what are amp hours

Amp hours, often abbreviated as Ah or A h, is a unit of electric charge that tells consumers how much amperage a battery can provide for exactly one hour. It is a measure of how long a battery can provide one amp of power per hour. One ampere-hour is equal to the charge transferred by a steady current of one ampere flowing for one hour, or 3,600 coulombs. The commonly seen milliampere-hour (mAh) is one-thousandth of an ampere-hour (3.6 coulombs) . Large batteries are usually rated in ampere hours, while for standard AA and AAA batteries and other small batteries used in devices such as personal vaporizers and notebook computers, the rating is provided in milliampere hours (mAh) . The C rating is another factor that tells how many amp hours the battery can provide for a specific period of time.