Monday, September 19, 2011

How much capacity does a cell in a notebook battery roughly have?

Notebook batteries consist of individual cells, e. g. a 6-cell battery.
Is there any way to estimate the overall capacity of a notebook battery from the number of its cells? How much capacity does such a cell typically have?
Thanks.How much capacity does a cell in a notebook battery roughly have?%26quot;When selecting a battery, manufacturers will often list an amount of “cells,” where each cell has a certain capacity; thus a 9 cell has 50% more capacity than an equal model 6-cell battery. That is useful for comparing directly, but the story is more complex if you wanted to compare different batteries on different laptops. Batteries have a voltage rating (V) and milli-Amp hours (mAH), which, if multiplied together, give you milliwatt hours. For example, a 14.8 V battery with 4460 mAH gives you 66,000 milliwatt hours (66 watt-hours). You can compare batteries this way, but also keep in mind that different laptops have very different power requirements that vary based on the components and how well the operating system manages power consumption. Typically, bigger, heavier batteries will give you a higher watt-hour rating. A 6-cell battery may be the same form factor as a 9-cell, but the 6-cell will weigh less since there’s less chemical in it to hold onto that charge.

If you are a mobile warrior, you will want the most cells and/or most watt-hours you can get into your model so you can go 5 or 6 hours without a recharge. It is so painful to run out of power before you are ready. %26quot;How much capacity does a cell in a notebook battery roughly have?it depends which one you have really.How much capacity does a cell in a notebook battery roughly have?From the number of cells alone? No. From the mAh (Milliamp Hour), the voltage rating of the battery, and the wattage rating of the laptop.



Essentially it works like this...

If your battery puts out 15 volts for 6600 mAh... that's 15 volts at 6.6 Amp/hours. If you examine your laptop to see that it draws 15 volts and 3.42 amps... well, you've got almost 2 hours of battery life there... how do I figure that? Well, the laptop in this example draws at 3.42 amps. So, a battery that supplies 3420 mAh, or 3.42 Amp/Hours will power your laptop for 1 hour, if the laptop is used at full power. So, a battery that supplies 6600 mAh would provide 1.92 hours of power, for that laptop used at full power.



And there you go.



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