Index / CR1220

CR1220

CR1220 — lithium, 3 V, 12.5 x 2 mm. Current, and nothing else in the data shares its size.

What fits the compartment, and what does not

Fit answers whether it enters the compartment. Voltage answers whether the circuit will notice. A cell that fits is not always a safe substitute.

Nothing Energizer still lists is the same depth. The 2 options below share the diameter and run 1.6 to 2.5 mm against this cell's 2, and some are shallower and some deeper, so read the depth column: short of this cell is a contact problem, past it is a cover problem.

Also stamped 5012LC

What the designation encodes, and what it rounds off

The number in the name is rounded. CR1220 encodes a diameter of 12 mm, but the cell measures 12.5 mm: the standard writes whole millimeters and drops the remainder. The height, 2 mm, is carried exactly. The same cell is stamped 5012LC depending on who made it.

What this cell can stand in for

1 designation Energizer no longer lists points at this cell as the closest thing it does list, and the voltage is the same. If a device was built for one of them, this is a straight substitution.

Every column of a row describes the discontinued cell it names. Fit reads that way too: it says whether that cell would enter this compartment, not whether this one enters its. Voltage is measured against this cell, the same way everywhere on the page: each row shows the discontinued cell’s own voltage and how far that voltage sits from this one.

What a lithium coin is asked to hold

A lithium coin 12.5 mm across holds 3 V with almost no self-discharge, which is why sockets that must remember something for years are cut for this shape. Same diameter, other depths: CR1216, BR1225 and CR1225. They are one voltage, 3 V; depth is the only thing that changes.

2 cells measure close enough to compare against it in the Energizer data this site reads, and 2 of them are still listed. The nearest is CR1216: it enters and sits lower and runs 3 V, same volts. Energizer files it for Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America, which is where the part is sold rather than where the cell will work. The maker still lists it, under 1 product line: CR1220.

Drawn to scale

Every published figure

Capacity is missing here, and with it every figure derived from capacity: 10 figures are published, 4 fields are not.

What the datasheet does not say

Beyond size and voltage the sheet for CR1220 is thin: 3 published figures below, and no impedance, no cutoff and no operating range at all. That silence is the maker's, not ours.

The part occupies 0.25 cubic centimeters and weighs 0.8 g. Energizer files it for Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America.

The code read as a measurement

CR1220 encodes 12 x 2 mm where the sheet measures 12.5 x 2 mm. The standard writes whole millimeters, so that is rounding and not disagreement.

Mass against volume

0.8 g filling 0.25 cubic centimeters. When the printing has worn off, a kitchen scale separates two cells of one envelope faster than a caliper does.

Where the part is filed

Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. That is a statement about the maker's distribution and not about where the cell works.

Is that a lot of energy?

Capacity is not published for this cell, so it is absent from the energy ranking rather than placed at the bottom of it. What can be compared is size: 12.5 x 2 mm, against a shell that holds 1 designation.

A width the catalog keeps returning to

12.5 mm is a width this catalog keeps coming back to: 3 coins sit within half a millimeter of it, CR1220 included.

• SR55 — the next step down by volume: 0.22 cubic centimeters against this cell's 0.25.
• SR48 — the next step up: 0.26 cubic centimeters, 104% of this one.
• BR1225 — 12.5 x 2.5 mm, 3 V, lithium.
• CR1216 — 12.5 x 1.6 mm, 3 V, lithium.
• 2 of those ones are still listed. 16 of the 82 coins share its 3 V exactly.

The names on the package that are not designations

CR1220 answers to 1 marking outside the standard: DL1220. A retail trade marking, not an iec designation, and no standards body stands behind any of them, which is why none is printed under Also stamped above.

• DL1220 — a retail trade marking, not an IEC designation.
• 5012LC — a manufacturer part number for CR1220, not a standard designation.

The cell that differs only in depth

The code says the size, so the cells that get confused with CR1220 are the ones that keep its diameter and change its depth. 3 cells share this diameter at depths from 1.6 to 2.5 mm, and every one of them enters the same opening.

• CR1216 — same diameter, 1.6 mm tall against this cell's 2: 0.4 mm shallower, which the standard writes into both codes.
• BR1225 — same diameter, 2.5 mm tall against this cell's 2: 0.5 mm deeper, which the standard writes into both codes.
• CR1225 — same diameter, 2.5 mm tall against this cell's 2: 0.5 mm deeper, which the standard writes into both codes.
• 1177SO — 11.6 mm across at 1.55 V against 12.5 mm here, 0.9 mm apart: loose in this holder.
• 201 — 11.6 mm across at 1.5 V against 12.5 mm here, 0.9 mm apart: loose in this holder.
• On a scale the difference shows before it shows on a caliper: this one weighs 0.8 g.

A thin record, and what that costs

The maker's record for CR1220 is thin: 4 of 7 fields are blank, and only 3 are filled. What follows from a blank is an absence on this page, never a guess.

The blanks are the same in all 1 record behind this designation, so they are the catalog's silence and not a merge losing a value. What is not missing is the envelope: 12.5 x 2 mm, published and checked against the designation itself.

• No capacity — so this page cannot tell you how long it runs, and every energy figure that depends on it.
• No cutoff voltage — so this page cannot tell you what the capacity figure was counted down to, without which the capacity is a number without a scale.
• No impedance — so this page cannot tell you whether the cell can drive a pulse, which is the whole question in a watch or a sensor.
• No operating temperature — so this page cannot tell you whether the maker claims anything at all below freezing.

Before you swap anything

Everything here is computed from published dimensions and nominal voltages. That answers whether a cell enters the compartment and whether the voltage matches on paper. It does not answer what your device does with the difference, and it cannot: a cell that fits can still be the wrong cell.

One more limit, and it is the biggest. This site reads a single manufacturer’s catalog. When a page says a designation is not listed, that means Energizer no longer offers a part under it — not that nobody makes the cell. Other makers may still sell it, and for common sizes they usually do.

A voltage difference is one relation between two cells, and this page prints it from the cell it is about — in every table on the page, including the one listing cells no longer made. A figure always belongs to the cell whose voltage is printed beside it: a cell that runs lower than this one carries a minus here, one that runs higher carries a plus, and two cells at the same nominal voltage carry zero. Meet the same pair on the other cell’s page and the sign is the other one, with the figure taken against that cell instead of this one; where the two run at the same voltage, both pages print zero. The class beside the figure is not read off that figure directly. It is decided on the gap itself, taken against the higher of the two nominal voltages, so one pair of cells gets one class whichever page you meet it on: counted from this side the boundary of the class that still runs falls at 20.0% below and 25.0% above, which is the same gap divided once by the larger nominal and once by the smaller. What genuinely differs between the two directions is the consequence, and the words carry it: a cell that runs low makes a calibrated instrument read below true, and a cell that runs high makes it read above.

3 things this site cannot see. Whether the contacts reach a shorter cell. Whether the device was calibrated for a chemistry that holds its voltage flat, which silver oxide does and alkaline does not. Whether the equipment tolerates the higher current a different chemistry can deliver. Rechargeable cells are never a drop-in for primary cells regardless of size.

Cells measured next to this one

Nothing in the Energizer data on this site shares this exact size. The 3 cells below have the same diameter and a different depth — 1.6 to 2.5 mm against this cell's 2 — which is a near miss rather than an alternative.

• CR1216 — 12.5 x 1.6 mm, 3 V
• BR1225 — 12.5 x 2.5 mm, 3 V
• CR1225 — 12.5 x 2.5 mm, 3 V

Where these numbers come from

Dimensions, voltages, chemistries and capacities are published by the manufacturer and reproduced without change. Everything else on the page is ours, computed from those figures: whether one cell fits where another sat, how far apart their voltages are, stored energy and energy per cubic centimeter, the rank within a shell, and the check of the designation against the measured size.

Fit is decided within 0.3 mm on every axis, which is the order of a contact spring's travel. Voltage classes are decided by consequence, not by roundness, and they are decided on the gap between two nominal voltages taken against the higher of the two: 2.0% or less of it is the same working voltage, 6.0% starts to matter to a calibrated instrument, and past 20.0% it is a different class altogether. Measuring the gap against the higher figure is what makes the verdict the same from either cell’s page, while the printed percentage stays counted from the cell you are reading about. Cells with identical stored energy share a rank instead of being ordered arbitrarily.

Ranking uses capacity times nominal voltage, because capacity alone is not comparable across chemistries: 150 mAh at 3 V is twice the energy of 150 mAh at 1.5 V. Neighbors are chosen by measurement and never alphabetically, because two cells filed next to each other by name usually have nothing in common. A blank in any table means the maker publishes no figure, which is not the same as zero.

Source: Energizer technical data, retrieved 1 September 2026.

The record behind this page

Every figure on this page comes from one catalog record, number 216, and it is linked below. The sheet is the document the dimensions, voltage and capacity were read out of.

1. [1] Energizer catalog record 216, active in the snapshot. Technical data sheet: 1220GL0626.pdf.

Every figure above is reproduced from those records without change; the comparisons are ours and are described on the method page. Snapshot: Energizer technical data, retrieved 1 September 2026.

Putting this on a forum or a repair page? The same answer without the site around it — fit, voltage, chemistry and the limits that go with them — is at /embed/cr1220/. It loads nothing from anywhere else. Paste this:

<iframe src="https://batterycross.com/embed/cr1220/" width="100%" height="520" loading="lazy" title="CR1220 replacements"></iframe>