Cutoff voltage

In electronics, the cutoff voltage is the voltage at which a battery is considered fully discharged, and it is good practice to stop discharge at this point. Some electronic devices, such as cell phones, will automatically shut down when the cutoff voltage has been reached.

Batteries

In batteries,the cutoff (final) voltage is the prescribed lower-limit voltage at which battery discharge is considered complete. The cutoff voltage is usually chosen so that the maximum useful capacity of the battery is achieved. The cutoff voltage is different from one battery to the other and it's highly dependent on the type of battery and the kind of service in which the battery is used. When testing the capacity of a NiMH or NiCd battery a cutoff voltage of 1.0 V is normally used. 0.9V is normally used as the cutoff voltage of an alkaline cell. Devices that have too high cutoff voltages may stop operating while the battery still has significant capacity remaining.^[1]

Premature voltage cut-off

Some portable equipment does not fully use the low-end voltage spectrum of a battery. The equipment cuts off before the designated end-of-discharge voltage is reached, leaving some battery power unused.

A high cutoff voltage problem is more widespread than is commonly assumed. For example, a certain brand of mobile phone that is powered with a single-cell Lithium-ion battery cuts off at 3.3V. The Li‑ion can be discharged to 3V and lower. With a discharge to 3.3V, only about 70 percent of the expected 100 percent capacity is used.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Cut-off (electronics)

External links

• Samples of Low Voltage Cut-Off Relay Circuits
• Effect of discharge cut off voltage on cycle life of MgNi-based electrode for rechargeable Ni-MH batteries
• High And Low Voltage Cut Off With Time Delay

References

1. ^ Warner, R.M., Jr. (June 1963). "Epitaxial FET cutoff voltage". Proceedings of the IEEE 51 (6): 939–940. ISSN 940 939- 940.