Lewis wrote:

> How much can one realistically draw from a 3V lithium coin cell in a
> hand-held device application for short periods of time - say 30 seconds
> etc.  I am drawing about 12mA but the specs (what ones i can find on the
> web ) are all going on about uA draws as they are talking about memory
> backup applications.

Well, if I remember correctly from my days at Timex we could reliably draw up to
20mA peak (say a few ms) and about 10mA sustained. BUT - it was only true for
the large Lithium cells (2025, 2032), we only did it for the manufacturers we
had qualified (Panasonic and Eveready I think) and "sustained" was only for a
few seconds. The highest currents we drew for as long as 30s (or longer) were on
the order of 4-5mA; I don't know with higher currents. And by the way, most of
these figures were directly from the manufacturer and were not in the
datasheets. As a side note, please take precautions against shorting of large
Lithium cells. Discharge pulses on the order of several amps ARE possible.

Michael