What does 0.1C mean in battery charging?

[krispots]

hi, can anyone explain to me what does it mean when you say "charging at a rate of 0.1C"

what does C means? are you charging at a rate of 0.1 coulomb per second?

 

[OmCheeto]

hi, can anyone explain to me what does it mean when you say "charging at a rate of 0.1C"

what does C means? are you charging at a rate of 0.1 coulomb per second?

Google is our friend:

http://www.greenbatteries.com/batteryterms.html" - Used to signify a charge or discharge rate equal to the capacity of a battery divided by 1 hour. Thus C for a 1600 mAh battery would be 1.6 A, C/5 for the same battery would be 320 mA and C/10 would be 160 mA. Because C is dependent on the capacity of a battery the C rate for batteries of different capacities must also be different.

Put another way on the 6th link:

http://www.cameronsoftware.com/ev/EV_BatteryPhysics.html" is the capacity rating (Amp-hour) of the battery.

So charging at 0.1C would fully charge a dead battery in 10 hours.

Charging at 1C would fully charge a dead battery in 1 hours.

Mathematically: 1/(xC) = hours to charge a dead battery.

 

[sophiecentaur]

You need to remember that you can't take this to extremes. Charging at 100C, in 36s will harm the battery in many cases.