TaylorFade Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 (edited) This write up was done for the Maxwell's, but everything still applies as I assume Scottie's are just as awesome. There's been a lot of talk about supercaps on here lately. There is a ton of confusion and a lot of questions about them. I thought I'd share what I know and let other discuss them here.First, and let me just get this out of the way... caps store electricity on plates. Batteries produce electricity through a chemical reaction. Caps use different plates, one with a positive charge (loses electrons) and one with a negative (gains electrons). The greater the difference in the charge (usually through the size of the plates), the greater potential for energy discharge. A great example of the way caps work and the potential energy (and the biggest one) is lightning. Where the earth is one plate and the clouds are the other.What are they? The ones everyone is using are either Maxwell 2.5v (black) or 2.7v (blue) single cell capacitors. You have to series them to achieve our operating voltages. When you series, you gain operating voltage. A bank of (6) 2.5v series to 15v. A bank of (7) of the black ones is 17.5v. A bank of (6) of the 2.7v blue ones is 16.2v.Now, when you series, you gain voltage, but you lose capacity. These supercaps have a retarded amount of capacity. Even the largest "car audio" capacitors are 20 farads and I've seen maybe 50F. Each one of the supercaps is either 2,600 farads (black ones) or 3,000F. Yes... three thousand farads. That's a lot of juice. But like I said, putting them into series'd banks, you lose capacity. Double the voltage, halve the capacity. So a bank of (6) 2.5v/2,600F caps is 15v/433F. That's still a ton. (6) 2.7v/3,000F is 16.2v/500F. A bank of (7) of the 2.5v ones gets you 17.5v but you lose capacity down to 370F.Recap...(6) 2.5v/2,600F = 15v/433F(7) 2.5v/2,600F = 17.5v/371F(6) 2.7v/3,000F = 16.2v/500F(7) 2.7v/3,000F = 18.9v/428FWhat makes these different than "regular" caps? Well, besides the insane amount of capacity, the ESR is a big deal here. ESR is basically internal resistance. The best and lowest ESR of a traditional cap I've seen is 0.017ohms. What's that mean? Well, if you apply 100A to something with a 0.017ohm resistance, you will get a 1.7v drop. That's not good. Triple that amperage and you get triple the resistance. 0.017 X 300A = 5.1v drop. Yikes.The max ESR of a Maxwell super cap (also known as an UltraCap or BoostCap) is .29 milliohms. That's 0.00029. Yeah... that's awesome. It's also why they charge and discharge so damn fast.A "Joule" is a watt-second. 1 Joule can produce 1 watt for 1 second.The formula for determining the total joules stored in a capacitor is very simple. We take one half the cap value in farads and multiply it times the squared charge voltage.So, let's say we have a bank of (6) black ones. That's 15v/433F.433/2 = 216.515x15 = 225216.5x225 = 48,712.5 joules.That's 48,000 watts for 1 second. Wow. or 24,000w for 2 seconds. And so on. Now, that doesn't take into account our operating voltage of >10v or so. If you take that into account, it's more like 6,000-8,000 joules. But that's still a lot. And that's just a single bank.Caps for burps. Freaking awesome. Highly recommed. And in my testing, each bank is good for ~ 2.5-3kw to stay above 13v or so on a 3 sec burp. More banks, more capacity, lower voltage drop.Caps plus batts for burps. Testing shows very little to no gain on burps with caps+batts. On 12v. I have seen someone gain by using caps+batts on a 16v system, but that may be an isolated case.Caps + batts for daily. Awesome. Highly recommend if your electrical is up to snuff or close already. Great addition to batts.A word on safety... These things will mess you up. They charge and discharge at a rate you will not be accustomed to. If they are charged, they will stay charged. And as we've talked about, that's a lot of f'n juice chillin. And it will bite you in the ass.You also DO NOT want to hook these up to a batt when they are not near the battery's resting voltage. They will try to draw sooooo much out of the batt at an alarming rate that it's basically like dead shorting your battery and you will weld that terminal to whatever it's touching.Also... DO NOT OVERCHARGE THESE THINGS!! I can not stress that enough. Bad things can and will happen.Blue ones. 2.7v, 3,000 farads.Black ones. 2.5v, 2,600 farads.My banks. And feel free to share pics of yours.These are (7) cap, 17.5v banks Edited January 13, 2015 by TaylorFade 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidClark Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 Very useful info Taylor. I'm glad XS has their own caps now Quote Pioneer 80PRS 4 Scan Speak discovery 4" full rage 2 Ampere Audio 6.5 Comp sets 3 Singer 370 Hairpin's 1 Odyssey g78/34-P1500 6 DieHard Platinum Marine g31 4 XS D3100's DC 175.4 DC 90.4 4 DC 5k's 4 m3 lvl 5 15's Soundrive RCA's Lots of welding lead & SkyHigh Team DC AUDIO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moredbs Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 great info on the caps! You had me at caps +batts daily= awesome,but my gut is telling me I'm not experienced enough to mess with these yet.Ill have to keep learning more,and maybe one day i will be ready for these. i love my xs batts though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaskanzx5 Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 Question: Like asked by others, if you don't have much to offer to xs power as a team member other then just simply running your product and doing a few competitions a year. Us guys up here in AK are just about an untapped market for xs power...I mean if course we have the usual part stores and some cheap Chinese batts. Quote t1500bdcp 2 t2d4 15" 1 t600.4 1 t400.2 1 set p1 tweets singer alt, tons of wiring, smd vm-1, 80prs, back seat delete, still in the works, aiming for a 145-147 with the ability to play 25hz up to 50hz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaylorFade Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 For the less experienced user or those who feel they're not "team" material... my suggestion is to wait for the Module. I don't know exactly what it will be, but I am sure it's going to be a "box" of bussed up caps with two terminals like a battery that's ready to roll. No fuss, no muss, more mounting options, safer installs, etc. I can tell you from experience that modules are much easier to deal with and make for a cleaner and safer install. All the convenience of a battery- all the benefits of caps. Worth the premium to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karkov Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 I wish those modules were ready now. I bring nothing to the table but want to run caps. I run 10 XS power batts. right now... Quote 2007 Chevy Tahoe (SOLD) 12 ~ FI Audio X series 10" w/BP option 2 ~ DC Audio 5.0K @0.67 3 ~ DC Audio 5.0K @1.0 2 ~ PPI 3 way sets (not installed yet) 1 ~ RF T400-4, 1 ~ RF T600-2, 1 ~ RF T600-4 4 ~ CT Sounds 5.25" Strato comps (rear fill only) 1 ~ XS Power D4800 1 ~ XS Power D3400 8 ~ XS Power XP3000 160 stock alt, Mechman 370 Elite, 185 DC Power 320+ Sq. Ft. Sound Deadener Pioneer AVH-X5500BHS Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/knfjdkghjudfhsgkjdhf/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audiofanaticz Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 You say be part of team xs power. I'm willing but I bring nothing to the table for you. What would be done in my situation Pretty much the same scenario for me as well, I really don't compete much but still enjoy going to some of the larger shows to hang out and meet people and demo, maybe get in the lanes here and there. I have been curious on running capacitors for a while now along with my current 7 xs power batteries (soon to be 10) just to help level off the larger drops in voltage. Id like to get my hands on at least 1 bank to play with just to do my own comparisons with average and max voltage drop and spl numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirill007 Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 (edited) Q: What makes them any different than any other ultracap out there? A: Nothing. They work equally as well as any other ultracap we’ve tested… they just look way cooler. I like this company for it's honesty.(and good products) Edited January 13, 2015 by kirill007 Quote Thinking is the root of all problems... You ALWAYS get what you pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirill007 Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 (edited) This write up was done for the Maxwell's, but everything still applies as I assume Scottie's are just as awesome. There's been a lot of talk about supercaps on here lately. There is a ton of confusion and a lot of questions about them. I thought I'd share what I know and let other discuss them here. First, and let me just get this out of the way... caps store electricity on plates. Batteries produce electricity through a chemical reaction. Recap... (6) 2.5v/2,600F = 15v/433F (7) 2.5v/2,600F = 17.5v/371F (6) 2.7v/3,000F = 16.2v/500F (7) 2.7v/3,000F = 18.9v/428F So, let's say we have a bank of (6) black ones. That's 15v/433F. 433/2 = 216.5 15x15 = 225 216.5x225 = 48,712.5 joules. That's 48,000 watts for 1 second. Wow. or 24,000w for 2 seconds. And so on. Now, that doesn't take into account our operating voltage of >10v or so. If you take that into account, it's more like 6,000-8,000 joules. But that's still a lot. And that's just a single bank. Caps store a (electrical) charge. Batteries don't produce electricity (except the first time it's made), they only convert the electrical energy into a chemical reaction that is reversible when a load is attached to the terminals. This is why caps are so much faster, they don't have to undergo a (slow) chemical reaction. Recap... For our voltages: Energy = 0.5 x C x (Vmax^2 - Vmax x Vout) 0.5*433*(15²-15*10)=16237.5Ws which is still pretty good. And heat is quite the enemy of capacitors, so mounting them in the engine bay won't do them good. Edited January 13, 2015 by kirill007 2 Quote Thinking is the root of all problems... You ALWAYS get what you pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Brill-Edwards Posted January 13, 2015 Report Share Posted January 13, 2015 Will they be using active or passive balancing circuits (if at all)? Quote Daniel Brill-Edwards - Representing English Bassheads!!Old Build Log - http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/board/topic/94637-vw-golf-mk3-1996-build-from-england/ New build coming soon with SMD V1 #99YouTube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/brilledwards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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