Science fair research
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Dennekka29
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Science fair research
I'm trying to find sources I can use for my research paper, but I can't find a website that specifically answers my questions about how battery voltage changes over time in a household device and what voltage does the device stop functioning/died. Can you send me 4 or 5 websites that can help me?
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bfinio
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Re: Science fair research
Hi,
This can be a bit of a tricky topic to research. One thing you can do is look up battery datasheets. For example, I found this page by Googling "duracell AA datasheet":
https://www.duracell.com/wp-content/upl ... 0122-A.pdf
You can see how there are two graphs on the first page. The graphs show how the battery voltage will change over time as different constant amounts of current, measured in milliamps (mA), are drawn from the battery. Notice how the voltage goes down faster for curves when the current is higher. This makes sense intuitively - something like a battery-powered toy car, which uses a lot of current, might kill the batteries in just a few hours. Something like a TV remote, which uses a small amount of current and sits unused most of the time, might take months or even years before it needs new batteries.
As to when the batteries are actually "dead" and the device will stop working, it will depend on the individual device, but it is typically way before the battery voltage gets all the way to zero volts. Many devices might stop working while the battery is still around 1 volt or even before that. I googled "when are AA batteries considered dead?" and there are a bunch of articles that discuss the topic, but they all give an approximate range, again because it will depend on the individual device.
I'm not sure if you are doing an experiment or just a research paper, but you could do an experiment to collect your own data by running various devices until they're "dead" and then measuring the battery voltage using a multimeter. We have a great tutorial on our website about how to use a multimeter, if you have never used one before: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... multimeter
Hope that helps!
Ben
This can be a bit of a tricky topic to research. One thing you can do is look up battery datasheets. For example, I found this page by Googling "duracell AA datasheet":
https://www.duracell.com/wp-content/upl ... 0122-A.pdf
You can see how there are two graphs on the first page. The graphs show how the battery voltage will change over time as different constant amounts of current, measured in milliamps (mA), are drawn from the battery. Notice how the voltage goes down faster for curves when the current is higher. This makes sense intuitively - something like a battery-powered toy car, which uses a lot of current, might kill the batteries in just a few hours. Something like a TV remote, which uses a small amount of current and sits unused most of the time, might take months or even years before it needs new batteries.
As to when the batteries are actually "dead" and the device will stop working, it will depend on the individual device, but it is typically way before the battery voltage gets all the way to zero volts. Many devices might stop working while the battery is still around 1 volt or even before that. I googled "when are AA batteries considered dead?" and there are a bunch of articles that discuss the topic, but they all give an approximate range, again because it will depend on the individual device.
I'm not sure if you are doing an experiment or just a research paper, but you could do an experiment to collect your own data by running various devices until they're "dead" and then measuring the battery voltage using a multimeter. We have a great tutorial on our website about how to use a multimeter, if you have never used one before: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... multimeter
Hope that helps!
Ben