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dudadiesel
Junior Member
- Thread Starter
- #16
Some information came from wikipedia, but I wanted to avoid citing that:
https://www.tecategroup.com/app_notes/0_Tecate_Group_What%20is%20an%20ultracapacitor.pdf
Basically, an ultra capacitor is a capacitor made with some battery materials / partially chemical. If you check that pdf, you can find a general comparisson of batteries, fuel cells, ultra capacitors and traditional capacitors on page 2. In summary, ultra capacitors are not as fast to discharge as traditional, which makes sense since they are a "hybrid technology" of batteries and capacitors. Somewhere I picked up that ultra capacitors are twice as slow in their discharge/recharge but that plot suggests much worse. Anyway, the point stands that they have higher capacities than traditional caps and are still faster than batteries so they have their benefits and trade-offs. Sounds to me close to the same as a power cell plus cap, if there's enough cap to run the amp's peaks anyway. Remember, it's about regulating voltage so that it won't drop too low when the demand suddenly hits the battery/alternator which aren't ready for that quick burst. More voltage = less amps for the same power = less heat generated = more efficiency and better sound (and less amps turning off from hitting max temps like back in my 12 hour a day pizza delivery days)
I didn't look much into the big ultra caps out there but I was finding ones already rated at 12-16v with high capacities. I assume they were many caps chained together in series. The more you put into series, the slower your discharge is going to be, so once you start chaining them together, you need to start putting these chains into parallel as well to make up for the loss.
https://www.tecategroup.com/app_notes/0_Tecate_Group_What%20is%20an%20ultracapacitor.pdf
Basically, an ultra capacitor is a capacitor made with some battery materials / partially chemical. If you check that pdf, you can find a general comparisson of batteries, fuel cells, ultra capacitors and traditional capacitors on page 2. In summary, ultra capacitors are not as fast to discharge as traditional, which makes sense since they are a "hybrid technology" of batteries and capacitors. Somewhere I picked up that ultra capacitors are twice as slow in their discharge/recharge but that plot suggests much worse. Anyway, the point stands that they have higher capacities than traditional caps and are still faster than batteries so they have their benefits and trade-offs. Sounds to me close to the same as a power cell plus cap, if there's enough cap to run the amp's peaks anyway. Remember, it's about regulating voltage so that it won't drop too low when the demand suddenly hits the battery/alternator which aren't ready for that quick burst. More voltage = less amps for the same power = less heat generated = more efficiency and better sound (and less amps turning off from hitting max temps like back in my 12 hour a day pizza delivery days)
I didn't look much into the big ultra caps out there but I was finding ones already rated at 12-16v with high capacities. I assume they were many caps chained together in series. The more you put into series, the slower your discharge is going to be, so once you start chaining them together, you need to start putting these chains into parallel as well to make up for the loss.