Talk:Battery nomenclature

ANSI letter code for NiOOH
In the 2009 edition of C18.1 part 1, ANSI added the letter code "N" for Nickel oxyhydroxide, according to an errata document fixing errors on the datasheet for size 24/AAA. I believe it is OK to add "N" to the ANSI table. 74.213.71.21 (talk) 14:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

CR123/A
CR123 and CR123A seem to be equivalents to CR17345 (17mm diam, 34.5mm long) and is how they seem to be more prominently labelled. Since CR123[A] is such a common label for consumer/camera batteries can we explain the 123 please. (CR being Li-MnO2, Cylinder). - Rod57 (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Compare with standard
Someone with access to the IEC standard or reliable sources should check the tolerances listed on cell dimensions. they seem inconsistent with other sources - the diameters may be maximum, not typical. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:38, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The standard doesn't give tolerances and all dimensions given are either maximum or minimum depending on dimension.--Lead holder (talk) 13:44, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Still a stub?
This does not seem to me to still be a stub. Unless anyone disagrees, I think we should remove that tag. KConWiki (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

ANSI numbers
Does anyone know how the ANSI size codes are allocated? Looking at the Energizer web site product listings:
 * 2-digit seems to be standard single round cells or flat cells,
 * 2NN are radio B batteries
 * 7NN looks like old-time radio batteries in a range of voltages - 1.5, 300, 45..
 * 9NN lantern batteries except 910 is an N cell and 906 is a Number 6 cell
 * 11NN silver oxide button batteries (and obsolete mercury button batteries
 * 13XX obsolete 3 cell 4.5 volt packs
 * 16NN are 9 volt batteries
 * 50NN coin lithium and photo lithium
 * 70NN zinc air button batteries

I'm too cheap to buy the standard, and we have no excuse to buy it at work. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:47, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That seems to fit, but there seems to be no system in place. Maybe it is like the old IEC and numbers are given consecutively, there are gaps because of removals and obsolescence. Perhaps the numbers are a throwback to an even older standard where the first number was to signify chemistry or use and the letter codes came later.
 * Also, 7004Z appears to be a Zinc-air PP3. Never heard of them.
 * 14XX seems to be where odd little ones get chucked in, like those odd little J batteries that I haven't seen since I was a yoof.
 * 11XX does indeed seem to be silver oxide mostly, but there also appears to be the odd Alkali and Lithium cell in there too. They are all button cells as far as I can see though.
 * Oh well, without the up-to-date standard little else can be added I suppose.--Lead holder (talk) 18:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

IEC diagram
The IEC nomenclature diagram is useful, but a little misleading - the first numerals aren't always a diameter. An LR6 cell has no dimension that is 6 mm.--Wtshymanski (talk) 15:57, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's the annoying little backward compatibility thing. I'll do something about it shortly.--Lead holder (talk) 17:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * At last the mystery of LR61/LR8D425 is solved - I'm sure the last time I checked for an on-line edition of IEC 60086.1, we didn't have access to it. It didn't make sense that the same cell has two different numbers, though R44 and R1154 are still the same cell. The standard explains about pre-October 1990 designations vs. later ones. And an R06 cell is smaller than an R6. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:16, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing R1154 is just the modern format for the R44 type. A D would end up something like R34615 ... I can see why they kept the old standard for some types.--Lead holder (talk) 20:33, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The post-October 1990 designation system, according to the 2000 edition of 60086-1 (the one I have read), clause A.2, applies only to batteries (single- or multi-cell), not individual cells. For round batteries (section A.2.1), the diameter and height codes refer to the diameter and height of the overall battery (including flat-top terminals if any), not the diameter and height of its constituent cells. So when companies like Duracell and Energizer describe their 2CR1/3N lithium battery (Duracell PX28L, Energizer L544 datasheets) as IEC-2CR11108, it seems that they are not properly following the modern IEC naming rule; indeed, the name given to the same battery by IEC in 60086-2 is 2CR13252. Also, the rule for non-round batteries given in section A.2.2 specifies that the height code (regardless of whether it measures less than or at least 100 mm; read sections A.2.2.1 & A.2.2.2, respectively) is given in integral millimeters (not tenths of a millimetre as is the case for round batteries less than 100 mm wide or tall). So when Duracell describes its 9V alkaline battery as 6LP3146, the "46" there stands for the integer of the battery's overall height of 46.4 mm (excluding the snap terminals since they aren't flat-top); coincidentally, this same name is given as an example at the near end of 60086-1 § A.2.2.1. Finally, these new rules for round and non-round batteries, when applied to multi-cell batteries, do not seem to care whether the batteries' constituent cells are round or prismatic - they only seem to care about the batteries themselves' overall geometry. So, the 6LP3146 designation I mentioned above would still apply to the 9V battery regardless of whether it is actually made up of six LR61-size round cells or six LF22-size prismatic cells; IEC even goes beyond that example and suggests in 60086-1 table A.9 the names 2P3845 and 2P4036 for (respectively) the grandfathered sizes 2R5 and R-P2 (used to describe the 2CR5 and CR-P2 lithium batteries in 60086-2), even though these batteries are most-commonly described as double-cylinder (rather than merely non-round) geometries. I would like to seek approval to edit the "Size code" section in this article to better reflect the rules specified by 60086-1:2000 and subsequent editions. 74.213.71.21 (talk) 20:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The 2006 edition of 60086-1 moved the whole annex A about nomenclature rules to annex C. So the clause A.2, the sections A.2.x and A.2.x.y I mentioned above, and table A.9 would now become clause C.2, sections C.2.x and C.2.x.y, and table C.9, respectively. 74.213.71.21 (talk) 20:17, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Are there any tolerances given in the current edition of 60086? Could we get rid of all those +/-.15 mm in the heights? It looks like the current edition just gives a maximum diameter. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no tolerance! So I think getting rid of that part of the table is a good idea.--Lead holder (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In part 3 of the standard (for watch batteries) there are tolerances. Previously I had checked 1 and 2 only. Well, serves the original guy right for not sourcing their edits! It may be why the table was originally entitled "Size codes for button cells" or something like that. Their only source was part 3. Although the size numbers are the same throughout, the only numbers in the table here are the ones mentioned in part 3. So that is my assumption. Maybe I add them again but comment they are just for batteries needing the "W" on the IEC number.--Lead holder (talk) 18:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

That's a product of merging in the table from a different article. I think it's adequate to say "60086-3 gives tolerances on dimensions for watch battery button cells carrying the W suffix" and leave it at that; no-one is going to be miking batteries based on a table in Wikipedia anyway.

Should we be distinguishing better between the primary (only) cells in 60086 and rechargeables? We've got some weaselly language saying "Some rechargeables are made in sizes compatible with primary cells" but we should probably avoid saying or implying that 60086.1 standardizes dimensions for rechargeable cells. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:58, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The thought amuses though, I think one foreign wiki (maybe Dutch?) I saw had quite a lump of stuff about making batteries, but it seems many foreign wikis seem to operate on lesser editorial standards ... not saying it's bad mind you.
 * Well, as far as I know, no other IEC standard and certainly not 60086 goes into specifics about rechargeable cell sizes. There are numerous chemistry, labelling and safety standards though. So it would seem that consumer rechargeable batteries are not actually standardised as a consumer unit, as such. I think there is little we can do until someone with more information comes here. Although removal of weaselly language and replacing it with better can never do any harm.--Lead holder (talk) 20:17, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I wonder where are the K, H, and PB system prefixes defined? They aren't in Table 3 of 60086.1. And Energizer's excellent site says that a D sized NiCd is IEC type KR35/62, using the oblique like a primary cell over 100 mm. Wish I had access to the ANSI or CSA standards but we've got no excuses to buy them at the office. What we've got will have to do; at least the standard explains the importance of October 1990 in IEC 60086 history. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:59, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah ... well that must be in one of the secondary cell standards. Although which one is anyone's guess ... could be IEC 61429, although that may be only relating to marking of safety and environment symbols for secondary batteries.--Lead holder (talk) 14:28, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The PB designation is not in any IEC standard I have read. I don't know who came up with PB, nor how the Japanese wiki editors came up with PB in their translation of this table, found here. Of all IEC standards I have read that deal with lead-acid batteries, the only one that introduces a nomenclature similar (but not equal or equivalent) to 60086, the 61056-2 standard that deals with general-purpose valve-regulated Pb-acid batteries, does not use any letter(s) to denote lead-acid electrochemical system; it only uses the letters C and P to denote battery (not cell) geometry, and rather than denoting # of cells in series or nominal dimensions, it denotes nominal voltage (in V) and rated capacity (in A·h), respectively. So, if lead-acid is ever re-listed in this table, it should be listed without a system letter as is done with Ni-Cd and Ni-MH. 74.213.71.21 (talk) 20:17, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Japan...
http://www.baj.or.jp/e/index.html The statistics section is of some interest. The about part seems to go into technicals and looks like IEC stuff to me. The only standards from JSA that I can find that are JIS relating to batteries are C8500 onwards (with C8500 and C8515 being the most interesting), most are withdrawn, but the ones active are labelled as modified IEC standards which I suppose figures. Well, that concludes my flight of fancy for the night. --Lead holder (talk) 22:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, national restatements of IEC standards are kind of boring; the old JIS standards would be much more interesting,especially with dates. Same thing for the old British standards. I wish there was a policy that any standard 25 or more years obsolete could be posted on the Web!  It would make history collection so much easier. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Categories?
Does anyone but IEC committees use the category system? I think it's pretty obscure and could be skipped over here, or at least greatly compacted. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:05, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * ANSI mentions but doesn't define. It could be reduced, tabularised maybe. There isn't much more I can take away from it though, it is already pretty minimal.--Lead holder (talk) 17:23, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Battery Chemistry Standard (IEC)
Can someone access the IEC standards and verify the section? The only reference I could find is the Battery Technology Handbook (through Google Books) which is also listed in the citation for this article, but is from 2001. Apparently the standards have been updated a lot in the last decade. For primary batteries IEC 60086-1 ed11.0 is the latest (Feb 2011) and for secondary 61346 is obsolete and the latest is IEC 61951-1 ed3.0 from Oct 2013. It seems some new standards have been added. Also some of the data seem dubious, I changed a few by looking at the only reference listed, but one standard seemed off from real products as well.

As a part of that, I plan to erase lead-acid row from the table unless someone points me to a valid reference, as I failed to find a single example of nomenclature using "PB" in that IEC system (being 2 letters it would be very weird) and also the standard 61346 and its successor are for secondary batteries with non-acidic electrolyte, which obviously lead acid is not, and I could not find another IEC standard that governs lead-acid battery naming. 1wonjae (talk) 21:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Go ahead and remove. This was discussed 2 years ago in the section "IEC Diagram" and nothing was decided or done. So if you want to go to the effort, do so.
 * It certainly isn't part of the IEC nomenclature defined in 60086 at least (obviously). BTW, IEC 61346 has nothing to do with batteries.
 * The new 62133 doesn't seem to have any mention at all of nomenclature and 61951 seems to be giving a numbering system unlike anything mentioned here. So maybe secondary batteries are to be marked differently. I need to give this more time, perhaps after christmas I can have a proper study of the standards. I'm too busy at the moment.
 * --Lead holder (talk) 08:52, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Oops I meant to say 61436 which is given in the article as well. Though it is quite surprising to know that 61951 gives a new system because it directly replaces 61436. From what I can gather from the changelogs of 61951, J, S, and T types were added, which is weird because S is already occupied in primary. I don't have access to standards, but there are three groups of IEC making standards on batteries: TC21(lead-acid), SC21(other secondary) and TC35(primary). I managed to find a 60086-1 ed10 on the web, and it seems TC35 documents are quite well organized but others not so well. From my point of view it makes most sense to create 3 sections for each category and explain nomenclature rules separately.

Let me summarize here so I can help those with an access to standards:


 * TC21 group: 60095 seems to define lead-acid nomenclature as we know them (starting batteries). 60254 define traction batteries, and 60896 and 61056 also do something, but not as interesting.


 * SC21 group:
 * 60622 and 60623(Ni-Cd) - nicads are declining, but these documents are still in effect.
 * 60952 deals with "aircraft batteries"
 * Some docs not related to naming, I believe 62133 fits here.
 * 61951-1 and 61951-2. These merged many previous standards and seem to be the central documents on naming; strangely their titles are Ni-Cd and Ni-MH, but they should designate other cells as well. (On a side note, I looked at the parallel British Standards documents but could not find anything but H and K codes.)
 * 61960 deals with Li-ion. It seems they code it IC with I representing Li-ion and C being some specific chemicals, in this case Cobalt.


 * TC35 group:
 * 60086-1: general. It looks straightforward.
 * 60086-2: more technical stuff
 * 60086-3: watch batteries' dimensions.
 * 60086-4 and -5 deal with safety.

I will wait a few weeks more and then make some edits where appropriate. --1wonjae (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * OK. After one year I finally kept my word and made some changes, standards that I cited are available as pdf files on the web. Let's make it better from here. One thing though, in the image for the general naming rule there is a character for electrolytes, but I could not find a basis for this. I'm not good with the image and stuff so if someone could look into that it would be nice. IdentityCrisis (talk) 07:38, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I removed the electrolyte character, have no idea why I put it there in the first place. If it turns out it is needed, it can easily be reverted with little effort.--Lead holder (talk) 11:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The electrolyte character ("P" for Potassium hydroxide, usually omitted for silver-oxide batteries, and "S" for Sodium hydroxide) is used only by the watch-battery standard 60086-3; it is inserted between the height code and the "W" watch-battery suffix. I think it should be reinstated in the general naming rule diagram, with a note explaining that it only applies to watch batteries. 74.213.71.21 (talk) 18:58, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Chinese standard GB/T 10077-2008 锂原电池分类、型号命名及基本特性 (Classification, designation nomenclature and basic specifications for lithium primary batteries) lists a lithium-based electrochemical system not mentioned in any IEC document I could manage to read: "W" for Li-SO2, with nominal voltage given as 2.8 V. It appears to standardize seven cylindrical WR batteries, most notably WR14505 ("AA"-size) and WR17505 ("A"-size). Can someone with full (legitimate) access to the most recent IEC standards verify if IEC indeed standardized "W" for Lithium-Sulfur dioxide before I mull adding that entry to the IEC systems table? At least such chemistry is listed in the article "Lithium battery." 74.213.71.21 (talk) 18:45, 28 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Looking at the changelogs, it seems Li-SO2 and Li-SO2Cl2 were standardized in 11th edition, and their voltages revised in 12th edition, which is current as of this writing. The latter also implies that Li-SO2 is W and Li-SO2Cl2 is Y. However I would be reluctant to add this information to the article without actually seeing the newest standard, which is inherently hard because these standards are prohibitively expensive and are evidently not meant to have any sort of a research-friendly access. However, if we start gathering pieces of info taken from stubs like this or, worse, from manufacturers, it would become very hard to maintain this article up to a quality standard (which was the case up until few years ago, and still is for some other articles here regarding batteries) IdentityCrisis (talk) 03:09, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Decodification of Battery serial no
Exide battery no -A4F3A028839 Pl guide how to find year of manufacturing from this no — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.187.28.145 (talk) 17:32, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

No article on Li-MN02 battery chemistry
If there was a Li-MN02 battery chemistry or similar, this article could usefully refer to it. - Rod57 (talk) 12:00, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * See Lithium battery. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

18650 and the like
There is a common five digit system for lithium batteries, where the first two digits denote the diameter of the battery, the next two digits the length. The last digit is the form factor, where 0 means cylindrical. Examples: 14500, 16500, 18350, 18490, 18500, 18650, 26650. Might this relevant in the article? - Soulkeeper (talk) 19:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * (years later) This is the diameter/length code part of the battery designation ( see the article at "size code" and is used as a nick name for some common cell formats; the full nomenclature would give the chemistry and the letter R, at least. --Wtshymanski (talk) 04:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

History of the ANSI standard
This section is confusing and unclear on the history of US battery standards. It seems to say the first battery standards were made by the NBS, then ANSI tool over, then NEMA took over from NIST (nee NBS), and then ANSI again seems to be in charge. Both ANSI and NEMA are non-governmental standards organizations, and NEMA is generally concerned with factory electrical equipment like breakers and large motors rather than electronic parts. NBS/NIST is of course the governmental standards organization.

It would be better to clearly designate if we are talking about different organizations making different standards and then trying to harmonize them, or if we are talking about a hot potato somehow being tossed form hand to hand in some confusing manner.Loren.wilton (talk)
 * ANSI is the IEC member organization, and NEMA does the editorial work of preparing the standard on behalf of ANSI. NBS started this work in the US before there was an IEC to coordinate with, and while ANSI was still ASA. Ech of the organizations has or should have a link to read more about its history, which is an aside for this article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 04:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Dab needed "lithium battery"
The "Electrochemical system" table links lithium battery, but that's a disambiguation page. I'm 99% sure this should be a link to lithium metal battery. Is this correct? -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 11:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)