Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

SuperCapacitor, How much energy can they hold??

Status
Not open for further replies.

cobra1

New Member
Im looking into the possibility of getting a 48v supercapacitor for a project.

This capacitor is rated 165F @ 48.6v

I would like to work out how to convert this value to something more familiar like 48.6v @ ???AH

Can this be done???

The load put on this capacitor will be 48v @ 2A continuous. I need to get an idea of how long it will last from fully charged and also how long it would take to recharge.

Thanks guys
 
Why are you wanting to use a capacitor instead of a battery? - a battery will be a fraction of the cost, a fraction of the size, and FAR out perform it.

Have a look at:

Capacitance and Uses of Capacitors

In particular the capacitor discharge curves - which makes capacitors pretty useless for most energy storage appliactions.
 
I was looking into the use of this capacitor because they are faster to recharge than a battery, also the battery i was going to use was a lifepo4 battery, it would cost somewhere in the region of £1000 to build and that battery can be recharged in about 15mins.

Thats why i was looking at this particular capacitor.


forgot to add, although cheaper, i dont want to use lead acid batteries for this particular application. The system im building has to be as close to ZERO maintainence as possible.
 
Last edited:
forgot to add, although cheaper, i dont want to use lead acid batteries for this particular application. The system im building has to be as close to ZERO maintainence as possible.

In my experience of super-capacitors they are anything but 'zero maintainance', with fairly limited life times, usually less than you would expect from lead acid batteries.

What is the application anyway?, and is voltage regualtion at all important? - I presume you checked the discharge graphs I mentioned?.
 
Im still waiting on the prices for them, i think i remember seeing them a while back for £600-£700

Nigel i looked at the graphs, i dont think they will be able to do what i want after reading through the thread that blueroom posted.

The application is my Bio Hydrogen generator.
Most of the electronics are well underway now, and nearly all of the mechanics are done, just ironing out a few bits and pieces. To start i will run it off the mains and see what its taking, then build a battery pack to suit it.
 
Im still waiting on the prices for them, i think i remember seeing them a while back for £600-£700

Nigel i looked at the graphs, i dont think they will be able to do what i want after reading through the thread that blueroom posted.

Yes, I read it a well, interesting that their reliability seems to be even lower than I thought.

The application is my Bio Hydrogen generator.
Most of the electronics are well underway now, and nearly all of the mechanics are done, just ironing out a few bits and pieces. To start i will run it off the mains and see what its taking, then build a battery pack to suit it.

Try it with four cheap car batteries for a start - it's basically only a proof of concept anyway.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top