How old are the battery standards?

Just saw an old Bond movie, From Russia With Love (1963), and noticed James uses a very familiar battery in his recording machine: a 9V block battery labeled "Ever Ready Power Pack".
I didn't know this type of battery is already that old, even Google or Wiki don't say anything about it's history or when it was invented.

I'm just curious, are those standard batteries we still use today already that old, 50 years, or older?

 

Wow, didn't know that. Always thought the people in the 50's and 60's still ran around with batteries of the size of todays car batteries or with devices like Alessandro Volta's battery...

 

Fun fact: the chemistry used in dry cell batteries has changed very little for similar reasons. Mostly because we don't find that many new methods to cram more potential energy in the same volume. Only so many chemical combos, anode/cathode metals, etc.

Which is why most of the new battery tech this last decade has been around (from what I've seen) nanotech on the anode/cathode as opposed to the chemistry of the battery itself.

Nickle cadmium - 1890s.
Nickle-metal hydride - 1980s.
Lithium batteries were first conceived of in the 1970s but weren't put into mass market use until 1991.
Lead-acid (car battery tech) - 1859.

 

Right, in my experience it's not the batteries life has changed a lot but the actual power needed by the consumer electric products.
F.e. an 80's Sony Discman with the hunger for 10 AA or a Walkman with 4 AA batteries won't last much longer with todays "advanced" batteries. Some goes for the handheld devices like Sega Nomad or Atari Lynx.

The first new technology I saw are Eneloop and similar rechargable batteries that give the needed power. I wish I had those in the 80's and 90's...

 

does anyone know when the aaaa battery was made . its hard to find one so hard

 

Wikipedia: "The Eveready company claims that it introduced this battery type in 1956."
Of course, even if it hadn't existed, Q could've invented it

 

Battery technology is old, archaic even compared to the evolution in other fields.

Liquid Electrolyte type batteries have been around since before Christ, many argue, with the Baghdad Battery coming to mind first and foremost. Their modern form is found in car batteries etc.


Nickel batteries have been almost fallen out of favour in most fields, since their charge cycle is inconvenient by today's standards (ie you couldn't charge them any time you wanted, they had to drain every single time) although I m sure many shavers etc use them.

Lithium (Nokia 6110 for example), Lithium Polymere (Ericsson T28) and Lithium Ion (modern phones) batteries have evolved and are found in our portable electronics, mostly the latter LiOn type batteries.

There have also been radioactive batteries designed for very specific purposes, such as pacemakers, but those will probably never find their way into consumer electronics.


Anyway, hope this was helpful

 

Nickel Cadium batteries do have lots of disadvantages but they do have some advantages, for example they can operate in a bigger temperture range (want to use it in freezing conditions or in the hot sunny desert? then that is fine, Li ion would lose a lot of performance...) then NiMh or Li Ion batteries as well as allow high current draws and have a longer stable voltage too. They are still used a lot in power tools as they tend to offer better performance. NiCads if they weren't so toxic, heavy and have the memory effect unless fully discharged then they would be used a lot more...

Going back to the first post, the battery used was the PP3, in the days when the Ever Ready company (the UK firm was independent of the original US Eveready company) made shed loads of batteries and made a load of power pack batteries (hence the PP number). They also had a near monopoly in the UK from the 30s to the early 80s. I still remember asking for AA batteries as HP7 or SP7, the C batteries as HP11 or SP11 and the D batteries as HP2 or SP2 when you had a choice of zinc carbon or zinc cholride batteries... I remember having a radio that took a huge PP7 battery.

 

Jamtex, thanks for all the information.

Btw, we didn't call them AA, C, D or whatever, but had (and still have) names for the batteries. (Mono, Baby, Mignon, Micro, 9V Block)

 

Just out of curiosity, what type of batteries does everyone prefer the most?

 

AA. Cheap, ubiquitous etc

 

Coal Power Plant. Runs the AC alot better than my AA batteries.

Seriously though you just use whatever devices require. Rechargeables are nice since they atleast feel like you pay less for more use. I couldn't imagine the cost in Alkaline AA batteries if you played a Game Gear or Sega Nomad regularly in the 90s.

 

Well, rechargable batteries (were) sucked big time in the 90's.
You had to use regular batteries for Game Gear, Nomad or Lynx to have some fun for about 2 hours. When using rechargable batteries @1.2V you had maybe half an hour.
And yes, that was expensive fun...

Until last your I always had enough regular batteries at home for that purpose, but I'm moving towards the Eneloop type since then.

 

Umm, have you never seen an old radio?! The larger rectangular lantern batteries with spring terminals were popular in those and torches, but they're far smaller than car batteries. I had several 60s radios that used 9v PP3s, though.

Avo meters had 9v PP3 batteries, along with a special 15v battery that was about half the length of an AA battery, but a little bit thicker.

Oh yeah, and cameras, of course. Whilst they were largely mechanical, flashes still needed batteries. Apparently, the electronic flash bulb was invented in the 1920s, the originals running off a 4v battery, but in 1955 the smaller capless bulb was introduced. Here is one... and the Ever Ready battery is one of those 15v ones I mentioned:

http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Flash_History.html#anchorcapless

 

Why don't they make a B battery??? ;-)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battery_sizes

They do, its just a cell that goes inside a larger battery.

 

yes of course, I remember the big batteries with the spring terminals. I've placed them in the 70's though...