Comments on: A battery of questions about lithium ion

With no suitable replacement for lithium ion batteries on the horizon, slow progress on this notebook battery technology may have to do.

[stamutt]

No mention of Altair Nano's Battery

Altairnano (ALTI) has a battery that is superior to what is out ther now. It is currently being used in Pheonix Motorcars SUT and SUV.

[jimafrost]

Next revolution probably won't be batteries

I'm dubious as to the likelihood of a significantly improved battery any time soon, although fuel cells might work out at least for certain kinds of user.

What is likely to dramatically change the runtime of portable electronics in the near future is e-ink. Reflective displays that need charge only to change state should change everything; they're many times more efficient than LCD technology.

There are many practical problems with the technology today (Sony's ebook, for instance, takes ~1sec to change pages and flashes when it does so) but it's evolving fast and I would be surprised if the next few years don't see the technology become practical at least in certain applications.

Even if that doesn't happen it's likely we'll see other more-efficient display technologies make their way to laptops sooner rather than later, like alternative backlights or OLED.

[GGGlen]

Huh?

Lithium Ion?
Apple shifted to Lithium Polymer long ago. Guess 'cos Dell didn't
do it, it doesn't count :-P

[No_Man]

Not a significant difference

The only differences between Lithium Polymer and Lithium Ion are that Lithium Polymer is lighter and can be manufactured in unusual shapes (i.e. not the typical rectangular blocks). In terms of capacity, they are virtually identical, which means it would be irrelevant to mention it in this article.

[richande]

Lithium Ion in the RC airplane

The RC folks have been struggling with Lithium Ion batteries for 2 years now, the problems arise when charging the batteries. Several garages burned down while charging these batteries! many planes have burned, no improvement in site. there are comercial charging "Vaults", fire proof cans to charge the batteries, even so you NEVER leave the batteries charging, & go eat dinner.
Richande

[ethana2]

Here was my idea for a laptop

www.ethana4.blogspot.com

Main points: use the back of the screen for either heat dissipation or solar panels. Or, hey, half and half, maybe? And for goodness sake, give hard drives more optimal voltages. One high one for the motor, one low one for 130 or 90 nm electronics.

[regulator1956]

RC Fires ??

"" The RC folks have been struggling with Lithium Ion batteries for 2 years now, the problems arise when charging the batteries. Several garages burned down while charging these batteries! many planes have burned, no improvement in site. there are comercial charging "Vaults", fire proof cans to charge the batteries, even so you NEVER leave the batteries charging, & go eat dinner.""

Where are they getting these batteries from? Are they trying to quick-charge a battery that isn't suppose to be quick charged?

Why would the RC guys have fires with the exact same technology that is used by notebooks that have had only the Sony issue?

[skrubol]

Maybe a missing piece of technology?

In pretty much every commercially available consumer electronics Li-ion battery pack there is protection circuitry to keep the pack from being overcharged, charged too fast or drained too fast (most also have protection from being overdrained, but that isn't a safety issue.)
Maybe some RC packs (especially if they're homebrew) don't have this circuitry. Most of the stories of exploding cell phone batteries have been due to generic batteries where this protection is either missing or ineffective.

[amarctaylor]

RC Fires Clarified

The problems occuring with rc batteries are due to physical damage to Li-Po batteries and not the standard Lithium batteries used in 99% of electronic devices and laptops. When Li-Po batteries have been dropped or exposed to too much heat they are very likely to catch fire whether or not they have an electronic overcharging circuit.