# The 'B' Battery **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 20, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160 "2004-09-20T18:17:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hambil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hambil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hambil)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/1 "2004-09-20T18:17:45Z")
Where is it? A, AA, AAA, C, D… no B. I find this discriminatory, and I am mildly offended. What horrible crime did the B battery commit to be shunned so? ---
**Author:** ![Earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/90db22/32.png) [@Earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthling)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/2 "2004-09-20T18:22:57Z")
[The Master speaks](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a920731.html). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/3 "2004-09-20T18:24:42Z")
It went the same place that the B: drive did on PCs. ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/4 "2004-09-20T18:27:12Z")
There was a Straight Dope column on this question: [How come you never see any B batteries?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a920731.html) Basically, they were there when the letters were assigned, but they were never really used commercially. Corrollary question: what letter-designation (if any) indicates the individual cells in a 9V battery? Anyone know? ---
**Author:** ![Hambil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hambil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hambil)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/5 "2004-09-20T18:31:57Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > Basically, they were there when the letters were assigned, but they were never really used commercially. Fascinating, and thanks to both people who provided the link to the short column. However, it leaves me wondering. Business doesn’t just decide to not use something. There are reasons. I wonder why the B battery never got picked up? Common sense would tell you the letters relate to size. So, a B battery would be slightly smaller than a C battery. I think there is some interesting research for me to do here… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/6 "2004-09-20T18:33:12Z")
[My dad worked on the “B” Battery for years.](http://www.ussteel.com/corp/facilities/clairton/coking.htm) It was a coke oven battery, at the U.S. Steel Clairton Works. It is still in operation. Huh? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/7 "2004-09-20T18:35:59Z")
IIRC, the B supply for old tube radios was ~20-90 volts. It wouldn’t have done to market a battery with a name implying it could be used as a B supply for radios when it could not. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/8 "2004-09-20T19:05:08Z")
The A, B (and sometimes C) batteries for old radios are an unfortunate confusion of terms with the cell size designations - the A battery in old radios supplied the filament current, and was rather low voltage, while the B battery supplied the higher plate voltage. The terms in this context had to do with these usages, and had nothing to do with the sizes or voltages of the batteries which varied among radios. We covered this a couple of times before, as here: > **[Why aren't 9v batteries used more?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=116827)** > > Why do so many products use serial arrays of 1.5volt batteries instead? It seems kind of weird, I mean the 9v is smaller a D cell, and of about the same overall volume as a C cell. It is easier to stack up and pack into a tight container, so why... The actual topic was “why aren’t 9V batteries used more?”, but it sequed into a discussion of radio batteries and cell sizes. Note that the link I posted in there which displayed the size of a b cell has been edited down, and no longer has the comparison photo. I don’t really see any huge mystery here - when they started making batteries, the standards committee took a stab at convenient sizes, which they designated A, B, C … They guessed wrong in the case of the B cell, and not very many device manufacturers wanted to use it. They also didn’t anticipate the uses that would come about for smaller cells, and wound up having to invent AA, AAA … ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/9 "2004-09-20T19:23:21Z")
Ah. Here’s the picture I was looking for. The guy who made the picture could not get ahold of an actual b cell, but he found out the size, and photoshopped something to compare them: [http://www.bitwaste.com/wasted-bits/archives/000115.html](http://www.bitwaste.com/wasted-bits/archives/000115.html) Careful when you google on this subject - the confusion with the “B battery” in old radios muddies the waters quite a bit. Some sources claim that a few b cells are still manufactured in Europe - in particular, that a once popular brand of bicycle lantern took 3 of them. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/10 "2004-09-20T19:30:40Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > Corrollary question: what letter-designation (if any) indicates the individual cells in a 9V battery? Anyone know? AAAA. You can buy them discretely, as well, although they’re rarely used these days. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/11 "2004-09-20T19:58:41Z")
Ha. I read ‘discreetly’ at first and pictured a guy in a trenchcoat sneaking into a back alleyway with a brown bag full of batteries. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/12 "2004-09-20T20:48:40Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It went the same place that the B: drive did on PCs. The B drive is your second floppy drive. Your first floppy would be A, and your (strictly optional) hard drive is C. Of course, this made more sense on the CP/M-80 and -86, when the OS fit on one floppy and very few people bought the external hard drives. Since most software was distributed on floppies, and could reasonably expect to own a floppy disk that was suitably copy-protected, it made sense to load up on floppy drives. ---
**Author:** ![Earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/90db22/32.png) [@Earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthling)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/13 "2004-09-20T21:08:29Z")
And from the days when I had to walk through chest-high snowdrifts uphill both ways to and from school… The second floppy drive had a resurgence even after hard drives became standard, in the transition period from 5.25" diskettes to 3.5" diskettes. Many PCs of that era (early 90s, IIRC) were equipped with two floppy drives, one for each size. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/14 "2004-09-20T21:15:14Z")
I happen to own a couple of dead “B” cells (assuming that they haven’t dissolved themselves to goo in my attic in the past 20 years. They came in a illuminated Taj Mahal tourist trinket my parents bought in India in the 1970s. I’ve never heard anyone mention that they may have been in wide use elsewhere in the world. My B cells were (IIRC - I haven’t seen them in a while) a bit longer than a D cell and thinner than a C cell. Think of them as “AA” on growth hormones. I’ve also seen a very different type of “B” cell in vacuum tube devicess, as described, and from other examples described, I think it’s clear that several different sets of standards included a “B” size, though most of us have never heard of those standards. ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-b-battery/265160/15 "2004-09-20T21:22:48Z")
Even if you didn’t have a second floppy drive, the first floppy drive would still be mirrored to B:. Perhaps this was so that commands referencing the B: drive in a batch file (‘diskcopy A: B:’, for example, would still work). About the A and B batteries – I’ve also heard yabob’s version of this. Apparently old radios had an A and B battery, which was used for different purposes. I’ve seen old documents about radios that refer to the A and B battery. So I think that the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sizes were left out of the definition to avoid confusion with the batteries in radio circuits.