Ask Lemmy

26753 readers

1412 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

100

What items are made better than they used to be? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

96 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 51 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Batteries?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Beat me to it. Great minds, all that. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I've noticed the trend but if you know the fine details please feel free to share.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

In common consumer batteries, we saw the following evolution:

Dry-cell (zinc-carbon) batteries (late 1800s) - having a non-liquid electrolyte, these can be transported and used inside portable devices. They perform so poorly in sustained use that they led to the name "flash light" for the short runtime of portable lighting using them for power.
Heavy-duty (zinc-chloride) (late 1800s) - an improvement to dry-cell chemistry that roughly quadrupled runtime under load. Still used today for ultra-low-cost batteries.
NiCD (1940s) - a rechargeable substitute for zinc-chloride. Superior performance under extreme load, but otherwise low capacity, prone to memory effects, and a source of toxic waste.
Alkaline battery (1960s) - a roughly eightfold improvement over zinc-carbon under load, still very common today.
Lithium battery (1970s) - much more capable of sustaining high loads than alkaline, extremely shelf-stable, expensive
NiMH battery (1989) - a major improvement over NiCD, offering a rechargeable substitute with similar capacity to alkaline under light load and far superior performance under heavy load without the memory effect and toxicity of NiCD.
Low-self-discharge NiMH (2005) - Improvements in shelf-stability made pre-charged rechargeable batteries commercially viable, and allow users to store spare rechargeables charged.

And then there's the lithium-ion rechargeable. You're probably reading this on a device powered by one. It's much lighter than NiMH for the same amount of energy storage, and a bit better on energy per volume as well. Since its introduction in 1991, Li-ion technology has dropped in price by a factor of about 25, which is why electric cars are commercially viable now and weren't a couple decades ago.

Unfortunately, consumer devices powered by standardized, field-replaceable Li-ion cells haven't really caught on outside of vaporizer hobbyists and flashlights.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

compare a car battery thats lead based and heavy and not rechargeable, to the one in your cellphone that is more powerful and way thinner and safer.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The lead acid battery in your car is rechargeable

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

The battery starts the car and then the alternator charges the battery.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

By what measurement is a car battery, at something like 75,000mAh and 500 or more cranking amps, less powerful than a cell phone battery?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

energy density, depth of discharge, energy efficiency, lifespan