{"id":8464,"date":"2015-07-17T09:15:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T16:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.digilentinc.com\/?p=8464"},"modified":"2025-06-03T06:46:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T13:46:46","slug":"quick-coin-battery-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/quick-coin-battery-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Coin Battery Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pretty much everyone is familiar with the sizing for your typical alkaline batteries, like\u00a0AA, AAA, D, and so on. But their more discrete cousins, the coin cell batteries, seem to be a little less easy to tell apart just by looking at them, and they all seem to have some strange cypher of numbers and letters on them. Worry not! This post will give you a quick rundown on how to translate all that balderdash.<\/p>\n<p>On coin cell batteries you\u2019ll find a code that consists of two letters, followed by four (sometimes three) numbers. This particular naming convention conforms to the current International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard, though there are coin cells that conform to an older standard and are named differently.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coin-battery.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-8465 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coin-battery-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"coin-battery\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coin-battery-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coin-battery-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coin-battery-225x150.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first of the two letters is used to indicate what type of battery it is. The second letter, the R, is just an indicator of the shape (cylindrical). The various chemistries are listed below in cathode\/anode (+\/-) order. (The lithium batteries here are not rechargeable lithium-ion, they just contain lithium)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>B \u2013 Carbon-monofluoride\/Lithium<\/li>\n<li>C \u2013 Manganese-dioxide\/Lithium<\/li>\n<li>G \u2013 Copper-oxide\/Lithium<\/li>\n<li>L \u2013 Manganese-dioxide\/Zinc<\/li>\n<li>M,N \u2013 Mercuric-oxide\/Zinc<\/li>\n<li>P \u2013 Oxygen\/Zinc (zinc-air battery)<\/li>\n<li>S \u2013 Silver-oxide\/Zinc<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The numbers following the first two letters are an indication of the battery\u2019s dimensions. Diameter in millimeters is indicated by the first two, in a four digit code, or just the first in a three digit code. The last two numbers indicate the height of the battery in tenths of a millimeter.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/battSize.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-8466 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/battSize-600x359.png\" alt=\"battSize\" width=\"600\" height=\"359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/battSize-600x359.png 600w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/battSize-225x135.png 225w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/battSize.png 782w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As you can see (allowing for some manufacturing tolerances for the dimensions)\u00a0the size indicated on the battery is pretty spot on 20mm wide and 1.6mm tall. Well, that\u2019s about it, folks. Now you can amaze your friends at parties by telling them what coin cell battery codes mean\u2026\u2026or not.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style6 like-8464 jlk' data-task='like' data-post_id='8464' data-nonce='5286a1c13f' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-8464 lc'>+15<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style6 unlike-8464 jlk' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='8464' data-nonce='5286a1c13f' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-8464 unlc'>-3<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div> <div class='status-8464 status align-left'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is your inability to accurately identify coin cell batteries negatively impacting your life and affecting your loved ones? Nate is here to help!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":8468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4322,1563],"tags":[1452],"ppma_author":[4486],"class_list":["post-8464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessories","category-guide","tag-guide"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/CAM00676-e1436895649724.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":4486,"user_id":34,"is_guest":0,"slug":"naeastland","display_name":"Nate Eastland","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3f5e2ba0db9ba8026bfe6989caeaf75ea4a9dbf81731c88925a83de714bfc1c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":"","9":"","10":""}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8464"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31633,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8464\/revisions\/31633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8464"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=8464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}