If you were to look at most of your high end electrical devices such as laptop, personal digital assistant, cell phone, MP3 player etc, most probably it will be powered by a lithium based battery.



What are your driving habits? What are the longest distances you will be traveling? When driving a pure electric vehicle; if the battery runs out completely with no charging stations available you will be stranded. With the long charge times, it will take some time to make the vehicle usable again. This is where the extended range cobalt mine Volt becomes more practical. Filling up the gas tank is faster than waiting for the battery to charge.

Deterioration is a function of temperature and charge level. Don't make the mistake of storing the battery fully charged, as that is the state where it breaks the fastest due to heat. Charge it to take it out and put it like that on the back seat of your car avoid direct sunlight and preferably put the mini lithium facts notebook on a firm flat surface while operating it.

The basic rule of getting a replacement battery is that it should have the same voltage as the original. An 18V drill cannot run on a 12V battery. It can only run on a 18V battery. The other thing is that the physical packaging of a battery can be different from company to company. A 12V Ryobi battery may not fit into a 12V Makita cordless drill unless the battery has the right physical dimensions. So make sure the replacement battery looks the same as the old one before you order it. Also, if you are looking for a replacement battery of the same voltage rating and by the same company, know that battery technology is changing rapidly. An 18V lithium-ion battery has a different physical packaging than a NiCad 18V battery.

But that means that laptops need to have bigger batteries and bigger batteries mean bigger size. Laptops won't be portable and convenient to carry in this case. That's the reason why laptops have compact batteries that gives it a sleek look. But these batteries don't lithium bettery stock have good battery-life.

All power tool batteries degrade over time and lithium ion batteries degrade more rapidly over periods of un-use. Accordingly, use them often and when you're not in the trenches of a project, try to use them at least once each month.

There are a couple of more considerations about choosing your cell phone battery which we cover with a later post. And don't forget the holidays are coming up so make sure you take a look at various face plates and extra batteries to enhance your gifts!