical ones, had anyway) and a polymer (=plastic) pouch around it, even when that has got nothing to to with actual li-po cells. Lipos true to the original meaning of the name (the electrolyte itself being a solid polymer) still don't exist commercially. I feel something similar is happening with the "graphene" label currently. Real graphene cells are nowhere near out of research (meaning nicely arranged graphene structures). Marketing heard about graphene being the future. Almost all cells use carbon on the negative electrode in the form of graphite flakes. Now tell someone that graphite is many graphene layers stacked on top of each other and boom, you got your "graphene" cells. Btw. have you ever seen something like IMR, INR, ICR, IFR, LMO, NMC, NCA, NCO, LCO or LFP written on cylindrical cells or in their datasheet? Those signify different chemistries. Pouch cells could use the same, although they mostly are Lithium-cobalt-oxide chemistry (ICR/LCO, different manufacturers use different shorthands).
Thanks for clarification. In earlier videos I used „LiPo“ because this is how we name them here. Then I got corrected by viewers. I decided to use Li-Ion now. But this seems to be as false. I am an electronics engineer, not a chemist. If I read your comment I safely can stick with LiPo.
@@AndreasSpiess Li-ion isn't false. It is actually correct for pretty much any rechargeable Lithium (well ion) based battery, even LiFePo are Li-Ion. They all work on the principle of moving Li-ions around. In a sense Li-ion is like "vehicle", while Lipo is like "car". Every lipo battery is a li-ion battery, but not every li-ion battery is a lipo. While I would like nomenclature to be used correctly (but when has that ever happened when marketing got hold of a technical term), my main reason for pointing it out is to stop people from thinking that those cell shapes are completely different technology inside, while they are mostly the same thing built for different applications.
IIRC battery electric vehicles have a heater built in to the battery unit to prevent them from getting too cold. In some models at least, the heater is on and drains the battery even when not using the car to make sure it can start, so it's important to keep it plugged in when parked during winter. When you use the batteries they will heat up due to internal resistance, so it's not so bad, problem is to get started when the batteries are frozen solid I believe.
You are right. I read about the heaters in the Teslas and the problems. I also read that they charge at a low rate if the batteries are cold. This was my problem: We have some research for high current applications but none small currents...
_Do_not_ charge cold Lithium batteries! The Li can't migrate into the Electrode while charging and forms a metallic surface. After several cycles so called dendrites might grow from this metallic surface through the separator and short circuit the cell which will damage it or might cause it to burn. This can happen a while after a cold charging. E-cars heat their battery compartments to prevent cold charging.
Do you have more information about low current charging? It would be very interesting. I read a lot of "should" and "would" and "can". But I did not find any evidence on how the lifetime of a battery is affected if charged with low currents in cold temperatures. I read about battery heating. But I read also they charge at low currents before the battery is heated. And I read that the new Tesla has no more battery heating.
This is how it's currently tought at Univ., as the reason why BMS need low temperature charging prevention. I don't know if you can work around it by charging at very low rates. Concerning the heating it was said that once heated to charging temperature, the further regulation can be sustained by charging waste heat. This might explain the lower overall charging rate of E-cars when cold.
I've just searched for the paper that I remember but it's not online. The problem was the metallic Li that does give the benefit of a higher electric potential but with the risk of sudden local shorts. We had voltage plots of cold charged batteries clearly showing the higher voltage at start of discharge. When the metallic Li was used off the Voltage rapidly fell back to the normal discharge slope, so maybe the cell can be regenerated by discharging it down to the normal slope if possible.
This is interesting. I have seen some videos and read some information that suggests dendrites primarily occur when batteries are charged or discharged too quickly. I can't seem to find information about temperature specifically causing this effect, though presumably the fact that the material is cold changes the rate at which charging / discharging can properly take place (as you describe) so it seems plausible that the two are related. Here's an example video that shows it actually taking place: ua-cam.com/video/_fu1zvqoDm0/v-deo.html What they don't show is the failure point where a dendrite grows large enough across the gap to cause a short circuit. Up to that point you're just losing energy storage materials so it's less of a big deal. The main issue is the short which will cause the battery to catch fire or explode. Would be good to see a paper or other detailed info on this.
@@AndreasSpiess I found a couple interesting articles... 1) This one discusses the use of neutron diffraction to watch the inner process of a battery and mentions lithium ions converting to lithium metal. To quote three parts of the article: A) "However, occasionally lithium ions form metallic lithium instead of intercalating into the anode, as desired. The lithium deposits onto the anode and is no longer fully available for the described process. The result is a drop in battery performance. In extreme cases this can even lead to short-circuits. In addition, metallic lithium is highly inflammable." B) "The faster the charging process, the more metallic lithium is formed." C) "Low temperatures encourage the formation of metallic lithium." www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903105638.htm. 2) This one mentions in the section "Low temperature performance", a paper, which I looked for but could only find for purchase at $39.95, that it quotes as "Zhang et al.44 argue that poor performance of lithium-ion batteries at low temperatures is linked to poor charge transfer at the electrode/electrolyte interface. In fact, this poor charge transfer can lead to significant plating on the negative electrode during charging, which can cause irreversible capacity loss from electrolyte reduction." jes.ecsdl.org/content/158/3/R1.full#ref-44
@@AndreasSpiess Yes, more! And send me the code! 🙄 Some ppl are just ungrateful, and best ignored. I learned something so 👍🏻 and thank you for the effort.
Good topic. I recently went on a hunt for USB flash drives with good low-temp operation for automotive use. I didn't test very many before settling on the Verbatim ToughMAX products.
Super-caps and solid electrolyte batteries are probably our best hope for ultra-low temp performance. Also, for capacity, fluorine ion batteries will be revolutionary.
Cars also charge batteries to a much lower termination voltage than the typical 4.2V you would likely use with compact DIY kit. The reason we don't charge batteries to a higher termination voltage than about 4.2-4.35V is that they quickly degrade above and can become prone to internal damage and venting with flame, so usually consumer electronics has its termination voltage adjusted such that the battery has a useful life of 500 cycles. In vehicles, much longer useful life is expected, and besides, it's imperative to avoid catastrophic failure under a variety of conditions. I wonder whether lower temperatures nudge the safe termination voltage downwards.
I assume you mean electric cars? I think it is generally good practice to not charge a battery completely if you do not need to. I can adjust my laptop to stop at 80 or 90% if I want.
@@AndreasSpiess Yes i meant individual cell charge termination voltage in Tesla and perhaps other EVs that use Li-Ion cells with these kind of chemistries that are usually otherwise used with 4.2V termination or slightly higher. They charge them to less than 70% if i remember right. Out of interest, what brand/lineup of laptops allows such a fine grained adjustment? I have an old Lenovo Z500 which has two modes, 60% charge and 100%, but nothing in between; which is honestly a million times better than no adjustment at all, but if i were going to ever replace it, i'd like to retain or expand on this feature.
Excellent video Andreas! I still wonder why all manufacturers don't permit low temperature charging as of spec sheet. Is it just because of lower performance and deviating from standard test specs or laziness to test all variations? ... Uhmm... does it, perhaps, harm the cell in other (hidden) means? (Does it reduce number of charge cycles? Reduce capacity permanently? Maybe increases likelihood of internal shorts on individual cells when charged at nominal current?). What ever it is, keep on going Andreas, great job!
Thank you for the link. They write „when the electrodes can not accomodate the current flow, the result is reduced power and Lithium plating of the anode with irreversible capacity loss“. Which is what I suspect. On low charging rates as we use it for IOT it should not hurt the battery too much.
Yes in case of IoT load the risk is at charging only. Smartphones charge very slow and state of charge indication often jump. The 2nd effect is probably due to impedance which make voltage levels jump too and algorithms unable to conclude . Perhaps monitoring impedance when charging on solar would help. If the impedance jumps up the cell is unable to accommodate and current should be reduced.
Hi Andreas. As always, an excellent and useful video. I especially like how you point out things that may be different than the normal, such as at 3:02 when you point out the battery is a smaller one and at 6:52 when you mention that the testing only went up to 100ma instead of the usual 1A. Since you like to be accurate and complete in your presentations, may I suggest adding a link or mentioning in a video where your external references come from? For example, the table presented at 2:04 and other times in this video can be found at batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/secondary_batteries, although I don't know if the table is unique to them or can be found elsewhere as well.
Last year I left my ebike LiPo battery (10x6S 5200mAh) on the roof overnight after half charging it with my home made solar panels. Was -20 °C. Rescued it in the morning and brought it in to continue charging - it appeared to confuse the charger and was showing weird charging figures, so I stopped and let it warm up to room temps then it continued normally. It didn't appear to have suffered any damage at all, but difficult to tell now as it's been used almost daily for 3.5 years and its capacity has somewhat reduced to about 70% after many hundreds of cycles. I was careful not to let it ever go below 20% state of charge. I would follow manufacturers specs - if lithium starts getting electroplated, then it's irreversible and unable to take part again. It also risks forming lithium dendrites which can puncture the separators and cause a short - this is probably the reason for the urban legends about lithium batteries "exploding" while charging cold.
You are right with the following supplier's recommendations ( I think I also mentioned it). My question is how much lifetime we lose when charging with low currents below freezing. In many countries, this will only be during a few sunny days. Unfortunately, I did not find any tests about that.
Thanks for the nice video, though I would have liked to have also seen a test of the overall capacity at low temperatures! Which chemistry is the best for minimizing the drop in capacity at low temperatures?
EV batteries have ususally heating and cooling systems. so when you say they charge slower, it is because the battery is first warmed up before full charging.
This is what I also found. But I found also people talking about the fact that they already start to charge even if they do not have ideal temperatures. But I am no specialist. I still drive a conventional diesel :-(
very interesting! I have always wondered about batteries in the cold. But never had the gumption to try and figure it out.. always thought the lead acid would be the best for the cold because of it's longevity.. We have been using them a long long time.. oh by the way.. dig that hat!
Do'nt forget to have a good look at the components used for the charger!! Especially the one for the Li-Ion-types. Even if the batteries don't have any problem, the electronics in the charger can be well off and not stop charging at the right moment. This can get quite dangerous as well. Many components behave quite different at low temperatures then nominal temperatures. In higher-current applications, the charging itself will warm the electronics (and batteries) up but if you have real low charging current like on a solar-panel with (melting) snow on top you could have a cold charger pushing over the limits of a battery which can cause failing.
You are right. Many additional problems can occur in cold temperatures. I think small currents will reduce dangers considerably compared to high current applications. But interestingly not a lot of investigation was done below 0 degrees and small currents...
AVE pointed out that lead acid batteries will freeze and split their case if they are fully discharged. The acid converts in to a more water than acid state. They wont freeze if they are in a charged state.
That is absolutely correct. Before maintenance-free Pb batteries became available, the drivers would need to ensure proper concentration of the electrolyte in the cells before winter. Special hydrometers were sold to car owners to assist them in this. (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrometer#Battery_hydrometer ) I remember doing these measurements and topping off the cells with my grandfather.
Electric cars have heaters built in battery pack. They heat battery up to optimal temperature if the temperature is too low. Please test the charging with solar panels. It's realy interesting if solar panel can give enought power to a GSM device, which wakes up 1-2 times per day to send data through celluar network and goes to sleep again.
I made a video with all these calculations concerning Solar panels, battery size, position on the earth, and power consumption. But you have to do your own.
Interesting. However i hope the next months the temperatures will go up, not down! A few years ago i had a solar charger (with [LiPo] battery) in my car. The battery "exploded" on a hot day. (I don't exactly know what happened, but the volume of battery increased permanent and the solar package broke open. I expect due to the temperature in my car. In direct sunlight it can become very hot.) Perhaps also the maximum temperature needs to be tested? (And perhaps i need to build logger with sensors for min/max temperature at some different locations in my car to measure how hot it can become.) Other useful info could be, What is the best way to store the batteries if not in use? Charged or discharged?
The problem with the sun shining into the car is that the temperature can go much higher than the temperature of the air around it if the surface e.g. is black. So it is best just to shield it from direct sunlight. Concerning storage, I read that 3.8 volts per cell seem to be good for storage.
The problem was it was a solar charged power device that i put in direct sunlight in my car to keep it charged. blog.jeronimus.net/2017/07/solar-charger-teardown.html
Lead acid batteries don't like deep discharge unless they are constructed to handle that. So the capacity is a lie if you can only use 20% of the rated capacity... Another problem is that they can freeze after being discharged because the concentration of acid depends on the level of charge. When full, the concentration is high and prevents freezing but deeply discharged, the concentration drops and they become vulnerable. Tesla cars are using heaters to maintain a decent battery temperature. Search UA-cam about that. You can actually loose charge if you plug it to a 110 socket because the heater takes more than 10Ax110V... and it uses some power from the batteries to warm them.
As far as I know Li-Ion batteries will degrade fast when charged below 0 C. This is because electrolyte moves slower and small crystals of Li begin to form between electrodes. After some time it can produce internal short-circuit or other adverse effects. So if you make some sort of autonomous station you can dig battery underground to keep its temperature above 0 C, or make thermo insulation and preheat batteries before charging.
I also read about this effect but did not find any hard evidence for low currents :-( Burry the batteries was also proposed by another viewer. A very innovative solution and not expensive!
@@AndreasSpiess Lower charging current means lower growth rate of Li crystals. At some point they will no grow at all as electrolyte will be liquid enough to dissolve them.
Actually now I know more about batteries. You shouldn't charge them below freezing. Cars in Norway they use extra energy to heat the batteries first. They are not being charged cold as you assumed. Charging cold makes holes in the membrane. Reduce number of cycles
@@AndreasSpiess I am not sure but I assume a 0.1c charge rate will also cause extra wear. I think is nice video idea to test capacity at least after below freezing charging. I know that testing cycles and degradation is long task. But capacity testing could be done?
Here the tried the discharging at -30 (LoFePo4). And they say that these batteries can be charged down to -5C. There is a risk of „plating“ but I assume this goes somehow with the charge brought into the cell. ua-cam.com/video/3iLLAaX0lrI/v-deo.html
Hey. I use Aku Li-ion CGA103450A in my atmospheric sensor all year round. This season, the minimum temperature was around -12, nothing bad happened. I just had to change the solar panel for better and bigger.
Hallo Andreas, wie immer ein klasse Video. Noch eine Info: Tesla erwärmt den Akku bei tiefen Temperaturen zum Laden, um den Ladestrom zu erhöhen und damit die Ladezeit zu verkürzen.
Das habe ich auch gelesen. Allerdings habe ich auch gefunden, dass sie bereits ohne Heizung langsam laden. Das würde eher unserem Szenario entsprechen.
Hey Andreas. Can you make a review about the Dragino LT-33222L Lora I/O Controller? It is a cheap ready to use LoRa Controller. It would be interesting to see what it can.
Thank you for your proposal. I think this is another LoRaWAN product which will keep its specs as many others. These days a lot of very special LoRa devices come to market. Most of them are only interesting for a few people. I cannot test them all.
I dont understand your curves. One curve showing the voltage at 10 different discharge currents? Did you change the discharge current on the fly? Is there a time parameter hidden somewhere?
I changed the discharge cuttend from 0 to 1 A in 10 steps and measured the voltage. Like that you see it’s correlation. Time is not important here as I used a fully charged battery and it only took 2 seconds per step to get stable results (I use an electronic load for that)
Electric cars batteries do suffer from cold, in fact they are not charged by regen breaking if they are below a certain temperature. Also tesla has a special function to warm up the batteries if you want to really use all the current they can provide in "ludicrous mode"
I did not know about the regen switched off. It seems to be agreed they loose capacity and I measured also a lot of voltage drop for high currents. My question is more: Do they loose considerable lifetime when only using small currents?
I bury my LiPo batteries below the frost line (55cm here). Any pipe that can be sealed will do. They perform m/l the same year round. (LiPo batteries don't work well at -40C) Replacing them is ... annoying.
Hallo, Klasse Video. Leider ist mein Englisch etwas eingerostet. Wie war das mit den 18650 mit Solarzelle laden und Arduino versorgen im Winter ? Ist das Sinnvoll über das ganze Jahr ? Und wieviel Strom sollte die Solarzelle in etwa liefern ? Gurß, Markus
Ich habe mal ein Video über Solar gemacht wo ich ausgerechnet habe wie die Batterie bemessen werden muss. Li-Ion Batterien stehen im Ruf dass sie unter 0 C nicht geladen werden sollten. Die Studien, die ich gefunden habe waren alle mit grossen Strömen. Kleine Ladeströme sollten ok sein.
Cool vid Andreas...its not much use for me tho.. we dont have them cold temps here!...its more worrisome that they overheat and spontaneously combust when ambient temps go above 45c!
here we have temperature of about 45C in summer days and ambient would be about 90C. it would be interesting how it behaves. i will try this summer and keep it in sun. lead acid batteries are probably ok. but they have lots of water. i don't know much chemistry.
Great video. Very helpful! Do you have data on high temps applications such as in tropical countries? What type of batt can withstand heat up to 40degC and last long?
Good evening, thank you for your informative videos. What would be the response of the batteries from your experiment at 50 degrees celsius or higher ?
@@AndreasSpiess Thanks for your answer . The reason for my question was because I live in Greece and we have a hot summer (35-45 degrees Celsius) in the shade, how do the batteries behave in these temperatures.
Ignoring issue of temperature, for me, LiPo batteries are just too scary to use in many projects. I prefer to use LiFePo4 where possible. Good capacity and performance, and not too scary. NiMh are still suprisingly usable and a good option for legacy devices. Lead acid are good for extremely long life and almost indestructible, extremely tolerant of abuse.
Last winter, i used a 18650 Li-Ion cell for my ESP IoT Project. At the nighttime it reached about -25°C, and at the daytime it was about -5°C and my 6V 4.5W Solarpanel charged the cell without problems up to 4.2V. Nothing explodet.
Thank you for another great video! Please consider that the aliexpress link for the LiitoKala Lii-35A says "Can not deliver to Greece". If this is an affiliate link, would you please ask LiitoKala to enable shipping to Greece? They have it enabled for all their listed items but not for this :(
I heard from other viewers that they do not deliver to all countries. Maybe it has to do with the carriers not transporting batteries? I do not know of another supplier for that particular battery. I wrote them a message...
@@AndreasSpiess Thank you for the reply and for the message you sent them! No, it doesn't have to do with the carriers because the same shop is sending its other batteries to my country.
When i use my (li-ion) battery-electric chainsaw & blower-vac, after i've used up a battery it's still too hot to start charging immediately. So sometimes i will put it into the freezer for 5mins to cool it down. Then when i plug it in to charge, it starts immediately. ps: Yes.... i do keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't catch fire, coz who knows, that's part of the fun of technology :D
Good question. I do not know which batteries they use. Usually, they only charge when they see the sun and get warm. So maybe they do not suffer this problem of charging at low temperatures.
Fast charging of batteries at temperatures below 0°C can be dangerous (depending on the cell type and the charging current). Some quotes from batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/charging_at_high_and_low_temperatures: "Charge advisory for low temperatures: - Li-ion: No charge permitted below freezing. - NiCd, NiMH: Charge at 0.1C between -18°C and 0°C. Charge at 0.3C between 0°C and 5°C. - Lead acid: Charge at 0.3C or less below freezing. Fast charging of most batteries is limited to 5°C to 45°C (41°F to 113°F); for best results consider narrowing the temperature bandwidth to between 10°C and 30°C (50°F and 86°F) as the ability to recombine oxygen and hydrogen diminishes when charging nickel-based batteries below 5°C (41°F). If charged too quickly, pressure builds up in the cell that can lead to venting. Reduce the charge current of all nickel-based batteries to 0.1C when charging below freezing."
Be very careful with Lithium Thionyl Chloride Batteries .If the battery leaks the fumes will kill you easily .Thionyl Chloride is one of the nastiest chemicals around and requires super environmental controls when in use . As an Sr. Air Quality Engineer I would highly recommend staying away from this type of battery. Best Regards Gershon Schwartz
LiSOCl2 batteries (SAFT LS14500 AA-size costs €3,50 from regular German vendor) can be used for energizing an ESP8266 directly w/o an additional voltage regulator. I'm using them for bare-bone indoors BME280 p-T-h measurement-devices (www.dropbox.com/s/t9ylze8dlqavs9x/BME280.jpg?dl=0) sending MQTT messages every 15min. My two devices are up and running reliably for almost a year now and the voltage is still fine. It's important to add a small powercap as buffer for delivering enough current during WLAN connection and to optimize the sketch for low energy consumption as its best.
Hi Andreas, is it possible to do a video on how to select batteries for 2G and NBIoT modems so that the device can send messages for many years? It seems difficult :-) Especially when T range must be wide and high peak currents must be possible. Also the battery capacity seems given always in ideal low current condition, and drops significant if the current is a few hundred milliamps. Some high capacity batteries I found can give max 400mAh while modems have peaks > 1A. Can supercaps be used, or do they discharge the battery to much? Ifso can the supercap be connected by Mosfet when needed? Is it correct that we get at the end much more capacity when we use 2 * D cells in parallel then if we use 1 DD cell? Will the final capacity offered to the device be significant higher because of the I/2, even if the sum of 2*D capacity is the same as the DD capacity? Best regards from Eischoll :-).
1. Choosing a battery is not too difficult, but maybe you would not like its size. You measure the average current consumption for one cycle of your sensor and then, you multiply it with the time. Then you get the needed capacity in mAh. 2. To "break" high currents, most concepts use capacitors as their capacity is big enough (the spikes are short). 3. There is nothing like free capacity. You just add it. 2 batteries have 2x the capacity if you run them in parallel.
@@AndreasSpiessSorry, I think I not explained it clearly. Both batteries offer the same voltage. And the total energy of 2 * D size is the same as the 1* DD size. I just wondered if 2 * D batteries in parallel would be able to give more energy at the end because the 2 D cells would give each a lower current if placed in parallel. In the specs they show that the energy that can be given by a battery is not a constant, but is highly affected by the current the battery must give. At first glance the size and total capacity of 2 * D is the same as 1 * DD, but by looking at the specs it looks like the 2 * D in parallel will last much longer because of the lower current, even if for every transmission the current and voltage offered to the device is the same in both cases. What is your opinion? Thanks.
so, as the video is two years old now it maybe worth to ask. Do you have Andreas some long term experience about charging Li-ion battery with small solar cell during winter time when it is below 0 Celsius outside? I would be interested to such experience...thanks!
I had a few outside during the last winter. But it was not very hard. So no problems. Anyway I learned that charging can create some internal structures which can puncture the insulation. So this seems to be a long-term process. Maybe we just do it and change the battery when it died after a few years...
@@AndreasSpiess thanks for your reply! Very valuable experience. So, then it can be a long process to kill a battery with winter time, outdoor charging. But eventually if I want to be sure that no battery dies due to charging at sub-zero Celsius conditions then simply don't charge them when having such weather conditions. So, probably worth to build in some 'switch-off charging' mechanism if it is under 0 Celsius.... thanks again!
Noticied you used a similar Liitokala charger as I use, with one difference if I saw it well. Mine also somehow measures and shows the internal resistance of the cell (they call it mR, in stead of mOhm, but OK, you cannot have everything). The resistance is a parameter I like to observe in judging how well the battery (still) is. Even within packs, this internal resistance of cells can be different, which causes the ones with higher resistance to fail earlier then the rest of the pack. Also this resistance is different from technology to technology, which makes a difference as too how high a current a certain technology can cope with. So: is there in your opinion any value in observing the internal resistance, or is it a parameter I should ignore?
My device does not calculate the internal resisance. I think, as you write, this parameter is important. However I am not sure if it is constant and easy to measure. But as an indicator to compare your batteries with eachother it should give you an indication. The question is: What do you do with this information? At which resistance do you throw a working battery away?
@@AndreasSpiess That is a good point, I throw them away when.... I can no longer charge and discharge them with a meaningful amount of energy. At the same time, I notice that the internal resistance has increased. So, although internal resistance is an indicator, I throw them away they become useless as a battery. The thing I do use internal resistance for, is when I combine batteries in series in a pack. Because the high resistor ones hold less energy (my theory anyhow), they form the weakest link in a pack.... and when the high capacity ones can still deliver, the effect is that the weak battery will be deep discharged. The weakest link even gets weaker... So: I try to combine batteries of about the same internal resistance in a pack. This is where I find internal resistance comparison most useful.
Yes, I worked for SAP and used DB to get to Walldorf a lot. The good thing was that they had every hour a train to Switzerland. Sometimes the train from an hour before was quite on time ;-)
Good video and study. But a word of caution to all viewers... it is extremely dangerous to do such experiments, especially at home. Battery explosion, if happens, is very destructive and dangerous. Battery testing is done in very closed metal explosion proof rooms. If a novice repeats such experiment at home, could turnout fatal. I suggest put a warning at beginning and end of such videos.
I honestly highly doubt it, in my experiences its actually HARD to cause a explosion, I've only had lithium batteries explode or catch fire when I short it out for a long time or if I hit it with a hammer or bend lipos in half.
Guess after 30+ years spending too much time in front of screen do same dmg to my eyes and Im to sensitive :) it was honest suggestion, its not deal breaker form me :) if i stay with 1 eye only I would still watch your channel. Couple of you guys are for me like NG or BBC Science, mine comments are just my opinion how to make channel better. Keep up the great work. Tnx on reply.
@@AndreasSpiessHard data, no, put I have this: batteryuniversity dot com/learn/article/charging_at_high_and_low_temperatures I know that my car (an EV), has a heater on the battery and will not change if the temperature is too low. It will just sit there running the heater until it is up to temperature. Even then it will only slow charge until the temperature is optimal.
I read about the slow charge before the temperature is good. We only slow charge our batteries all the time. Unfortunately, there is no hard evidence about problems, just warnings. Some other commenters used Li-Ion batteries in cold winters and did not report issues.
Please, please, anyone watching this, do not charge Li-ion in negative temperatures. This only shows a single cycle, however these batteries degrade very quickly while charging in freezing temperatures, they also form various nasty things in the electrolyte, which can lead to fairly spectacular failure later on.
@@AndreasSpiess If it happens at normal currents, it happens at low currents as well, just at slower rate. Each cell is different and results vary. I work in this field and have tested hundreds of different cells in last 12 years, I've seen it happen, many times.
Love the "why do we know"? German like precision!
:-)
@@AndreasSpiess German "like" because its Swiss! ... REAL precision! :-)
Greatings from Norway. A rule of thumb about electric cars is that they in general provide about 60% of the summer driving length in the winter, but there are variations.
Some cars have problems in the summer if the battery do not have cooling - they can not handle more than one full charging cycle within a certain time - otherwise they will overheat. So this limits the driving length.
Many were sceptic about how long the batteries would last. It turns out that they are likely to outlast the rest of the car, at least that is what car producers say, but I think we should wait and see.
The latest news is that although about 40% of the cars sold i 2018 in Norway were electric, the gas/diesel consumption does not go down, so electric cars may not have the expected influence on the climate ... people drive more. But, ok, things would probably have been worse without electric cars.
Thanks for the update. I hope we will be able to accumulate even more experience from other viewers. I only own an e-bike ;-)
If you think car batteries will outlast the rest of the car just have a look at how well first generation Nissan Leaf batteries are holding up. The 30 kWh Leafs batteries have degraded at 9.9% per annum.
@@MrZiemwit 1) Non sequitur. 2) Electric cars are exempt from VAT in Norway, so if an electric car is expensive here, it is not the fault of the Norwegian tax system. Fossil cars are heavily taxed though.
@@KingJanIIISobieski First generations are old technology, old chemistry and poor battery management. Tesla NCA batteries hardly degrade at all because people have learned from experience and do science. They will get even better as more knowledge is gained, and research is accelerating rapidly.
@@MrZiemwit Yes, many of the wealthier Norwegians buy new electric cars for EU prices. The less wealthy Norwegians are less likely to afford electric cars. Not sure if I see your point, to be honest.
The regular lithium batteries (e.g. CRV123 3V 1800mA Varta) or AA/AAA (1.5V) are good for cold environments, another benefit that they can deliver the required power to serve an ESP8266, ESP32 or similar. My intensive testing showed that lithium batteries (e.g CRV123 Varta 3V) deliver 90% of their capacity above 2.9V. This is perfect or many MCUs.
For this reason our ECO Power LoRa boards for Arduino are using this CRV123 lithium batteries, which last for 5 years using our ESP32 LoRa board with regular LoRa communication.
Regards from Arduino Hannover, Helmut
Great video as always.
Interesting stuff! I now found my Lithium batteries. I will do the same tests as with the others. Good to know they deliver most of the energy above 2.9 volts. I just ordered battery holders to be able to use it in my projects...
Since you uploaded the video, I don’t expect large explosions;)
Good point!
Unlike electroboom🤣
hardik khatri
Did he stop uploading? 😲🤣
I would have held an "explosion containment pie dish" available (see bigclivedotcom :P )
-18C god I wish it had been that warm in Saskatchewan these last couple of weeks.
Poor guys! Here -18 is really cold!
While LiPo cell’s are commonly identified as being different from Li-Ion cells that isn’t entirely true. LiPo cells use a standard Li-Ion chemistry, lithium-cobalt-oxide (LCO), but can have a polymer (gelled) electrolyte. Many so-called LiPo’s use the standard liquid electrolyte though and those are a different chemistry Li-Ion cell.
I’m wondering if the increased voltage drop at higher current levels of the LiFePO4 cell you had was due more to increased internal resistance versus any differences due to chemistry. There can be huge differences between different cells unless their capacities, current ratings, and internal resistances are similar.
You mentioned that there were no other real advantages to LiFePO4 cells but they use the most thermally stable of the commonly available Li-Ion chemistries. The thermal runaway threshold temperature is the highest and the temperature of reaction, once in thermal runaway, is the lowest. They can offer real safety advantages and many LiFePO4 cells offer significantly longer cycle life than the other li-ion chemistries.
I strongly urge everyone to never charge a Li-Ion chemistry cell if it is under 0°C as that encourages the plating of metallic lithium inside the cell. This can eventually pose a real safety issue. EV’s typically preheat the cells or, as you mentioned, the charging current is reduced. It’s just easier to just not charge when they’re cold. :-)
E-One Moli Energy Corp has some very high performance cells that are rated for use down to -40°C. The low temperature charging limit is °C though.
That was a very interesting video. Thank you for doing it!
Good Input. Thank you! Do you gave information about this plating and how dangerous it is using small currents?
I mentioned the advantages of LiFePo4 in another video. Here I only referred to the „winter“ usage.
Andreas Spiess I haven’t seen the safety issues quantified as I suspect it is very chemistry and/or cell specific.
My apologies, I should have remembered that video. 🙂
Here are a few links I had saved about plating...
www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhe_Li36/publication/315506201_Investigating_Lithium_Plating_in_Lithium-Ion_Batteries_at_Low_Temperatures_Using_Electrochemical_Model_with_NMR_Assisted_Parameterization/links/594a34c84585158b8fd8d0ea/Investigating-Lithium-Plating-in-Lithium-Ion-Batteries-at-Low-Temperatures-Using-Electrochemical-Model-with-NMR-Assisted-Parameterization.pdf?origin=publication_detail
www.researchgate.net/profile/Qianqian_Liu23/publication/308273320_Understanding_undesirable_anode_lithium_plating_issues_in_lithium-ion_batteries/links/5ad01068aca2723a33469e02/Understanding-undesirable-anode-lithium-plating-issues-in-lithium-ion-batteries.pdf?origin=publication_detail
jes.ecsdl.org/content/164/13/A3403.full.pdf
Undefined Lastname yea, the existing Li-Ion cylindrical cells using the higher voltage li-ion chemistries (instead of LiFePO4’s lower voltage) top out at a 35A true continuous current rating. The pouch LCO (LiPo) Li-Ion cells can higher current ratings though due to their very low internal resistance.
Andreas Spiess there is the JEITA standard but I usually see it stop at 0°C. It does identify reduced charging rates as the temp goes high or low though.
home.jeita.or.jp/page_file/20110517171451_cub9MvYFEh.pdf
www.ti.com/lit/an/slyt365/slyt365.pdf
Battery Mooch : I read a lot of should and could in these documents. It seems that not a lot of investigation went into this topic. Maybe we really will learn from cars in cold climate. I would be interested in hard facts on how much life time a battery looses while charging in low temp and at low current. Do you know a source for such an investigation?
Excellent summary. I was wondering about this while watching a previous video and now you have gathered some good information and done basic testing to confirm manufacturer claims all in one video. Nice job.
The temperatures presented here are extreme for my location as we rarely go below zero in winter and rarely go above 25 in summer, so I seem to be well within all ranges.
Yes, you live in a "battery friendly" country ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess Yes, luckily. Actually it's a battery friendly city (Vancouver) in a battery unfriendly country (Canada).
Yet another master class from tge king of precission, thanks for sharing.
You are welcome!
How about a super cap?
I remember shooting with my DSLR in Poland one winter. I had several LiPo batteries, they would die as they cooled down in the camera, so I'd swap, and tuck the recently frozen battery inside my clothing...
They had plenty of charge left, just no enthusiasm to release it when they were that cold!
I kept going all day like that, never needed to charge them, just warm them up.
That is what I also heard. Maybe it has to do with the curves I measured and they just lost too much voltage when cold.
@@AndreasSpiess I think so, yes.
They are chemical after all, and chemical reactions tend to slow down with a temperature drop.
I think my freezer will get below -25c, I'll have to see what batteries I have to hand, and what I can test them with.
(I think I'll be checking the freezing point of dilute sulphuric acid first though, I don't fancy the lead acid's splitting!).
Thank you for another great video Andreas.
I'm using two 18650 Lifepo4 batteries from Soshine in parallel for a remote monitoring device (ESP8266). The device is in a northern country and this year I saw a peak cold of -31.5°C, while VCC (read on the ESP using ESP.getVcc()) was 3.13V. At -20°C VCC was 3.22V and at -10°C VCC was 3.25V. So voltage drop increases with lower temperatures, but they still worked fine.
Thank you for your feedback! So you can confirm my findings. Your country is really in the north ;-)
Nice work Andreas.👍👍👍👍 I overheated 2 lipos in the snowy winter.. now i know why. And worst of all... i always have alkaline AAs leaking in my expensive gadgets with low current.. so lithium AAs for those from now on.
Leaking is a different story and very difficult to measure as it involves a lot of parameters ant time.
Great timing. In the last week I have been experimenting with Li Ion batteries. I put up three videos. One on a cheapo charger, another where I opened a swollen Nokia phone battery and a third on a Macbook battery.
I am considering trying to build a home made charger. Like you I am hoping to avoid the explosions. Also I am taking the same precautions. The batteries I got are from old laptops. They are being stored in a metal tin that I insulated with a flame retardant plastic. The entire arrangement is then placed in an old microwave oven. I am hoping my risk of fire is practically zero now.
It is always good to care before something happens...
Systems utilizing battery chemistries sensitive to cold weather charging typically include a heater to warm the cells themselves for charging. Tesla has a dedicated battery heater, and I'd presume most other competitors do something similar. This is why Tesla owners in Norway etc are able to charge at cold temperatures - a heater is actively warming the batteries before going into full charge, particularly when utilizing the SuperCharger fast-charge systems.
I'm not clear on your testing methodology from the video - were multiple charge/discharge cycles run below zero? I wouldn't expect the cells to be damaged with just one charge cycle below the rated minimum temperature, but I would expect total life to be substantially shortened if this experiment is run several times.
I read about the Tesla heaters. But I also read that the new model does not have a heater. I also cannot believe you have to wait with charging till the batteries are heated to 0 degrees before charging. Maybe others will add what the other manufacturers do.
It is well possible that the life time is reduced. But I did not find information about that. Many applications also are high current applications which is not the case here.
I expected that I would not be able to charge the battery at low temperature. But this is definitively not the case.
@@AndreasSpiess Checking into it - it appears the battery heater was removed from the Model 3, because they are now able to use the motor itself to warm the pack without a dedicated heater, even while the car is not in motion. So, they're still heating the batteries, but not with a resistive wire as before.
That is what I read, too.
@@AndreasSpiessI agree. Comparisons to electric car batteries aren't valid as these have complex temperature control systems for heating and cooling.
luma Well, it is still a "resistive wire" :D it just isn't a dedicated one running through the battery pack. Instead everything is just piped where it is needed with coolant, since the battery pack syill has a coolant loop. It is a pity there aren't cost effective E-bike batterypack/motor systems with similar setups. :(
Have you heard about the Edison battery? It is made from nickel-iron. It is very heavy, but there are a lot of environmental advantages and they last decades. Maybe you should investigate testing this type of battery. I really enjoy your channel! Please keep up the good work!
No, I do not know these batteries. Wikipedia says they are no more produced for the mass market. So they would not be interesting for most of my viewers.
great video for "cold" situations. im always concerned with "hot" situations, especially when soldering the "power" part in my circuits...always feel its gonna explode and never sure if it is an urban legend or if it could happen...
I had one LiPo explode more or less after a deep discharge. Since then I believe the "urban legends" ;-)
Hello Andreas, good to see that your channel grow-up. Please, consider to notice on videos if batteries (mostly li-ions) are protected or unprotected that you use in your video. I see li-ions in your video are not protected.
Some people trying to learn stuff and using whatever they find. However, unprotected li-ions could be dangerous for people who is trying to learn.
Regards
I made a particular video about a LpPo protector.
Beware when using car or motorcycle batteries! They’re shallow cycle Pb-acid batteries, which means they can’t be fully discharged without being damaged, and they only withstand a few full cycles, in exchange for more current. If you want a general purpose Pb-acid battery, you need a deep cycle battery (which is slightly more expensive). Also, ideally, you should use SLA batteries, which are sealed and can be used in any position except downwards.
Thank you for your feedback. I think I mentioned the low voltage protection at 1.75 volts per cell.
This was the only battery I got easily. And the gel batteries in this shop were about 3x the price. I thought the curves would not be completely different for the one I used. In the meantime, I found the batteries you are writing (from Duracell) on the internet...
Thank you for this, its nice knowing the positives and negatives as I'm using leasure batteries for my solar shed system.
You are welcome!
0:39 Andreas: "Because this is a German fridge, and as we all know, these guys ..." The voice in my head: "... don't fuck around." Andreas: "... love precision". Oh well, same sentiment.
:-)
Most lead-acid motorcycle batteries are "sealed for life" units these days. No need to fill them up once you have done the initial pour and gently tapped the supplied plugs into place (usual supplied on a single strip.) Haven't seen the "top up" types for at least 10 years on my Honda's.
As you see you still get them ;-) The sealed ones were double the price where I bought mine (in a hurry). So I decided to purchase this one for the video. In my Harley, of course, I have another one :-)
Super!!! Looking Forward for More!!
:-)
Thanks for the very well done experiment.
You are welcome!
*The often used distinction between Li-ion and Li-polymer has nothing to do with chemistry* (it is used wrongly. *Pouch and cylindrical cells are just different form factors.* There are different chemistries within that class, but again that doesn't have anthing to do with the shape. The main difference is that the different form factors are built for different applications (high current vs. high energy density). They are *all* Li-ion batteries.
There are so many different combinations of electrode materials and electrolytes that just putting them into "li-ion" and "li-po" category, even if that were a correct distinction, would be pointless. My guess why "li-po" as a name came to be is marketing. Cylindrical cells were the norm when the somewhat "freeform" pouch cells came along. Someone heard about the "new" cell chemistry of real li-po batteries at the same time and slapped that label on their batteries, because, hey, they got a polymer sheet separator in there (as all of those cells, even the cylindrical ones, had anyway) and a polymer (=plastic) pouch around it, even when that has got nothing to to with actual li-po cells. Lipos true to the original meaning of the name (the electrolyte itself being a solid polymer) still don't exist commercially. I feel something similar is happening with the "graphene" label currently. Real graphene cells are nowhere near out of research (meaning nicely arranged graphene structures). Marketing heard about graphene being the future. Almost all cells use carbon on the negative electrode in the form of graphite flakes. Now tell someone that graphite is many graphene layers stacked on top of each other and boom, you got your "graphene" cells.
Btw. have you ever seen something like IMR, INR, ICR, IFR, LMO, NMC, NCA, NCO, LCO or LFP written on cylindrical cells or in their datasheet? Those signify different chemistries. Pouch cells could use the same, although they mostly are Lithium-cobalt-oxide chemistry (ICR/LCO, different manufacturers use different shorthands).
Thanks for clarification. In earlier videos I used „LiPo“ because this is how we name them here. Then I got corrected by viewers. I decided to use Li-Ion now. But this seems to be as false. I am an electronics engineer, not a chemist. If I read your comment I safely can stick with LiPo.
@@AndreasSpiess
Li-ion isn't false. It is actually correct for pretty much any rechargeable Lithium (well ion) based battery, even LiFePo are Li-Ion. They all work on the principle of moving Li-ions around. In a sense Li-ion is like "vehicle", while Lipo is like "car". Every lipo battery is a li-ion battery, but not every li-ion battery is a lipo.
While I would like nomenclature to be used correctly (but when has that ever happened when marketing got hold of a technical term), my main reason for pointing it out is to stop people from thinking that those cell shapes are completely different technology inside, while they are mostly the same thing built for different applications.
IIRC battery electric vehicles have a heater built in to the battery unit to prevent them from getting too cold. In some models at least, the heater is on and drains the battery even when not using the car to make sure it can start, so it's important to keep it plugged in when parked during winter. When you use the batteries they will heat up due to internal resistance, so it's not so bad, problem is to get started when the batteries are frozen solid I believe.
You are right. I read about the heaters in the Teslas and the problems. I also read that they charge at a low rate if the batteries are cold. This was my problem: We have some research for high current applications but none small currents...
_Do_not_ charge cold Lithium batteries! The Li can't migrate into the Electrode while charging and forms a metallic surface. After several cycles so called dendrites might grow from this metallic surface through the separator and short circuit the cell which will damage it or might cause it to burn. This can happen a while after a cold charging.
E-cars heat their battery compartments to prevent cold charging.
Do you have more information about low current charging? It would be very interesting. I read a lot of "should" and "would" and "can". But I did not find any evidence on how the lifetime of a battery is affected if charged with low currents in cold temperatures.
I read about battery heating. But I read also they charge at low currents before the battery is heated. And I read that the new Tesla has no more battery heating.
This is how it's currently tought at Univ., as the reason why BMS need low temperature charging prevention. I don't know if you can work around it by charging at very low rates. Concerning the heating it was said that once heated to charging temperature, the further regulation can be sustained by charging waste heat. This might explain the lower overall charging rate of E-cars when cold.
I've just searched for the paper that I remember but it's not online. The problem was the metallic Li that does give the benefit of a higher electric potential but with the risk of sudden local shorts. We had voltage plots of cold charged batteries clearly showing the higher voltage at start of discharge. When the metallic Li was used off the Voltage rapidly fell back to the normal discharge slope, so maybe the cell can be regenerated by discharging it down to the normal slope if possible.
This is interesting. I have seen some videos and read some information that suggests dendrites primarily occur when batteries are charged or discharged too quickly. I can't seem to find information about temperature specifically causing this effect, though presumably the fact that the material is cold changes the rate at which charging / discharging can properly take place (as you describe) so it seems plausible that the two are related. Here's an example video that shows it actually taking place:
ua-cam.com/video/_fu1zvqoDm0/v-deo.html
What they don't show is the failure point where a dendrite grows large enough across the gap to cause a short circuit. Up to that point you're just losing energy storage materials so it's less of a big deal. The main issue is the short which will cause the battery to catch fire or explode.
Would be good to see a paper or other detailed info on this.
@@AndreasSpiess I found a couple interesting articles...
1) This one discusses the use of neutron diffraction to watch the inner process of a battery and mentions lithium ions converting to lithium metal. To quote three parts of the article:
A) "However, occasionally lithium ions form metallic lithium instead of intercalating into the anode, as desired. The lithium deposits onto the anode and is no longer fully available for the described process. The result is a drop in battery performance. In extreme cases this can even lead to short-circuits. In addition, metallic lithium is highly inflammable."
B) "The faster the charging process, the more metallic lithium is formed."
C) "Low temperatures encourage the formation of metallic lithium."
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903105638.htm.
2) This one mentions in the section "Low temperature performance", a paper, which I looked for but could only find for purchase at $39.95, that it quotes as "Zhang et al.44 argue that poor performance of lithium-ion batteries at low temperatures is linked to poor charge transfer at the electrode/electrolyte interface. In fact, this poor charge transfer can lead to significant plating on the negative electrode during charging, which can cause irreversible capacity loss from electrolyte reduction."
jes.ecsdl.org/content/158/3/R1.full#ref-44
Nice overview of different technologies
So many choices these days :)
And even more, if I read the comments about other batteries I should have tested...
@@AndreasSpiess Yes, more!
And send me the code! 🙄
Some ppl are just ungrateful, and best ignored.
I learned something so 👍🏻 and thank you for the effort.
Good topic. I recently went on a hunt for USB flash drives with good low-temp operation for automotive use. I didn't test very many before settling on the Verbatim ToughMAX products.
Always great content, Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I think there could be a whole video on anti-patterns in battery use and misuse. Thanks for the this!
You are probably right. I wanted to focus this on low temperatures. I did a few other videos about batteries.
Cool! I've been hesitant to use anything but nicad in my projects. There are just so many exceptions to the rule with lithium. More info is good!
I added your video to my iron battery playlist for future reference. They all have pros and cons!
You are right!
Super-caps and solid electrolyte batteries are probably our best hope for ultra-low temp performance. Also, for capacity, fluorine ion batteries will be revolutionary.
Let's hope! I try to keep up with new technology. But only if it is widely available
Cars also charge batteries to a much lower termination voltage than the typical 4.2V you would likely use with compact DIY kit. The reason we don't charge batteries to a higher termination voltage than about 4.2-4.35V is that they quickly degrade above and can become prone to internal damage and venting with flame, so usually consumer electronics has its termination voltage adjusted such that the battery has a useful life of 500 cycles. In vehicles, much longer useful life is expected, and besides, it's imperative to avoid catastrophic failure under a variety of conditions. I wonder whether lower temperatures nudge the safe termination voltage downwards.
I assume you mean electric cars? I think it is generally good practice to not charge a battery completely if you do not need to. I can adjust my laptop to stop at 80 or 90% if I want.
@@AndreasSpiess Yes i meant individual cell charge termination voltage in Tesla and perhaps other EVs that use Li-Ion cells with these kind of chemistries that are usually otherwise used with 4.2V termination or slightly higher. They charge them to less than 70% if i remember right.
Out of interest, what brand/lineup of laptops allows such a fine grained adjustment? I have an old Lenovo Z500 which has two modes, 60% charge and 100%, but nothing in between; which is honestly a million times better than no adjustment at all, but if i were going to ever replace it, i'd like to retain or expand on this feature.
Mine is an old Samsung. They are no more sold here in Europe :-(
In serious applications, standard practice for extreme temperatures is to use supercaps. Dave played with one of charge controller chips recently.
Interesting idea. I have to check his video if he tried them in cold temperatures.
Which Dave are you referring to?
Excellent video Andreas! I still wonder why all manufacturers don't permit low temperature charging as of spec sheet. Is it just because of lower performance and deviating from standard test specs or laziness to test all variations? ... Uhmm... does it, perhaps, harm the cell in other (hidden) means? (Does it reduce number of charge cycles? Reduce capacity permanently? Maybe increases likelihood of internal shorts on individual cells when charged at nominal current?). What ever it is, keep on going Andreas, great job!
These are also my questions! I did not find any answers for small currents.
www.mpoweruk.com/lithium_failures.htm says irreversible capacity loss when charging lithium in low temperature
Thank you for the link. They write „when the electrodes can not accomodate the current flow, the result is reduced power and Lithium plating of the anode with irreversible capacity loss“. Which is what I suspect. On low charging rates as we use it for IOT it should not hurt the battery too much.
Yes in case of IoT load the risk is at charging only. Smartphones charge very slow and state of charge indication often jump. The 2nd effect is probably due to impedance which make voltage levels jump too and algorithms unable to conclude . Perhaps monitoring impedance when charging on solar would help. If the impedance jumps up the cell is unable to accommodate and current should be reduced.
As usual, always interesting.
Thank you!
Hi Andreas. As always, an excellent and useful video. I especially like how you point out things that may be different than the normal, such as at 3:02 when you point out the battery is a smaller one and at 6:52 when you mention that the testing only went up to 100ma instead of the usual 1A. Since you like to be accurate and complete in your presentations, may I suggest adding a link or mentioning in a video where your external references come from? For example, the table presented at 2:04 and other times in this video can be found at batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/secondary_batteries, although I don't know if the table is unique to them or can be found elsewhere as well.
Thank you! Usually, I put a link in the slide, but this time I forgot it. I will put it in the video description.
German loves precision, especially CO2 and NIH emissions by diesel and petrol motors as we all knew.
:-))
Last year I left my ebike LiPo battery (10x6S 5200mAh) on the roof overnight after half charging it with my home made solar panels. Was -20 °C. Rescued it in the morning and brought it in to continue charging - it appeared to confuse the charger and was showing weird charging figures, so I stopped and let it warm up to room temps then it continued normally. It didn't appear to have suffered any damage at all, but difficult to tell now as it's been used almost daily for 3.5 years and its capacity has somewhat reduced to about 70% after many hundreds of cycles. I was careful not to let it ever go below 20% state of charge.
I would follow manufacturers specs - if lithium starts getting electroplated, then it's irreversible and unable to take part again. It also risks forming lithium dendrites which can puncture the separators and cause a short - this is probably the reason for the urban legends about lithium batteries "exploding" while charging cold.
You are right with the following supplier's recommendations ( I think I also mentioned it). My question is how much lifetime we lose when charging with low currents below freezing. In many countries, this will only be during a few sunny days. Unfortunately, I did not find any tests about that.
Thanks for the nice video, though I would have liked to have also seen a test of the overall capacity at low temperatures! Which chemistry is the best for minimizing the drop in capacity at low temperatures?
Capacity tests in a fridge were too cumbersome for me ;-)
My understanding with the Lithium based batteries was that if you charge them at
This is often written. However, I only found papers where they charged at high rates. We charge at very low rates. So the danger is smaller.
@@AndreasSpiess Oh thats very interesting to hear! Yes there is not much data out there which is very frustrating!!
The advantage of Lifepo4 is that they are safer and handle more cycles...
You are right. In the past, I made a video about LiFePo4. Here, I meant only the difference at low temperatures
EV batteries have ususally heating and cooling systems. so when you say they charge slower, it is because the battery is first warmed up before full charging.
This is what I also found. But I found also people talking about the fact that they already start to charge even if they do not have ideal temperatures. But I am no specialist. I still drive a conventional diesel :-(
Well, unless it's a German fridge designed by VW engineers. In which case, the Display temperature depends on who is looking at the temperature.
:-)) and it runs with Diesel.
It would also have a check engine light on
very interesting! I have always wondered about batteries in the cold. But never had the gumption to try and figure it out.. always thought the lead acid would be the best for the cold because of it's longevity.. We have been using them a long long time.. oh by the way.. dig that hat!
I still think lead acid is a good "winter" choice if you have enough space.
Do'nt forget to have a good look at the components used for the charger!! Especially the one for the Li-Ion-types.
Even if the batteries don't have any problem, the electronics in the charger can be well off and not stop charging at the right moment. This can get quite dangerous as well. Many components behave quite different at low temperatures then nominal temperatures.
In higher-current applications, the charging itself will warm the electronics (and batteries) up but if you have real low charging current like on a solar-panel with (melting) snow on top you could have a cold charger pushing over the limits of a battery which can cause failing.
You are right. Many additional problems can occur in cold temperatures. I think small currents will reduce dangers considerably compared to high current applications. But interestingly not a lot of investigation was done below 0 degrees and small currents...
AVE pointed out that lead acid batteries will freeze and split their case if they are fully discharged. The acid converts in to a more water than acid state. They wont freeze if they are in a charged state.
I just got the link to his video and will watch it later. Thanks.
That is absolutely correct. Before maintenance-free Pb batteries became available, the drivers would need to ensure proper concentration of the electrolyte in the cells before winter. Special hydrometers were sold to car owners to assist them in this. (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrometer#Battery_hydrometer ) I remember doing these measurements and topping off the cells with my grandfather.
Electric cars have heaters built in battery pack. They heat battery up to optimal temperature if the temperature is too low.
Please test the charging with solar panels. It's realy interesting if solar panel can give enought power to a GSM device, which wakes up 1-2 times per day to send data through celluar network and goes to sleep again.
I made a video with all these calculations concerning Solar panels, battery size, position on the earth, and power consumption. But you have to do your own.
Interesting video as always
Thanks for sharing😀👍
:-) You are welcome!
LiFepo4 doesn't have advantages? They are safer (no explosion) but less energy density than other lithium batteries.
You are right. I meant in low temperature conditions. The rest is covered in another video.
Also, I think the have maybe 10x # of recharge cycles
@solidfuel86
In relation to low temperature. That was obvious from the context.
@@kwinzman ok jeez it has been a year. No need to shit on me now :(
@@solidfuel0 haha yes, sorry :-)
Interesting. However i hope the next months the temperatures will go up, not down!
A few years ago i had a solar charger (with [LiPo] battery) in my car.
The battery "exploded" on a hot day. (I don't exactly know what happened, but the volume of battery increased permanent and the solar package broke open. I expect due to the temperature in my car. In direct sunlight it can become very hot.)
Perhaps also the maximum temperature needs to be tested?
(And perhaps i need to build logger with sensors for min/max temperature at some different locations in my car to measure how hot it can become.)
Other useful info could be, What is the best way to store the batteries if not in use? Charged or discharged?
The problem with the sun shining into the car is that the temperature can go much higher than the temperature of the air around it if the surface e.g. is black. So it is best just to shield it from direct sunlight.
Concerning storage, I read that 3.8 volts per cell seem to be good for storage.
The problem was it was a solar charged power device that i put in direct sunlight in my car to keep it charged.
blog.jeronimus.net/2017/07/solar-charger-teardown.html
Lead acid batteries don't like deep discharge unless they are constructed to handle that. So the capacity is a lie if you can only use 20% of the rated capacity...
Another problem is that they can freeze after being discharged because the concentration of acid depends on the level of charge. When full, the concentration is high and prevents freezing but deeply discharged, the concentration drops and they become vulnerable.
Tesla cars are using heaters to maintain a decent battery temperature. Search UA-cam about that. You can actually loose charge if you plug it to a 110 socket because the heater takes more than 10Ax110V... and it uses some power from the batteries to warm them.
ua-cam.com/video/s92G6s3pyGg/v-deo.html
Thanks for the link!
@@AndreasSpiess check that one too: ua-cam.com/video/capOgUHPz9Q/v-deo.html
As far as I know Li-Ion batteries will degrade fast when charged below 0 C. This is because electrolyte moves slower and small crystals of Li begin to form between electrodes. After some time it can produce internal short-circuit or other adverse effects.
So if you make some sort of autonomous station you can dig battery underground to keep its temperature above 0 C, or make thermo insulation and preheat batteries before charging.
I also read about this effect but did not find any hard evidence for low currents :-(
Burry the batteries was also proposed by another viewer. A very innovative solution and not expensive!
@@AndreasSpiess Lower charging current means lower growth rate of Li crystals. At some point they will no grow at all as electrolyte will be liquid enough to dissolve them.
Good info !!
Thank you!
Really enjoying this in 2x
:-)
@@AndreasSpiess Love youuu!! ❤️
Actually now I know more about batteries. You shouldn't charge them below freezing. Cars in Norway they use extra energy to heat the batteries first. They are not being charged cold as you assumed. Charging cold makes holes in the membrane. Reduce number of cycles
I agree for high charging currents. But do you also have data for the small currents we use? I did not find any.
@@AndreasSpiess I am not sure but I assume a 0.1c charge rate will also cause extra wear. I think is nice video idea to test capacity at least after below freezing charging. I know that testing cycles and degradation is long task. But capacity testing could be done?
Here the tried the discharging at -30 (LoFePo4). And they say that these batteries can be charged down to -5C. There is a risk of „plating“ but I assume this goes somehow with the charge brought into the cell. ua-cam.com/video/3iLLAaX0lrI/v-deo.html
Very good video 👍
Thank you!
Thanks for your video. Useful.
You are welcome!
Hey.
I use Aku Li-ion CGA103450A in my atmospheric sensor all year round. This season, the minimum temperature was around -12, nothing bad happened. I just had to change the solar panel for better and bigger.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This is what I thought, but did not find any evidence.
Hallo Andreas, wie immer ein klasse Video. Noch eine Info: Tesla erwärmt den Akku bei tiefen Temperaturen zum Laden, um den Ladestrom zu erhöhen und damit die Ladezeit zu verkürzen.
Das habe ich auch gelesen. Allerdings habe ich auch gefunden, dass sie bereits ohne Heizung langsam laden. Das würde eher unserem Szenario entsprechen.
Great video.
It has been long time since we have seen your feline lab helper.
She does not always come at the right time ;-)
Hey Andreas. Can you make a review about the Dragino LT-33222L Lora I/O Controller? It is a cheap ready to use LoRa Controller. It would be interesting to see what it can.
Thank you for your proposal. I think this is another LoRaWAN product which will keep its specs as many others. These days a lot of very special LoRa devices come to market. Most of them are only interesting for a few people. I cannot test them all.
Andreas, have you happened to do some testing on lithium titanates after this video was posted?
No.
I dont understand your curves. One curve showing the voltage at 10 different discharge currents? Did you change the discharge current on the fly? Is there a time parameter hidden somewhere?
I changed the discharge cuttend from 0 to 1 A in 10 steps and measured the voltage. Like that you see it’s correlation. Time is not important here as I used a fully charged battery and it only took 2 seconds per step to get stable results (I use an electronic load for that)
@@AndreasSpiess Should we expect similar curves for half-charged batteries? Greetings from the other side of the Röstigraben.
I think so. Maybe a little steeper
Maybe thick insulation and a tiny heater(resistor/led) on the battery will work too
As marthale7 writes, most of the Teslas heat the batteries with a built-in heater
Really cool and inexpensive battery charger just bought it myselve
:-)
Electric cars batteries do suffer from cold, in fact they are not charged by regen breaking if they are below a certain temperature. Also tesla has a special function to warm up the batteries if you want to really use all the current they can provide in "ludicrous mode"
I did not know about the regen switched off. It seems to be agreed they loose capacity and I measured also a lot of voltage drop for high currents. My question is more: Do they loose considerable lifetime when only using small currents?
@@AndreasSpiess good question but even if they do loose battery life, it is still a less expensive solution compared to using supercaps 😅
I bury my LiPo batteries below the frost line (55cm here). Any pipe that can be sealed will do. They perform m/l the same year round. (LiPo batteries don't work well at -40C) Replacing them is ... annoying.
Very good idea. Thanks!
Hallo, Klasse Video. Leider ist mein Englisch etwas eingerostet.
Wie war das mit den 18650 mit Solarzelle laden und Arduino versorgen im Winter ?
Ist das Sinnvoll über das ganze Jahr ? Und wieviel Strom sollte die Solarzelle in etwa liefern ?
Gurß, Markus
Ich habe mal ein Video über Solar gemacht wo ich ausgerechnet habe wie die Batterie bemessen werden muss. Li-Ion Batterien stehen im Ruf dass sie unter 0 C nicht geladen werden sollten. Die Studien, die ich gefunden habe waren alle mit grossen Strömen. Kleine Ladeströme sollten ok sein.
Cool vid Andreas...its not much use for me tho.. we dont have them cold temps here!...its more worrisome that they overheat and spontaneously combust when ambient temps go above 45c!
That is what I thought when I made it. But I had a few questions about it in the past. And it was an excuse to tinker with the different batteries;-)
@@AndreasSpiess id be interested to see some info on the other end of the scale (high temps)...if youre brave enough! :P
Brave is a good word for chemistry and temperature :-)
here we have temperature of about 45C in summer days and ambient would be about 90C. it would be interesting how it behaves. i will try this summer and keep it in sun. lead acid batteries are probably ok. but they have lots of water. i don't know much chemistry.
Great video. Very helpful! Do you have data on high temps applications such as in tropical countries? What type of batt can withstand heat up to 40degC and last long?
I never tested batteries at high temperature.
Great !
:-)
THANKS !, very useful/helpful . . .
You are welcome!
There are 18650s made for low temperature conditions: Panasonic NCR18650F and Nitecore NL1829LTP / LTHP. I haven't tried them yet.
I am not sure about the NCR. It’s datasheet also says: No charge below 0 degrees. Where do you have your info from?
They are still specified for charging only over 0 degrees. voltaplex.com/media/whitepapers/specification-sheet/Panasonic_F_Specification_Sheet.pdf
Good evening, thank you for your informative videos. What would be the response of the batteries from your experiment at 50 degrees celsius or higher ?
I do not know because so far, we only have a maximum of around 35 degrees C...
@@AndreasSpiess Thanks for your answer . The reason for my question was because I live in Greece and we have a hot summer (35-45 degrees Celsius) in the shade, how do the batteries behave in these temperatures.
Ignoring issue of temperature, for me, LiPo batteries are just too scary to use in many projects. I prefer to use LiFePo4 where possible. Good capacity and performance, and not too scary. NiMh are still suprisingly usable and a good option for legacy devices. Lead acid are good for extremely long life and almost indestructible, extremely tolerant of abuse.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Lead acid has to be kept near full charge all the time. NiCd is the chemistry that's the toughest in common use.
Last winter, i used a 18650 Li-Ion cell for my ESP IoT Project.
At the nighttime it reached about -25°C, and at the daytime it was about -5°C and my 6V 4.5W Solarpanel charged the cell without problems up to 4.2V.
Nothing explodet.
Thank you for your feedback. This is what I thought. But did not find any info...
@@AndreasSpiess No problem.
I was abit scared too, but was amazed how the cells worked at nighttimes to keep the ESP alive.
Thank you for another great video! Please consider that the aliexpress link for the LiitoKala Lii-35A says "Can not deliver to Greece". If this is an affiliate link, would you please ask LiitoKala to enable shipping to Greece? They have it enabled for all their listed items but not for this :(
I heard from other viewers that they do not deliver to all countries. Maybe it has to do with the carriers not transporting batteries?
I do not know of another supplier for that particular battery.
I wrote them a message...
@@AndreasSpiess Thank you for the reply and for the message you sent them! No, it doesn't have to do with the carriers because the same shop is sending its other batteries to my country.
They replied they currently cannot send these batteries to Greece. No explanation.
@@AndreasSpiess Ha! They can only send 100 pieces... Thank you for attention. Have a nice weekend!
well made
Thank you!
Andreas, do you expect that Na batteries will come anytime soon and change our lives for the better?
I do not know. For sure not for such small projects.
@@AndreasSpiess :) okay, sure but let's not forget the ecology :)
When i use my (li-ion) battery-electric chainsaw & blower-vac, after i've used up a battery it's still too hot to start charging immediately. So sometimes i will put it into the freezer for 5mins to cool it down. Then when i plug it in to charge, it starts immediately.
ps: Yes.... i do keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't catch fire, coz who knows, that's part of the fun of technology :D
And especially of the Li-Ion technology ;-)
more fishka please!
:-)
so wich technology they use in sattelites where is a big swings of themperatures? thanks
Good question. I do not know which batteries they use. Usually, they only charge when they see the sun and get warm. So maybe they do not suffer this problem of charging at low temperatures.
And Lithium Ceramic Batteries?
I did not have those in my lab.
Fast charging of batteries at temperatures below 0°C can be dangerous (depending on the cell type and the charging current).
Some quotes from batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/charging_at_high_and_low_temperatures:
"Charge advisory for low temperatures:
- Li-ion: No charge permitted below freezing.
- NiCd, NiMH: Charge at 0.1C between -18°C and 0°C. Charge at 0.3C between 0°C and 5°C.
- Lead acid: Charge at 0.3C or less below freezing.
Fast charging of most batteries is limited to 5°C to 45°C (41°F to 113°F); for best results consider narrowing the temperature bandwidth to between 10°C and 30°C (50°F and 86°F) as the ability to recombine oxygen and hydrogen diminishes when charging nickel-based batteries below 5°C (41°F). If charged too quickly, pressure builds up in the cell that can lead to venting. Reduce the charge current of all nickel-based batteries to 0.1C when charging below freezing."
You are right. But here, we charge very slowly. Especially in winter where sun is also low.
Be very careful with Lithium Thionyl Chloride Batteries .If the battery leaks the fumes will kill you easily .Thionyl Chloride is one of the nastiest chemicals around and requires super environmental controls when in use . As an Sr. Air Quality Engineer I would highly recommend staying away from this type of battery.
Best Regards
Gershon Schwartz
Thank you for your information. I did not know that. These batteries are recommended as "the" solution for extreme temperatures.
LiSOCl2 batteries (SAFT LS14500 AA-size costs €3,50 from regular German vendor) can be used for energizing an ESP8266 directly w/o an additional voltage regulator. I'm using them for bare-bone indoors BME280 p-T-h measurement-devices (www.dropbox.com/s/t9ylze8dlqavs9x/BME280.jpg?dl=0) sending MQTT messages every 15min. My two devices are up and running reliably for almost a year now and the voltage is still fine. It's important to add a small powercap as buffer for delivering enough current during WLAN connection and to optimize the sketch for low energy consumption as its best.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I will try it.
Hi Andreas, is it possible to do a video on how to select batteries for 2G and NBIoT modems so that the device can send messages for many years? It seems difficult :-) Especially when T range must be wide and high peak currents must be possible. Also the battery capacity seems given always in ideal low current condition, and drops significant if the current is a few hundred milliamps. Some high capacity batteries I found can give max 400mAh while modems have peaks > 1A. Can supercaps be used, or do they discharge the battery to much? Ifso can the supercap be connected by Mosfet when needed? Is it correct that we get at the end much more capacity when we use 2 * D cells in parallel then if we use 1 DD cell? Will the final capacity offered to the device be significant higher because of the I/2, even if the sum of 2*D capacity is the same as the DD capacity? Best regards from Eischoll :-).
1. Choosing a battery is not too difficult, but maybe you would not like its size. You measure the average current consumption for one cycle of your sensor and then, you multiply it with the time. Then you get the needed capacity in mAh.
2. To "break" high currents, most concepts use capacitors as their capacity is big enough (the spikes are short).
3. There is nothing like free capacity. You just add it. 2 batteries have 2x the capacity if you run them in parallel.
@@AndreasSpiessSorry, I think I not explained it clearly. Both batteries offer the same voltage. And the total energy of 2 * D size is the same as the 1* DD size. I just wondered if 2 * D batteries in parallel would be able to give more energy at the end because the 2 D cells would give each a lower current if placed in parallel. In the specs they show that the energy that can be given by a battery is not a constant, but is highly affected by the current the battery must give. At first glance the size and total capacity of 2 * D is the same as 1 * DD, but by looking at the specs it looks like the 2 * D in parallel will last much longer because of the lower current, even if for every transmission the current and voltage offered to the device is the same in both cases. What is your opinion? Thanks.
Why have you stopped numbering your videos?
I did not stop it. Just the last 10 or so
so, as the video is two years old now it maybe worth to ask. Do you have Andreas some long term experience about charging Li-ion battery with small solar cell during winter time when it is below 0 Celsius outside? I would be interested to such experience...thanks!
I had a few outside during the last winter. But it was not very hard. So no problems.
Anyway I learned that charging can create some internal structures which can puncture the insulation. So this seems to be a long-term process. Maybe we just do it and change the battery when it died after a few years...
@@AndreasSpiess thanks for your reply! Very valuable experience. So, then it can be a long process to kill a battery with winter time, outdoor charging. But eventually if I want to be sure that no battery dies due to charging at sub-zero Celsius conditions then simply don't charge them when having such weather conditions. So, probably worth to build in some 'switch-off charging' mechanism if it is under 0 Celsius.... thanks again!
Noticied you used a similar Liitokala charger as I use, with one difference if I saw it well. Mine also somehow measures and shows the internal resistance of the cell (they call it mR, in stead of mOhm, but OK, you cannot have everything). The resistance is a parameter I like to observe in judging how well the battery (still) is. Even within packs, this internal resistance of cells can be different, which causes the ones with higher resistance to fail earlier then the rest of the pack. Also this resistance is different from technology to technology, which makes a difference as too how high a current a certain technology can cope with.
So: is there in your opinion any value in observing the internal resistance, or is it a parameter I should ignore?
My device does not calculate the internal resisance. I think, as you write, this parameter is important. However I am not sure if it is constant and easy to measure. But as an indicator to compare your batteries with eachother it should give you an indication. The question is: What do you do with this information? At which resistance do you throw a working battery away?
@@AndreasSpiess That is a good point, I throw them away when.... I can no longer charge and discharge them with a meaningful amount of energy. At the same time, I notice that the internal resistance has increased. So, although internal resistance is an indicator, I throw them away they become useless as a battery. The thing I do use internal resistance for, is when I combine batteries in series in a pack. Because the high resistor ones hold less energy (my theory anyhow), they form the weakest link in a pack.... and when the high capacity ones can still deliver, the effect is that the weak battery will be deep discharged. The weakest link even gets weaker... So: I try to combine batteries of about the same internal resistance in a pack. This is where I find internal resistance comparison most useful.
LOL, a comment about German precission from a Swiss guy? Ever tried Deutsche Bahn? :)
Yes, I worked for SAP and used DB to get to Walldorf a lot. The good thing was that they had every hour a train to Switzerland. Sometimes the train from an hour before was quite on time ;-)
What about NiZn rechargeable bateries?
I did not test them. They are quite exotic. Therefore I do not know the behavior.
I use them quite a lot, they are good replacements for Alcaline bateries
Good video and study. But a word of caution to all viewers... it is extremely dangerous to do such experiments, especially at home. Battery explosion, if happens, is very destructive and dangerous.
Battery testing is done in very closed metal explosion proof rooms. If a novice repeats such experiment at home, could turnout fatal. I suggest put a warning at beginning and end of such videos.
I honestly highly doubt it, in my experiences its actually HARD to cause a explosion, I've only had lithium batteries explode or catch fire when I short it out for a long time or if I hit it with a hammer or bend lipos in half.
So you are probably not an early adopter of e-car technology ;-) I agree to pay attention as I had once a LiPo which nearly exploded just like that.
Fridge != Freezer ? Am I wrong?
I am no housewife ;-) But you are right!
In today's global warming, you should test the batteries at +30 degrees and above 😉
Your "Wort in Gottes Ohr". This winter was still too cold and too long for me...
"Our" precision is nothing against Swiss precision, I tell you :)
:-) BTW: Your comments still end in the „blocked“ department.
@@AndreasSpiess Yeah thanks :) Someone has to play the role of the black sheep. Not sure if I should contact Google / UA-cam because of that.
Come on, our precision is nothing against Swiss :)
Source: see trains.
I use DB quite often. The trains are nicer than ours, no doubt. But the punctuality... here you are right!
Hi, one sugestion, can you swap white background to some shade of gray, it is hard on eyes on big screen close to you :) tnx
Nice info video.
Maybe. So far nobody had problems with the white color...
Guess after 30+ years spending too much time in front of screen do same dmg to my eyes and Im to sensitive :) it was honest suggestion, its not deal breaker form me :) if i stay with 1 eye only I would still watch your channel. Couple of you guys are for me like NG or BBC Science, mine comments are just my opinion how to make channel better. Keep up the great work. Tnx on reply.
You can charge Li-Ion that cold... Just don't expect many charge cycles.. :(
Do you have data concerning that? It would be very interesting...
@@AndreasSpiessHard data, no, put I have this: batteryuniversity dot com/learn/article/charging_at_high_and_low_temperatures
I know that my car (an EV), has a heater on the battery and will not change if the temperature is too low.
It will just sit there running the heater until it is up to temperature.
Even then it will only slow charge until the temperature is optimal.
I read about the slow charge before the temperature is good. We only slow charge our batteries all the time. Unfortunately, there is no hard evidence about problems, just warnings. Some other commenters used Li-Ion batteries in cold winters and did not report issues.
@@AndreasSpiess sounds like a great idea for another video. ;)
Please, please, anyone watching this, do not charge Li-ion in negative temperatures. This only shows a single cycle, however these batteries degrade very quickly while charging in freezing temperatures, they also form various nasty things in the electrolyte, which can lead to fairly spectacular failure later on.
Where do you have the proof that this happens when charging with small currents?
@@AndreasSpiess If it happens at normal currents, it happens at low currents as well, just at slower rate. Each cell is different and results vary. I work in this field and have tested hundreds of different cells in last 12 years, I've seen it happen, many times.
And what is the effect? Good to know a specialist because most people only warn with no concrete effects.
@@AndreasSpiess well the most usual problem is capacity loss at each cycle. At -10C some cells degraded hundreds of times quicker.
Do you have any recommendation for how to accomplish charging in freezing temps with li-ions or maybe some other compact rechargeable battery type?