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Button-Cell Battaries - is there any system to their names?

There is a naming system, but not all companies adhere to it. For example, a Panasonic-produced device may use a standard CR2032 battery but refer to it as PAN04. This mis-naming is a used to frighten consumers into buying only PAN04 batteries. Actually, I just made up that example. I do not know whether Panasonic practices such tactics.

The bottom line: most of the batteries you'll encounter have another, industry standard, name. And buying generically-manufactured batteries is much cheaper than the name-brand.

Let's examine the name "CR2032". This coin-cell battery is composed of Manganese dioxide and measures 20mm in diameter, 3.2mm in height. The name "CR2032" is better read as "C-R-20-32". Each of the 4 parts of the name has a different meaning:

As far as the consumer is concerned, any battery of the right dimensions and voltage will work. On that scale, the batteries DL2032, BR2032, KL2032, L2032, ECR2032, 5004LC, KCR2032, E-CR2032, KECR2032 and SB-T15 are all equivalent. They only differ from CR2032 in chemical composition or branding.

For further reading, see List of battery sized, and Button cell on Wikipedia.

Last updated on 2009-06-14 01:39:49 -0700, by Shalom Craimer

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