What is battery calibration?

Today, we have a lot of things around us working on or developing around battery technology. While there are several applications of batteries themself, there are no major applications of the battery calibration process. Battery calibration process not only helps improve the live but also helps increase the performance of a battery as well marking significant importance. 

So, in this article, we will explore everything you need to know about it.

Definition of Battery Calibration

As we keep using the batteries, they stop showing their actual state when tested on a meter. As the battery is not showing its actual state on the meter, the same goes true with the load connected. So, the result is that we never harness enough power from the battery that it is capable of. 

Battery calibration is the process that ensures that the actual state of charge and what the battery tells the load connected have correct dependencies.

How does battery calibration work?

Batteries operate on the principle of the presence and flow of electrons, and the same does the process of calibration. So, when you need to calibrate the battery, you work on charging and discharging it multiple times in a certain order to ensure that the presence of electrons in the battery and the battery management system in your device is reset. After performing this reset, the batteries can provide more accurate measurements on the management units.

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What is the importance of battery calibration?

Today, we not only use batteries, but we focus on using our batteries with high efficiency, and the whole purpose of battery calibration revolves around that idea. We perform the calibration of batteries to ensure that we are getting the correct system monitoring information from the battery. It is because many systems use this information from batteries to predict their performance and follow those predictions.

This way, those systems fail to harness complete power from a battery due to wrong measurements. In the long term, this method can also decrease the life and performance of the battery permanently.

Classification of Battery Calibration

While the process remains the same, this process of battery calibration is conducted via multiple methods today, and we can use the one that is the most feasible and highly practical in our case. Below are the 3 main classifications of battery calibration that you need to know about.

Manual Calibration

Manual battery calibration is the technique we have to opt for when there are no built-in monitoring tools available, and we have to use external tools in this method. So, we monitor the battery with external testing units and manually charge, discharge, and recharge the battery in multiple charge cycles until the battery starts showing its actual capacity on meters while testing.

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Software-based Automatic Calibration

Next up is the software-based automatic calibration, and it is one of the most commonly used choices today. This calibration option is the most common today because some devices and applications do everything by themself without requiring any significant input from the users. From testing to charging, you don't need to do anything on the battery, and the software takes care of everything.

Software-based automatic calibration is usually available in smartphones, computers, and the eV industry.

Hardware Calibration

The last classification of battery calibration is hardware calibration, and we may consider it as a semi-automatic calibration option. It is because it is not as automated as software-based calibration, but it is still easier than manual calibration. Hardware calibration does use some external equipment and techniques for calibrating the battery. However, in this method, we connect to the battery management system and use it for calibration, making the process significantly more efficient.

Application of Battery Calibration

You might be wondering where we can use the battery calibration process to maximize its benefits in our routine usage. Well, it is something that has applications in almost every field of life and below are the details you must know about different applications of battery calibration:

Smartphones and Tablets

Everyone has a smartphone these days, and everyone follows a different charging practice to charge their device. It creates the issue of battery calibration going out since the battery is not being charged in the right way. As a result, the device never harnesses the real power that its battery provides, and the user thinks that the battery is not good anymore. However, smartphones and tablets often have software services that automatically calibrate the battery for the best performance.

Laptop Computers

Laptop computers significantly rely on the battery for working remotely, and the battery often runs out of calibration when the user is unable to charge it in a balanced routine. That's where calibration helps improve the longevity and performance of a laptop battery.

While there are some software services available for laptops, manual calibration is the most efficient method since it gives more control and reliability to the users. This way, users who need hours of backup from their computers can easily benefit from their older batteries.

Electric Vehicle Industry

The last application we discussed here of battery calibration is the electric vehicle industry. The electric vehicle industry hugely relies on calculating the battery life and performance according to the remaining charging left, and we are never able to get the right information when the battery is out of calibration. That's why electric vehicle software comes with calibration capabilities.

This software feature considers the charge state and overall life of the battery to make accurate and reliable predictions in the future. This way, we not only get the right calculations but also get the right usage experience from our batteries as well.

Conclusion

What is usually not thought about has benefits and applications in multiple fields of life. Battery calibration is a technique to get more life and performance from a battery that is otherwise thought to be dead. However, the battery is only out of calibration which makes its performance significantly suffer. Hopefully, the calibration techniques we discussed here have been helpful to you, and now you may select the effective one as per your requirements.