I got to thinking about this when I recently saw a photo online of the inside of a 9V Duracell battery. It was probably one of those "I was today year's old when I learnt..." kind of posts on Facebook. You probably have these Duracell batteries laying around the house in a kitchen drawer, use them maybe for your smoke alarm or flashlight?
Anyway, mind blown when I saw that that there are in fact six, sneaky AAA batteries wired together in that tiny little box 🤯 So to get 9V it's just 6x 1.5V batteries (AAA) all wired together in series. Makes sense, the voltage increases when wired in series. I don't know if I had ever thought about what was in there, but 6x AAA batteries....no way!
We live off grid in Hawaii and still have older, traditional lead acid batteries and so I kind of know what's inside those. Every 6-8 weeks I will top them up with distilled water and I can see the tops of the lead plates in each cell. lt's actually one of those chores that's a bit better now as I don't have to do it as often since I installed the Water-Miser caps. They help redirect evaporated water back into the battery, read our blog post for more details about those
So what's inside? Maybe some kind of thick, silver, lithium goop slopping around?!
But what's inside the Battle Born 100Ah lithium batteries on our boat? No clue, maybe some kind of thick, silver, lithium goop slopping around?!
Well spoiler alert, it turns out it's much like the Duracell battery and there are a bunch of smaller cells all wired together! There are 120 of them in total, 30 in each of the 4 'trays'
Each blue cell is 3.2V and 3.4Ah
Don't worry I didn't teardown our own battery, Will Prowse did that on his YouTube channel!! Check out his video below and also the shorter intro to what's inside your Battle Born battery.
It's worth mentioning there are actually some advantages to the cylindrical cells in Battle Born v. prismatic cells you find in other brands of lithium batteries:
Cylindrical cells | Prismatic cells |
gaps between cells allows for passive cooling, ensuring better distribution of heat & minimizing the risk of hot spots | susceptible to hot spots due to limited gaps between cells and poor heat ventilation |
allows even distribution of the internal pressures resulting in a lower probablity of leaks and cell 'bloating' | pointed corners may experience more stress and can become a weakpoint |
if one cell malfunctions it does not affect the rest of the cells or the battery pack structure | if one cell malfunctions it can affect the whole battery pack |
So hopefully mystery solved for you as to what's inside a lithium battery. All in all lithium is a nice upgrade from the lead acid or AGM batteries you may have aboard now.
More useable Ah capacity in the same footprint
Lightweight
Can discharge much deeper
Install in multiple angles (on their side, vertically etc)
Now much easier to include in the 30% Federal Tax Credits for going solar on your boat
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