Electronic – How to Choose a Battery

batteriesportable

I would like to start off by saying I have little actual experience in electronics, so bare with me, and for all I know I could be way in over my head. Anyway…

I was thinking of making a rechargeable portable battery charger that is able to keep a smartphone charged for roughly 3 to 5 times the normal complete discharge time of the battery (so I would supposedly be able to make the battery on my smartphone last three to five times longer). I have a Galaxy S4 that I wanted to model the project after. The battery is rated at 2600 mAh, so I had figured I would buy a Li- ion (I assumed their wide use in electronics made them good for this kind of thing [specifically the Lithium Cobalt because of their large capacity]) 8Ah battery or higher, or two 4Ah batteries or higher. Doing a quick search on Mouser and Newark, I saw the prices for batteries rated at that Amp Hour level are expensive ($200 for a 12V 6Ah lead acid battery).

My questions are:
Am I missing something here? Am I looking at the wrong batteries? The cost to buy a "long term" charger for a smartphone seems to be between $30 and $100, half the cost of the batteries I found. Am I approaching this the wrong way?
If I am looking for the wrong thing, what should I buy? Or is it hopelessly expensive to make a portable battery charger, and I should just buy one?

Best Answer

For the average DIY guy I guess you have these technologies to tinker with:

  • Lead acid
  • Lithium (mix of different sorts)
  • Nickel Metal Hydride

By specifying it as "portable" you probably don't want the charger to be heavy. Then you can remove Lead acid from your list. The NiMH batteries have quite high energy density nowadays but the charging and maintaining of the cells are a bit more complicated than for Lithium. We assume Lithium for this case.

The nominal cell voltage for a lithium cell can be around 3.6V per cell (depends on make and model). If you're going to charge directly to the USB port you would need 5V input to the phone. So you would be best off using two cells at 7.2V nominal. This would then have to be converted with preferably a DC-DC to 5V.

The Galaxy S4 has a 3.8V cell with 9.88Wh. To double the battery capacity you would need an equal amount of Watthours (cell voltage x Amperehours) in your backup battery. Calculating for 10% loss in your DC-DC you would need a 7.2V cell pack of at least 1.35Ah.

And then you still have the task of doing a charger for your backup battery.