The Idea: Gaming and high performance laptops are practically chained to a wall outlet because battery capacity SUCKS. Meanwhile, smartphone manufacturers like OnePlus are already shipping Silicon Carbon battery cells that achieve significantly higher energy density in a fraction of the space.
Here’s the thing, OnePlus can fit 2 Silicon Carbon cells into a phone to maximize capacity, a laptop has even MORE physical space to work with. Basically:
Split the battery into 3 distributed Silicon Carbon cells placed across the chassis, making it so that it complies with flight regulations and whatnot. 3 dense Silicon Carbon cells could drastically increase battery life and capacity
Why this would work:
Maximizes use of otherwise empty chassis space
Could realistically achieve 200-300Wh capacity
Silicon Carbon is already mass produced for smartphones so manufacturing pipelines exist
Fits perfectly with Framework’s modular upgradeable philosophy
Will finally make it so that non-Apple laptop batteries DON’T suck
This could mean 4-6 hours of actual gaming battery life (unplugged) instead of the current 1-2 hours that gaming laptops have. Maybe even more idle browsing battery life.
Framework is most likely to do this. Nobody else will try it first.
As much as I love my FW16, the battery life is one of the few areas where I still feel pain. I would love to have a machine that rivaled the best-in-class battery life as well.
(Really hoping that the Donut Lab battery is real, and it looks like it might be, but that hasn’t been proven yet. It won’t be in mass production for a while in any case.)
I think it’s too early to say with the Donut Lab battery. Going by the 3rd-party tests they have paid for, and have shown thus far, “interesting” is as far as it reaches.
The tests indicate that it’s a non-standard chemistry, as they claim. But they have not had any of their headline grabbing claims tested at all as yet. Watt-hour / kg, nope. 100k charge cycle life, nope. Testing to prove it’s true complete solid state, nope. And watt-hour / kg is dead easy to test & show. Weigh the thing, then capacity test it! Done.
Maybe it’s all true. But they do need to prove it before they are worth the time.
I know, but the promise is so compelling that I’m really hoping it’s real. We’ll see when the first machine using them, the Verge electric motorcycle, is finally released. That was supposed to be by the end of this month, but right now new orders aren’t estimated to ship until Q4 of this year.
But I don’t want to hijack this thread, which is about a proven battery technology that could improve our machines now.
Whenever somebody brings up future battery chemistry discussion, I feel like it’s important to remember that wishful thinking is in our nature and that we want it to be real because of the benefits it would provide. But unfortunately, just like nuclear fusion has been 5 years away for the last three decades, please remember that science is complicated and doesn’t always give results that work in our favor. I don’t want to, but I believe that the Donut battery is very likely to be yet another nothing burger.
The whole 200- 300 Whr would be great but the reason it’s limited to below 100 Whr for any high end gaming laptop is because of FAA requirements to where you can actually take the laptop in you’re carry-on and not having to check it.
Indeed. That is why I said that the battery should be split into 3 parts to make 3 smaller ~70-90Wh batteries which would add up the total. FFA regulations as far as my knowledge only say that a single battery can’t exceed a certain charge. Inspiration from the OnePlus 15 could also be taken, where because of 2 split batteries which are much denser, they comply with the regulations while still lasting longer
No, I doubt the FAA is going to see it that way. Multi cell batteries already exist and are in use in every other laptop. If such a gaping loophole existed, don’t you think Dell or HP would sail through it themselves?
Besides, the downside is that Silicon Carbon batteries don’t last as long. I’d rather not brute force battery life with bigger batteries but rather more efficient hardware please and thank you.
Well, the FAA’s (and IATA’s) website say that the limit is 100Wh per battery. Meaning splitting into 3 separate batteries is plausible. But the website also states installed lithium-ion batteries, which is where it gets kind of confusing, because we don’t know whether they consider each battery installed as separately installed, or all batteries combined installed. So that’s one thing. Moreover, OnePlus does have dual batteries in their latest smartphone, which allows it to legally be carried while still having exceptional battery capacity. It might be slightly different for laptops, but the loophole does exist, and it is in practice. However I don’t think HP and Dell would be the first ones to introduce Silicon Carbon batteries. About efficient hardware, we’d need Framework to start using ARM chips in their laptops then
A “battery” can frequently have multiple units, cells, acting as one. That does not make it defined as multiple batteries.
And the FAA may have tighter definitions then the general one. I would really expect them to. For exactly this reason. They wouldn’t want dishonest or “crafty” companies to get around their passenger safety regulations.
To have a chance to be seen as separate batteries to the FAA, you’d want them to just be truly separate independent batteries. No games. Which will add complication, cost, & bulk. The system would have to be able to run off only one of the batteries.
What model?
Can it run off of only a single “battery”? If not, then it does not have “dual batteries” the way that is actually defined in industry. It has dual cells. Their marketing dept may make up whatever they wish, doesn’t make it true. Other phones have multiple cells too. No laptop anywhere has only one cell. They require higher voltages where it’s necessary to run multiple cells in series.
OnePlus does use stacked batteries, I admit it may not have been the best example for this scenario. However, for Framework, it is actually quite possible to make 3 separate batteries and then switching between them as they get emptied. Also, we are talking about making a new innovation here. It will obviously cost some RnD and money. Its expensive at first, and then eventually becomes the norm and the prices drop down.
Which model OnePlus?
Sorry, I think may have added to my post while you were responding.
All Frameworks already have 3 “batteries”, if you wish to not use the standard definition. Inside the battery pack is 3 separate li-ion pouch cells. These units could be used fully independent, except they are connected together in series under the monitoring of a single BMS controller. In this arrangement, this is traditionally regarded as one single battery in the industry. But if one really wanted to they could modify the arrangement a bit in order to give their marketing department excuse to make flashy claims, that it has Three Batteries for More Power!
That’s the point. If we just separate them completely, but make a kind of system where there are 3 BMS, each battery has to be declared separate. Each is hot swappable, and even if one dies, the others survive. This is literally an extension to Framework’s modular philosophy. It also complies with the FAA regulations, because they are now defined separate. Now I do understand that implementing such a feature is very difficult as it hasn’t been done before in the consumer industry, but if it truly succeeds then we might genuinely have long lasting laptops with tons of computing power, and efficient CPU architecture combined with such battery tech could increase typical laptop battery life from like a few hours to maybe even 2 day battery.
Multiple separate independent batteries aren’t new in laptops. One of my laptops has two. An older Thinkpad from the days before a removable second battery was abandoned. Or if you want to go by a definition OnePlus’ marketing department might enjoy, it has six batteries. Each battery contains 3 separate li-ion pouch cells.
Googled a little. I see the OnePlus 15 has a dual-cell battery claiming to be special by adding some silicon-carbon. And claiming 7,300mAh. Others have similar. RedMagic 11 Pro has 7,500mAh, Oppo Find X9 Pro also 7,500mAh (OnePlus is a subsidiary of Oppo).
While they may have dual-cells, that isn’t what give them high capacity. They just dedicate larger volumes to the battery. Dual-cells in mobile phones I believe is done for a wholly different reason. Series cells can be charged at double the voltage, this avoids some of the losses & waste heat from stepping down the voltage within the phone during fast charging. Less losses, less heat & it’s easier to eke out slightly faster charging without stressing / wearing on the battery quite as much.
Well then that just proves that the tech exists to make 2 separate batteries, with separate BMS. We just need 3 here, and Silicon Carbon cells. And about the charging, it could also be beneficial to this 3 battery system, because Silicon Carbon already charges faster, and if we increase the voltage of charge and charge the 3 batteries simultaneously or sequentially, we can get fast charging without much heat, essentially acting like the tech mobile manufacturers use to have fast charging. And here, we are trying to make 3 separate huge batteries to comply with FAA regulations.
More BMSes means more point to fail, the power distribution path between batteries are also costly and reduces reliability. It’s better to use a single battery pack with one BMS.
Silicon Carbon batteries have 30% more energy density, but they also have far less longevity, at about 80% capacity left after 100~200 cycles. I don’t think it’s economical
Even being able to stick a 100Wh battery in a 13 would be an absolute win. If you want more you can always carry separate 100Wh each pd powerbanks.
On the other hand given the modularity it would be interesting to see a >100Wh laptop you can’t take on a plane but has a lot of battery. Not everyone needs to fly and you could swap in a smaller one before doing so.
What about a solid state battery specifically this one I cane up with (Zinc-Ion 70%, aluminum 15%, Tin (Sn) 5%, Sodium-ion 10%) I haven’t tested it yet but I did some research and I found out that the bettery I just came up with can be made in a garage (I just don’t have a furnace). I’m hoping that some one could try this :].