Before transistor radios came out in the late 1950s, portable vacuum tube radios had A batteries and B batteries. The A battery was about 7.5 volts and powered the heater or filaments of the tubes. The B battery was around 90 volts and supplied voltage to the plates (anodes) of the tubes.
Kid only electric shop have me a portable radio that ran on tubes back in the 1960' s. Thought it used a 22 or 22.5 volt battery that cost a lot of money and don't think it even.lasted 10 hours. After I purchased a second battery and wore that out threw it away.
There were also C batteries in some old radios. These were generally used for grid bias, so tended to be on the order of 22V, but only designed to supply a few mils current.
The graphic which appears @11:32 shows AA, AAA, C, and D cell batteries. However, the C battery shown is actually a 9 volt type, not an actual C cell. Looking at the graphic a second time, the AA battery has a correct width/height ratio of .28. The battery labeled AAA is actually AA since the width/height ratio is .27. In reality the ratio should be .23. The height of an actual AAA is only 1mm less than a 9 volt battery. Yes, I know, I've apparently got too much time on my hands. But in my defense, it just didn't look right and I had to figure out why.
I was going to say this. For a minute there I thought I was falling victim to the Mandela Effect as they didn't even show an actual C sized cell. Edit: Quick search lists the 9V square batteries as E designation or E-Block.
@@Dilligff I thought perhaps I was going crazy as well and before I commented I thought I should check the comments - I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that.... Good info on the "E-Block" I knew there had to be a letter designation for it ;-)
B batteries, or " plate" batteries were used for vacuum tube devices, a number of cells wired in series to get higher voltages, from 15 on up to several hundred. A batteries were low voltage " filament" batteries, powering a vacuum tubes filament. C batteries, or " grid" batteries, were used as " bias" voltage on a tube's grid. C size batteries are between AA and D in size, but the same voltage ( 1.5). Four F size batteries are wired in series for the square 6 volt lantern battery, though an old alarm system at my last job used two F cells as backup. Difficult find then ( 1980s) probably very difficult now. The big 1.5 volt #6 battery was used to heat the glow plugs of model aircraft engines back in the day. 9 volt batteries were #1604...I think.
As a retired electrical engineer, the terms. "B battery", and "B cell", mean two different things. "B cell" refers to s single cell, of a specific size, producing approximately 1.5 volts depending on its internal chemistry. "B battery" is a term used to refer to a multi cell battery used to provide the cathode to plate voltage in battery powered tube radios. These batteries came in several voltages, usually multiples of 22.5 volts. that is, 22.5 v, 45 v, 67.5 v, and 90v. For higher voltages used in the output stage of some early sets, one connected these kind of batteries in series. A similar situation exists with C cells. There were C BATTERIES which were used to provide bias voltage to the tubes in early radios. These were usually made with 3 internal 1.5v cells and could provide a bias voltage to the tube of 1.5, 3, or 4.5 v. Again, if a higher bias voltage was needed one connected these batteries in series. In fact, the term "A cell" refers to a specific size of single cell, but an "A BATTERY" actually refers to a battery which provides the filament voltage in a battery powered tube radio. These can be a single cell, usually a number 6 dry cell, or storage batteries up to six volts
Kudos from an OLD amateur radio operator (W7JZE) who actually has an old battery powered tube receiver. I haven’t turned it on in decades. It is an older, circa 1940s, Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave receiver. Dual powered from either mains or A and B batteries. Well and accurately described, and simply explained. Good job 👍. I remember cutting my electronic teeth on the ARRL handbooks during the 1960s and the “B+” line was always shown on those old tube schematics. Lotsa good memories and builds from that long-ago time…
@@CapinCooke Thanks for the compliment. My hobby is collecting and restoring antique radios. I have a few dozen ranging from very early crystal sets and an RCA Radiola Senior through many Philco, RCA, Emerson, and other sets from the 1930s, and National, Lafayette, Allied, and Hammarlund general coverage communications receivers up into the early 1960s, to even some early Japanese transistor radios.
B batteries were typically stacks of individual cells, built in to one package. They were used on tube-based devices to provide the high-voltage for negative grid or positive anode voltages. A not so uncommon application would be four "D" cells in series to provide 6 volts for tube filaments, a BA battery at 22.5 volts for the negative grid (control) voltage and then a high tension B+ battery to provide from 45, 67.5, 90 volts. I had a device that took four AA batteries, one 22.5 Volt battery and two 67.5 volt batteries that were in series to produce 135 volts. It was a tube-based device (Geiger counter, AN-PDR-27/F) that was used by the US Navy until the 1970's. It had been adapted to take four AA batteries instead of the four, circular Mercury batteries. So, a "B" battery was typically a higher voltage pack that came in a variety of form-factors and voltages.
Correct; “B” batteries were a class of cells for devices using electronic tubes (or “valves” for the English). Tube circuit diagrams feature references to B+ and B- voltage references, and in the very earliest days the B was the battery. In short, there never was a standard B cell because that designation was already used as a generic reference to a radio battery.
No, that's an entirely different use of "B". B size batteries, also know as U10 or R12, are 1.5V. The B tube batteries have to do with the direction of electron flow, A flowing the other direction.
I enjoyed your approach to and presentation of this subject. You packed in a lot of good information and kept it interesting. One small point. In your graphic of battery sizes, you labelled the 9-volt battery as a C-cell. That is incorrect. A C-cell is a cylindrical battery a bit smaller than a D-cell.
Wow, for such a small channel this is such a great video and I highly recommend for anyone to watch. You are going to be going places if you keep up with your videos. Great job!
When I worked for Motorola there was an "N" battery used in the pagers. Going further back a common battery was a square 22.5v used with a "D" cell in portable tube radios, the 22v battery was for the plate voltage and the D was for the heater voltage. Found it! It was the EverReady 505, some brands used this and some used the B battery (Also 22.5v). Union Carbide (9 lives, EverReady) became Energizer and Mallory became Duracell. Rayovac never changed their name (Recently purchased by U.C.)
@@raven4k998 I had D sized nickel cadmium batteries that would still hold a charge after 40 years. One of the reasons who there are so many battery sizes and types is capitalism. Most batteries could be replaced with just a few batteries, much like virtually all phone cords. Thankfully, Europe beat Apple in court so Apple will be forced to charge their phones with standard USB cables instead of Apple’s propitiatory cables that are expensive and wasteful. Apple has made tens of billions off of their cables alone. They sold their cables for close to $40 when iPhones were introduced but the cables only cost Apple 5 cents. Apple has been ripping off consumers. The reason Europe forced Apple to conform to the European standard is because landfills are being overwhelmed with phone cords. Btw, Apple will also be forced to allow USB cables to charge their phones in the US soon.
You could also find N-batteries in camera applications. Had a camera that took two of those. If I recall they were 3.3v, and about two-thirds the length of a AA battery and apparently the same diameter. They seemed to have a good battery life, so it wasn't too terrible even though they were harder to find outside of photography stores.
I have a small desk clock that uses a type N battery. looks to be about the same diameter as an AAA cell, but maybe half the length. Since I'm too cheap to order one, I've been planning to hack the clock into using an AAA.
After enjoying this one, I watched a few of your previous posts and happily subscribed. Excellent and interesting content wonderfully presented. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!
There are “B” batteries. They are brick shaped about 1/3 larger than a package of cigarettes . With snap clips for the positive and negative poles. They were used on many of the first radios, especially for Atwater-Kent radios. While 5he size exists there are no manufacturers currently producing them.
I've seen antique radio collectors make their own B batteries by wiring 9v transistor batteries in series.. Sometimes even packaging them in reproductions of the old B battery package.
Having been taught all my life that Henry Ford's combustion engine was first for cars, I was shocked and amazed when you mentioned that we had The Detroit Electric for a full decade before his car. This great research on your part coupled with your enthusiastic cadence while delivering the information is reason enough for a proper subscription of which I did do. Thank you so much for not sounding like an ASMR channel. :)
Not to mention that Carl Benz patented a car with an internal combustion engine in 1886. Ford wasn’t the first car, or the first car with internal combustion, he didn’t even create the first one in the US, which was created separately by two different people in 1891. Ford started his first company in 1901, but sold it and it was renamed Cadillac. He founded the Ford Motor Company which still exists today in 1903.
I admit to not being an expert, but I had always learned that Ford's real " first" was the expansion of assembly line ideas and technology to build something as complicated as a car. Doing so made them standard ( easily fixable with more parts available ) and brought the cost down so the average person could more easily afford to buy one. Before this, one had to go to a coach builder for a hand crafted vehicle at a high enough price that only rich people could afford one.
@@darrinwatts3419 This is how I have always heard it too, but there are a lot of people (at least in the US) that just parrot the incorrect idea that Ford invented the automobile.
At 11:31 and again at 14:50 why do you have "C" for a 9V battery? The Alkaline AA,AAA,C,D are all 1.5 volts. The standard rechargeable batteries are 1.3 volts. The 9V battery is in a different category all together.
Part of the confusion is due to the letters being used for SIZE (physical) as well as for FUNCTION (the latter mostly obsolete as vacuum tubes went away). The FUNCTIONAL nomenclature started with the battery designed to heat the filaments of the tubes, called A because you have to heat the tubes before they will do anything at all (except for photo tubes and Geiger counter tubes); these provided small multiples of 1.5 volts, but the cells were larger to supply more current (sometimes a 6V lantern battery was used). After you heat the tubes, you need a plate-to-cathode voltage, hence the B battery, which produced, usually, multiples of 22.5V, with 45V and 90V being most common. These were made of stacks of flat 1.5V cells in a package to add up to the rating desired, and were usually smaller than A batteries, since less current was needed. And most tubes also needed a negative “bias,” or resting no-signal-present, voltage on the grids of the tubes, often supplied by a very low current version of a lower voltage B battery, since the grid usually carried no current, called the C battery. Later circuit designs did not require a C battery. When radios began using household current, the power supplies designed to substitute for batteries (using a transformer to supply multiple voltages in AC areas, or without a transformer to be compatible with DC areas) put out a DC positive high voltage (relative to the chassis, or ground/earth/common) which was called “B+” because it was a substitute for the B battery. The filaments were either heated either by a 6.3V or 12.6V secondary winding, or by AC/DC power with the filaments in series, often with a pilot light that would illuminate the tuning dial. Battery SIZES are completely different. I suspect that among cylindrical cells, there were originally A, B, C, and D cells intended for flashlights (torches), in increasing order of length and diameter, but the A and B went away. Then smaller flashlights were invented, and the AA battery, a bit smaller than A, were developed (also called “penlight” size batteries), and later the even smaller AAA and AAAA sizes. So the use of AAAA, AAA, AA, C, and D to designate SIZE and SHAPE has NOTHING to do with the use of A, B, and C to designate their circuit FUNCTIONS. ************************************** Coincidentally, two completely different power sources, invented about 14 decades apart, were both originally called “piles:” the batteries we have been discussing, and the nuclear reactor (first called an “atomic pile”)!
All the 90's alkaline 9v batteries i ever opened contained aaaa cells, non-alkalines always contained stacked cells. Nowadays there are stacked alkaline ones too.
Some stuff shows B-cell batteries were a thing on some old WWII era radio sets. And they seemed to have a longer run in Europe and Russia than the U.S. But they were pretty much obsolete with the invention of solid-state electronics. (Because they were particular to vacuum tube applications and didn't have much longevity in use.)
ACTUALLY, “A” batteries [ 7.5 volts] and “B” batteries [ 67.5 volts] were used extensively in most portable radios in the 1950’s, as they were Vacuum Tube [ or “valve “] and not Transistor-ized. There were various shapes of 9 volt batteries as well, including round 9-volt, used in some early Transistor radios. (( I collect radios, and have [ working] examples of these radios.)) Pretty good video, though. 📻😁
A few small corrections: The rectangular cells are 9V, not 6V. Also, C cells are cylinders, like D, AA and AAA. The diagram behind your erroneously shows a 9V as being the "C" cell, that is incorrect.
@@jimmytwoguys I wonder how many of those lantern batteries are used now that most of the lanterns now uses LEDs instead of the old incandescent or florescent lamps.
AAAA cells are also a thing. The last device I had that used them was the Cross Pad. (Technically, it was that system’s pen that used them.) They can still be purchased today.
You totally missed out on the Bagdad Battery, which predates all of these by two thousand years. It was a copper-iron battery, so a hybrid between Edison's cell and a copper-zinc cell, likely using vinegar as the electrolyte. Output was ~1V, and they are still in use today for electroplating in parts of the Middle East.
No, the Bagdad battery was very unlikely to be a battery, and we have no evidence of electroplating from that far back. If you made it in an idealized way, then yes, you could make something very similar to it function like a weak battery. It's easy for us today to make a functioning battery from a simple description of it, but that doesn't mean that the actual object was one. It was most likely used for ritual purposes (sealing in evil spirits or curses or something along those lines).
... Daven??? Dude your beard has really filled in since I last saw you on BrainFood YEARS ago. I didn't expect to see and hear you on this new channel that popped up in my recommended feed. Great to see you hosting videos in my feed again!
4:39 DUUUUUDE, My entire life... Of course I know about galvanized pipes and not to weld on them and such- but you JUST connected the dots for the reasoning behind it. That was cool, you earned my like and I haven't even learned the purpose of the video yet! 0.o
Oh dear. Ben Franklin would (probably did, back then) make a great stand-up comedian. Btw, I just found your channel for the first time. It seems worth following, I'll watch (at least some of) the other 7 videos soon. Keep up the good work!
Fun fact: There was a short lived AAAA battery in the late 1980s. It was used to power very small flashlights. It was very similar to an AAA battery in length but significantly thinner.
In French, the word batterie refers to much more than a group of canons or electric cells. It refers to a group of similar things acting as a greater whole. For example, a drum set is also called a batterie. The illustration for the C cell is incorrect, it's that of the 9V battery. The C cell is very similar to the D cell, but shorter and narrower. The A cell is similar to the C cell, but half the length, it's length and diameter being the same. I have an N cell. Same diameter as an AA cell, but, half the length.
@@thorbjrnhellehaven5766 9V batteries are designated as : CEI : 6(L)R61 ANSI : PP3 for the rechargeable, CEI : RC22 or, simply Size 9V Couldn't find any E cell.
I always considered the drum set word of separate origin. The root "batre" meaning "beat or hit" fit well for drums (and cannon sets I suppose). The marching band drum line is also called battery, so that might be older than cannons. The "set of multiple items" seems to exist in English too, but the term "battery of questions" I interpret in form of a cannon fire attack rather than just as a set. That said, I'm Swedish, and the word is used in a similar way here so I may have an interpretation bias.
@@_J_A_G_ How about «batterie de cuisine» ? That's a set of pots and pans. For a drum set, the full term should be «batterie de tambours», but, the lase two words are omitted.
In the very early days of portable radios, which used miniature vacuum tubes, a D cell was used to heat the filaments, while a 90V. battery was used for plate voltage. This higher voltage battery was referred to as the "B" battery, a carryover from non-portable radios in which plate voltage was referred to as B+".
Back around 1930 or so, there were A, B, and C batteries in tube-type radio sets. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think A drove the tuner, B supplied the current to heat the cathode filaments and C was potential for the tube grids. These batteries were all about the size of a big box of baking soda. I remember back in the day, my grandpa telling me in how he once ordered a B battery eliminator from Sears Roebuck a little transformer that plugged into house current so you didn't need the rather expensive B batteries anymore.
I learned that a B battery was one of the really BIG cylindrical ones used in the old radios along with the large single-A battery, so that blows the size idea out of the water, and you never showed one. What about the E battery? And why do 6V lantern batteries not _say_ "F" on them?
There are of course B batteries. They don't find much use in the solid state age, but they were imperative in the early vacuum tube age, as a vacuum tube will not work with out B battery also called plate voltage.
16:52 Robert Heinlein paraphrased Franklin's view on older women in a book. "Widows are far better than brides. They don't tell, they won't yell, they don't swell, they rarely smell, and they're grateful as hell."
The C battery was originally used as the grid bias voltage in a triode vacuum tube. It was used backwards, applying a negative voltage on the grid. If the negative C voltage was right, and a variable signal was applied, it produced an amplified signal that was otherwise an accurate copy of the original.
1996 when I worked at a RadioShack, a man came in and special ordered AAAA batteries (“4 A”) for his tiny laser pointer. that was the first time I had ever heard of an AAAA battery.
**AHEM** In the USA the "B" battery is the tall battery with screw caps used in school science class/labs. Find one and read the label, it will say "B Battery Cell." It is a 1.5volt battery as you stated.
You may be surprised by this fact, but did you know that in Switzerland as of 2008, 2R10 batteries accounted for ONLY 0.003% of primary battery sales? 🤯 Astonishing, I know! This completely changes what is commonly thought about Swiss battery purchases. 🇨🇭 🔋
B Batteries I was familiar with were about the size of a brick, perhaps a little larger (gimme a break, this was 60+ years ago), and had a number of Fahnestock clips (look that up) along the top so that the user could tap off a desired voltage. I think they went up to 45 volts. I would get them from the telephone company. I never saw them for sale in any store.
60 years ago! Why, that's only 1960, or thereabouts. It doesn't seem so long ago. My PRC-25 and PRC-77 had these kind of "brick" batteries, any chance they were B batteries?
For many years, and some manufacturers may still do it, the D cell battery was actually a C battery with a spring at the tip, insulation wrapped around it and then all incased in a larger case. AA, AAA, C, and D batteries all have the same voltage, just different mAh based on the size. If you find a D cell that has the same mAh as a C battery, chances are there's really a C battery inside.
I had a multimeter that took a b-cell. Inconvenient when I had to find a replacement, because I couldn't just grab one from a grocery or drug store. Incidentally I do have one of those 6v lantern battery flashlights, instead of replacing the battery with another 6v,I just bought one of those adapters that use either c or d cells, I don't remember which. Works fine.
The picture of battery sizes makes me wonder if this video was sponsored by Duracell. As others have said, the "C" is incorrectly assigned to 9V batteries. In fact, the C is 1,5V like the others, and the video should be edited to include this and the other rarer sizes. I miss the 4,5V batteries I remember from my youth. I haven't seen them in a long time, but they were commonly used in flashlights, as well as the electronics sets I remember from hobby shops. I believe that they really just consisted of three AA batteries internally (consistent with its size), which I suppose explains why they fell out of use. What's the advantage to this rather than just three 1,5V batteries that could be the smaller AAA size?
Everyone is commenting on the 9v being titled as C, but not many have said that it also has a minus/negative sign on the lower half too (in addition to the two top posts and plus/positive sign.) Was this a chatgpt image source? Good video though.
Talking of batteries. Great topic suggestion. The mega battery. Get a stack of nearly dead block batteries the 9 volt ones with the 2 connectors on one end. Daisy chain them together. Then like the sparks fly! IE solder a pair of thick wires on each end of chain. And then see how far the lightning will jump thru air and other interesting targets eg pop a balloon. Of course taking safety precautions. Do remember a vid a few years ago but forget where.
Found the vid. custom geek 15 million+ views 244 pp3 batteries in a chain. 2 thousand volt potential at ends of chain. he used jumper cables to spark. That's 2 inches (5cm) of spark range. the pp3 is what you called a C cell. No fyi C cell is a between AA and D in size @1.5 volts. A battery do exist in niche applications. And quad A is a smaller cell than AAA.
In Australia a 9v battery is referred to as a “9 volt battery”. A C battery, as many people have already mentioned is a slightly smaller version of the D battery. Can you confirm if this is just an international or Australian way of labelling batteries?
3:59 oooo a real blackboard and chalk being used to illustrate in a RU-vid video! That deserves a video of its own to teach this new generation how us Gen-Xers were taught in school.
