Just what products actually use super capacitors ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 12:01:45 am
content: Aside from the odd tiny <1F cap used as a watch battery replacement to keep CMOS config settings alive, I'm struggling to think of any off the shelf consumer/industrial equipment that actually uses super capacitors.Has anyone pulled something apart and found a 100F ultra capacitor inside ?Is anyone on here using them in designs that go into production (even small scale).

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 12:04:27 am
content: I've seen a few small gizmo's intended for a potato battery that used a super cap for buffering in compact spaces,

author: RobertoLG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 12:07:44 am
content: there is a multimeter that uses it, a fluke I think and maybe a Uni T too

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 08:17:50 am
content: My bedside digital clock uses one to ride over short power outages (around 10-15 mins)I've designed other gear that uses them to keep the RTC alive in the same way.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 09:48:44 am
content: I have an AV amplifier which uses one to maintain its settings when unplugged from the mains.I've personally designed one into a device which was normally mains powered and left on, but which needed to be able to keep its RTC running if switched off overnight or over a weekend.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 10:36:34 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on March 26, 2016, 09:42:27 amThat baby was way more than D cell size, and damn if it didn't make me rip my pants lol, getting my hands on that would make for some serious fun, they aren't actually super expensive though, I think around $80-$100 on ebay.

author: richard.cs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 11:09:36 am
content: Lots of battery powered telemetry devices use them to provide the high current peaks for the modem.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 12:02:06 pm
content: No clue, but this looks cool.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 01:25:29 pm
content: In the early 2000's it was all the rage and they were supposed to be the next best thing, pretty much every lab at my school had a project involving putting big supercap banks into <insert means of transportation here>... but the end result of all that was approximately nothing beyond PoC stage. Oh well, it got a bunch of students to do energy / mass / volume calculations, work on how to design power electronics to pump dozens of kW for a few seconds etc...Although I believe there's a small pool of prototype buses using them somewhere in China.

author: zal42
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 03:08:57 pm
content: I have a number of small RC helicopters and quadcopters that run on supercaps.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 03:19:22 pm
content: A few years ago there was a line of little toy cars (don't know if they still make them) that had a supercap in them and a small charging station. They took a few seconds to charge but didn't go very far on one charge.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 03:25:39 pm
content: Quote from: zal42 on March 26, 2016, 03:08:57 pmReally doubt it, supercaps don't really have the required energy / weight ratio to make anything fly. Small LiPo cells however...

author: zal42
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 03:29:50 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on March 26, 2016, 03:25:39 pmYou may doubt it, but it's true. It's also true that they don't perform that well. Flight times are generally a couple of minutes and the birds are a bit underpowered. The main advantages are that they are very small and can recharge very quickly.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 03:32:32 pm
content: Still very skeptical given 2-5mins are about what you get out of lithium cells, and a supercap can only do about 5% of that in terms of storage per size/weight.Many toy sellers will severely exceed the Li cells' optimal charge rate to get the things to charge more quickly though.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 03:33:24 pm
content: Quote from: RobertoLG on March 26, 2016, 12:07:44 amI got a Voltcraft VC 260 with a 20F super cap and a solar cell. It can be charged from 230V mains or 9-12V DC and runs for quite a while. Not the best DMM, but no worries about batteries. I keep it in my tool box.

author: djQUAN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 03:56:45 pm
content: Quote from: zal42 on March 26, 2016, 03:29:50 pmpics? All the tiny RC helis I've seen use small lipo cells. These are then pushed really hard with high charge and discharge C rates to achieve reasonable flight times and quick recharge.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 04:16:54 pm
content: I use one to extend the life of low power non rechargeable radio transmitters. Most of the day the device is a sleep and draws 5-6 uA, once a day it wakes up and transmits using ~30-50mA but the peak pulses are >2A. The 7.2v batteries can obviously supply the 5-6uA for way longer than it can provide the 2A pulse without voltage drops (in terms of their used capacity leading to voltage drops). A supercap extends the useful life of a set of batteries by at least 4x in accelerated testing, field testing hasn't got that far yet but so far so good.That may sound like a batterieser advert but differs in two ways:a) The application in question is the perfect niche of switching from very low to quite high current draw, doesn't help much for 99.999% of designs.b) My stuff existsI think most industrial GSM devices have some form of supercap, that's what the reference designs I used were for.You can get similar results from electrolytic but the supercaps are so much more compact and the low esr seems to help.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 05:53:25 pm
content: Super caps sound in no way like a batterizer.

author: zal42
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 06:33:11 pm
content: Quote from: djQUAN on March 26, 2016, 03:56:45 pmThey're at the office, but I'll take pics in the next couple of days. I will admit, though, that I have made a (possibly erroneous) assumption here. I know that one of them uses supercaps because I repaired it. I simply assumed the others were similar because they have similar charge/discharge characteristics. However, it sounds likely that my assumption is incorrect.

author: Dataforensics
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 07:04:12 pm
content: The Sealey Electro Start800 vehicle jumpstarter is advertised as using supercapacitors.Its supposed to charge them from a nearly exhausted 12v car battery (down to 5V) then jumpstart.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 07:33:27 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on March 26, 2016, 03:19:22 pmI had one at one time. The cap was something like 2.2F, 2.7V.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 08:26:58 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on March 26, 2016, 03:32:32 pmWhere are you only getting 2-5 minutes flight time with LiPos? Even my little Hubsan flies about 15 minutes on a charge of the 1S battery it uses. Assuming I can avoid crashing into things for a full 15 minutes.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2016, 08:29:33 pm
content: Model railroaders are using more supercaps, as keep-alive devices for DCC sound decoders, to keep the train moving and the sound from cutting out over dirty spots of track. Anything short of a small bank of supercaps doesn't store enough energy to keep the motor turning and the sound system powered. With the supercap keep alives, the loco can traverse several feet of track that has been taped over.

author: TinkerFan
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2016, 05:29:49 pm
content: I've got one in my back light of my bicycle so that the light stays on, when I'm standing at a traffic light for example.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2016, 05:40:06 pm
content: They use the "ultra" style ones in big trucks for starting. The starter in the truck is connected to the capacitor and a diode goes into the capacitor from the main batteries to charge it and prevent it sucking off the main batteries when starting.Even if your main batteries are way past being able to start the truck, the capacitor bank can slow charge off them and be able to send over that kick of several hundred amps even at 8 or 9V if that's all you have available.

author: ade
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 28, 2016, 06:18:03 pm
content: QuoteMy Blade Nano QX gets about 5 minutes, maybe a bit more. Though it feels like 15 minutes if I really concentrate hard not to crash smack it against my TV, walls, piano, etc.