Epec's Blog | Electronics Manufacturing Solutions

Medical devices equipped with battery packs are required to provide optimal safety and performance when in use. Whether these devices are used for monitoring, diagnostic, or surgical applications, battery packs can pose serious risks to patients and medical staff if they malfunction, overheat, or are inefficient.

Battery management systems (BMS) are safety devices integrated into battery packs to monitor the cells during charging and discharging phases. These systems can activate safety controls when problems arise while logging data that you can use to evaluate the cell's stability. When functioning properly, the BMS can improve the efficiency and longevity of the battery pack. Unfortunately, BMS design flaws may cause serious risks and failures to cells.

Products that use battery packs may require certification through national and international quality and safety organizations. These regulations ensure that the battery packs meet compliance standards for packaging, transportation, use, storage, and disposal.

Medical devices using portable battery packs require special design considerations to ensure optimal power for these devices while upholding the highest levels of safety. The medical devices can use lithium-ion, lithium metal, lead acid, NiMH, silver-oxide, and alkaline battery cells based on power requirements and usage. The battery packs cannot malfunction when in use, during sterilization, or when placed into storage.

Controlling thermal management requires the use of external and internal devices to ensure that the battery operates at the optimal level in the specific environment when there are fluctuating temperatures.

Battery pack designs take into consideration the type of environment for the application. Harsh conditions such as extreme temperatures, vibrations, shocks, moisture, dust, and humidity may degrade battery cells.

Every device requires unique power and energy needs, whether it requires a strong jolt of power when starting up or a steady amount of energy for long periods of work activity. Yet factors such as aging, degradation, extreme temperatures, and severe discharging events can impact the available capacity of a battery cell.

Lithium-based battery packs require battery management systems (BMS) to monitor important functions. These functions include the temperature, voltage, current, charging/discharging rates, capacity, and the overall health of the batteries. If an issue arises, such as high temperatures or overcharging, the BMS collects the data and sends it to the device's control system.

Newer technological devices require battery cells to provide higher levels of power while being lightweight and small. When seeking higher levels of energy and power in battery packs, these circumstances create an environment that leads to potentially unstable battery chemistries, elevated temperatures, short circuits, cell swelling, loss of capacity, and overcharging/over-discharging.

Wearable devices such as smartwatches, wearable cameras, ECG monitors, and fitness trackers rely on custom batteries to provide power for operation. Designing wearable technologies creates significant challenges due to the size and flexibility of the devices. Wearable tech requires battery packs to be light enough for use while providing long-lasting energy.