EaglePicher Battery Approved by the U.S. Army

The U.S. Army Communications Electronics Life Cycle Material Command (C-E LCMC) has approved EaglePicher Technologies's design of the BA-5590 battery with a built-in, state-of-charge indicator (SOCI). During the first quarter, 40,000 batteries will be delivered to the U.S. Department of Defense. EaglePicher was contracted to design and qualify the new battery, the next generation of its high-energy lithium sulfur dioxide BA-5590. Early last year, the C-E LCMC issued new battery specification requirements including incorporation of the SOCI and the need for the complete discharge device to have light-emitting-diode (LED) indicators when activated. The LED indicators have been standard on the BA-5590 for the past four years. This new BA-5590 increases the number of indicator levels of battery capacity. The SOCI enhancement reinforces the cost and logistics savings since users can make replacement decisions based on the LED display indicating the remaining energy capacity versus discarding the battery after a single use. The LED display, designed for night operations and bright light environments, indicates the remaining capacity at levels of greater than 90%, 70%, 50%, 30% and 10%. The EaglePicher BA-5590 battery equipped with the SOCI also allows users of the single channel ground and airborne radio system to correlate percentage of capacity remaining to operating time remaining for more effective equipment management.