Supercaps

Made some progress yesterday and thought I'd share. Still need to double and triple the power density but I have a few ideas already. (at least one of them included piranha solution in a microwave so they're not all GOOD ideas) LINK to video. I had made a much bigger cell but tried to charge it too quickly and fried it. Will rebuild it possibly tonight if I have time, if not tomorrow. 
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Comments

  • What's your current capacity and power density? And how much did it cost to make the most recent prototype?
  • they're dirt cheap to make. That prototype maybe cost a buck? And i dunno, haven't measured yet. That was filmed late last night at the end of a frusterating day so only stayed around to film the demo then edited it/upload and passed out.
  • rough guesstimate for about 10 seconds of bright led (which requires 20mA to light up bright). Forward voltage for 20mA is typically around 1.9 V. As you start with about 2.9V you get 1V drop. 
    as the capacity is one coulomb / V and we have 20mA*10seconds worth of electrons.
    So the capacitor in the video has at least about 0.2F which is pretty darn impressive and, given the size, probably already better than commercially available ones.
    Chances are that they are even a tad better as led current grows exponentially with increased voltage so you probably start with a higher mA value then you have at 10 seconds. You best get an amp-meter so you can see the power output at all time.

    So even the way they are right now they'd be quite useful. Low power implants could run several minutes on those caps without requiring a 12mm diameter and 5mm thick commercial cap.

    How are your caps in terms of material safety, anything dangerous for the body?

  • All things considered they're pretty harmless. The electrolyte probably wouldn't be super fun to get in your blood stream but it's not horrible either. Certainly not carcinogenic and easy to treat if there was a problem. The electrode material is totally harmless and you could probably eat it and be fine. I still wanna double or triple the power density though since I need these to last far longer. Also the final size for the finished prototype will be about 2mm thick which will be 16-30 plates vs this ones 4. Also I used thicker foil for the cap in the video. The final thing will be using much thinner plates so I can cram more of them in there. 
  • @chironex, super glad to see progress on this!

    Completely off topic, but do you have a OnePlus One?
  • yes lol
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