Shin, this is 7th week in the row you've shown new battery invention to the class
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but honestly, what's the deal with same-y headlines about batteries? can we have articles that actually keep observing these technologies as they progress after being invented?
Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because:
[ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.
[ ] it will be too expensive for users.
[ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.
[ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.
[ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.
[ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.
[ ] it has too short of a lifetime.
[ ] its charge rate is too slow.
[ ] its materials are too toxic.
[ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.
[ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.
[ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.
[ ] by the time it ships li-ion advances will match it.
what metrics could you use for "progress"? Maybe a crowd-sourced thing where users can update the highest achieved density for each? Still there's other measures that are probably even more important and harder to measure. Like adoption
EDIT: actually I just realized I'm describing Wikipedia
I don't think anyone is intending to or wants to develop new batteries for consumer applications like that. The point here is large scale energy storage and maybe EVs which could be the closest thing to consumer tech. Lithium vaee batteries started development in the 1970s so that gives you an idea of the order of magnitude of the timeline. Hopefully that cycle is shorter now due to greater upfront interest and better tech
Modern chemistries don’t really do 1.5V (nominals are usually above 3V), so you need to package a buck and a boost converter alongside your cell(s). There are li-ion and LFP batteries in alkaline formats but they’re hardly going to be ideal, you’re probably better off going with 18650.
On the other hand, it's quite rare that a tool takes a single 1.5V cell. Many of them will take 2 or 4, and then you can make a double form factor 3V cell that will fit in most double AA holders.
I've also seen manufacturers who make 3V or 3.2V cells in AA format, and then supply a dummy AA-shaped link with it, which is just a straight-through connection like a wire. Put one cell and one link in your tool, or two cells and two links.
Retrofitting is =dumb=, like very dumb. The nominal voltages are different to begin with. However not that only - retrofitting in general is not a bright idea: case in point LEDs into E27/E17 incandescent fixtures.
In the case of bulbs you could get a better form factor, but no one's doing that, they're just using non replaceable bulbs.
Batteries. Are you going to get rid of your TV just so you can use a different battery chemistry? There have been various chemistries available in AA. Would you rather we have even more battery sizes to keep track of?
B/c the LEDs require a driver which runs on DC [the better case is constant driven], the space constraints are too high and there is not enough room for heat dissipation which in the US kills the driver (as running on 110/120AC is less efficient), and in Europe it tends to kill the LEDs because they get to be overdriven, but the driver dissipates less heat. The power factor on all them tends to be atrocious, usually 0.5phi. They tend to quite noisy, esp. when it comes to EMF. In short there is not enough space to have a decent LED driver along with enough space for heat dissipation for the LEDs (usually only 15%, being generous, of the energy will be emitted as light. The rest is heat, so if you see 8W of LED, more than 6.5W is just heat)
Pretty much almost all LEDs you can buy in a retrofit case are almost guaranteed to be overdirven to show better numbers and be 'brighter'. Near ceiling larger fixtures can be designed for LEDs. They tend to have an actual 15-30k hours lifespan.
Dimming the LEDs is the next atrocity, esp. when it comes to chopping the sine wave. The LED dirvers have to work with the chopped sine wave and detect how much it has been chopped to reduce the current or the PWM.
About the AA(A) and the TV. I can control the TV w/ bluetooth and an app but I find that incovenient. However NiMH nominal voltage is 1.2V which fits the 1.5 of the alkaline batteries. It's good enough already. So yes, it takes different chemistry unless the remote controls provide built-in step-up/step-down converters, effectively variable operational voltage.
Most of this problem becomes a non-issue with the advent of LED filament bulbs. That's pretty close to the holy grail IMO.
And besides, making everyone change every fixture in their house in order to take advantage of LED would just have meant it never happened. E26/E27 bulbs are going to be around for a while.
Just lots of LEDs in series with higher target forward voltage. Still, LEDs are current driven devices and quite temperature sensitive, and still need a driver. The issues are not that different.
>That's pretty close to the holy grail IMO.
I guess we have a very different idea about the grail, then.
We probably do. I like that filament bulbs have much smaller driver requirements and much better heat dissipation, and I can stuff 100W bulbs into enclosures without worry. The only thing I don't love is that they are somewhat more prone to flicker. Not enough that my eyes notice, but some might.
One of them has gone in the past 10 years. So they must be around that lower bound by now.
Tbf I don't think subsequent ones have been too bad.
Re your TV.
Ok your TV might be, my TV isn't, and I have plenty of other remotes, and then there's clocks and weighing scales and kids toys and all the other things that use aa batteries.
> I think it's more a case of enshitification.The first LEDs I got were metal bodied.
The heavier the better when it comes to such LEDs. Yes, it's possible to make them work okayish, and control the temps (LEDs should not go over 60C) but that would show poor lumens (and watts) on the box, and be expensive.
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but honestly, what's the deal with same-y headlines about batteries? can we have articles that actually keep observing these technologies as they progress after being invented?