When putting in more than one battery in a device, why should they all be at the same charge?
In: Chemistry
I assume you’re talking about a device without an internal battery management unit that controls the charge and discharge rate of each cell and distributes the load as evenly as possible.
Let’s say that a device requires X volts and Y amps and it carries two battery cells. One cell has half the energy of the other, and in spite of the discrepancy, both still maintain a similar load sent to the device. Without a battery management system once the weaker cell has no more energy or it goes under a certain value, the device stops working or its functions are affected, there might be another option which is to demand more load out of the remaining cell, the demanded load might be more than the cell was designed to send to the device and cause a burnout or short circuit or make the cell unstable.
This is why basic devices come with instructions to replace all batteries at once for new ones, preferably from the same box as those will supposedly be built and shipped with the closest possible specifications.
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