New battery tech: Things are looking good for e-flight...

I sent them an inquiry regarding discharge rates.

"Paul McIntosh" wrote in news:424b0481$0$15370 $ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net:

A fair concern. Actually, you'd think that the maximum discharge rate would be higher than the maximum charge rate, but if that's true, this would have a >48C discharge!

There are many unknowns that could make this un-fun for us, starting with price, then discharge rate, weight, etc. The article quotes 1000 cycles, which sounds pretty good to me . . . Judging from the dimensions, the new

600 mah cell is about 40% larger than a 10C 700 mah ETec cell; if this applies to the production cells, then they'll probably be about 40% heavier than the current LiPos, which wouldn't be a disaster but wouldn't be a feature I'd have requested.

Time will tell.

40% larger than current LiPos would still make them substantially lighter per mAh than NiCds. If they can get the safe discharge rates up, then electric flight will really "take off".

If the pack is capable of being charged in one minute, that means the charge rate, in amps, will have to be extremely high, probably on the order of 50 to 100 amps. This would be amenable to service in hybrid vehicles with regenerative braking and such. But what sort of setup would be used for charging an RC model flight pack in one minute? Bill(oc)

A higher amperage charger, but I'd be happy if I could charge it in under 10 minutes at a lower rate....

PCPhill

By the time these hit the market someone will have figured out that little detail. :-) Probably will use a miniature fuel cell in his field box. They have been promising these long before lithium came on the scene.

Red S.

I discussed this with a couple of battery wise-old-heads on Thursday. The consensus was that a Japanese company will often announce a great new breakthrough as soon as they discover that it is never going to work. If they intend to commercialize something they will keep it a secret until it is ready to sell.

They gave me a couple of examples of this practice, but I forgot them already, but look at all the wild announcements of small fuel cells over the last five years, but nothing ever happened.

Why do they do this? I don't know but they may be trying to boost their stock, or they may be trying to confuse the marketplace.

Another thought is that Toshiba claims a nano technology, which could mean anything, but typically nanos are expensive and are easily corroded.

Also, it was pointed out that making smaller particles for the anode and cathode has long been known to give you more charge or discharge current, but the self-discharge current also shoots up. The "nano" probably means that they are doing this. Wouldn't be bad for the R/C industry, but in most applications the self discharge is a distinct disadvantage.

So don't hold your breath on Toshiba, but I wouldn't be surprised if something like this happens in the next few months from another company.

Best regards mark

PCPhill wrote:

Yep, those evil Japanese are at it again. I'll never buy any Japanese product. Now lessee - where can I find an American manufactured TV, VCR - ;-)

yep but wernt they the ones who said we will have cd`s ? then mini cd`s? and and vcd`s and........

by the way im english