What do amp hours mean on a battery

If you are not familiar with these terms, it is important to learn what they mean before you buy so that you can get the right type of battery for your application. Technically, an amp hour is simply a measure of how long a battery can provide one amp of power per hour. You will see it abbreviated as Ah or mAh for milli-amp hours in small applications. Unfortunately, most of the devices we rely on do not draw exactly one amp of power per hour, so an amp hour is not a particularly useful rating in this form.

Instead, we have to consider what the amp hour rating means in relation to other factors about our device. What is Amp hour Ah , milliAmp hour mAh? A common term in the battery industry is Ah and mAh, below is described which term means.

What is the AmpHour Ah rating? What is a milliAmp Hour mAh? Wondering what in the world Ah Amp hour means? Is a 5Ah battery more powerful than a 2Ah battery? Does it last longer? The video above and this article give a quick and basic explanation of Amp hour and how it affects your cordless tools.

Amps are used to describe amp hour, but they are different units of measurement. Usually, if a battery has at least a 4Ah capacity, it will be prominently displayed somewhere on the battery like the 5Ah in the picture. Amp hour describes the capable charge of a battery. Theoretically, we can draw 5 amps, continuously, for 60 minutes before our 5 amp hour battery is drained. We say a capable charge because in the real world, you never meet those ideal conditions.

Most deep cycle batteries will tell you the Ah rating at multiple C ratings. The C rating tells you how many amp hours the battery can provide for a very specific period of time.

This means that is supplies Meanwhile, the same battery may safely provide 36 amp hours for a period of hours. Depending on the amount of use you intend to get out of your battery daily versus sporadically , you will want to compare amp hours for different C ratings. You may be wondering why it is that a battery provides more power when it runs longer, rather than less power.