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December 08, 2003

Good Battery Info

Good Battery Info: (pdf)
Here are some conservative power ratings for good quality alkaline-manganese dioxide batteries available at the local grocery store.

Battery TypeCapacity (mAh)Typical Drain
D12000200 mA
C6000100 mA
AA200050 mA
AAA100010 mA
N65010 mA
9 Volt50015 mA
6 Volt Lantern11000300 mA


The battery capacity will be better with lower drain currents. To determine the battery life, divide the capacity by the actual load current to get the hours of life. A circuit that draws 10 ma powered by a 9 volt rectangular battery will operate about 50 hours:

500 mAh /10 mA = 50 hours

And this test suggests that Duracell and EverReady are basically the same, but that store-brands can be much weaker.

I wish I had known this when I was trying to power 2,000 mA motors with 9-volt batteries!

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Posted by mslaybau at December 8, 2003 11:31 AM

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