Chastain’s book is viewable on Google books.
But well worth the purchase price. If a person wants to get into real machine building he has a whole set on oil fired furnaces for aluminum or cast iron, sand casting, piston and cylinder head making, centrifuges to recover waste oil as fuel.
A first rate machinist and machine designer.
Garry, thanks for the link. Before the end of the year I better order the casting books! I’m starting to collect too much motor oil and that would be a good way to use it.
This thread is still labelled "Super Capacitor, right?
I think they sound great at first glance for energy storage, but they are NOT batteries. Their voltage starts to drop as soon as you start to draw current, don’t they?
Let’s say you charge your super capacitor bank at 14 volts, until it draws no more current. Then you try to start your generator or vehicle directly on woodgas. Let’s say it doesn’t start right away. Next time you hit the key, you have less voltage. Maybe still plenty of total watts stored, but not the voltage anymore. It does not level off for a while, like a car battery, does it?
There should be some way to electronically provide a fixed voltage from the energy source, which would address the voltage drop?
Likely already done, perhaps not applied to super capacitors?
Basically your correct Pete. But in this application the caps keep the alternator functioning so that the inverter can make 120vac. So the caps act as a flywheel, replacing the battery.
To do what you want a step up power supply would be needed. Well, really a step down then step up. So this type of power supply would suck up most of the power out of the cap and keep the voltage constant until most of the energy is used up.
Hi Pete, & everyone…just my two cents worth.
True the supercapacitor unloads somewhat, and voltage drops, but not all of it, & not completely. But a quick recharge of 12 seconds or 1 minute [whatever it actually would be, I don’t know] & your right back where ya need to be—battEry can’t do that, automotive battery takes more time, most occasions of recharging a battery require at least 12 minutes. 12 seconds or whatever… compared to 12 minutes. And yet someone somewhere will leave the car lights on over night, hummmmmph either way battery or supercapacitor, you going to need a jump. One thing I notice in a ‘car battery jump with a SC bank-video’, once the car charging system was running, quickly recharged the supercap bank…the voltage available for the next restart of the car, was around 14.2vdc, and the voltage drop while hot restarting the car, was very small, I think someone said earlier that is about 5 restarts for a car without a alternator recharge, this is some pretty good performance I think.
Now then lets add in the long standing battery problem --COLD weather-- and perhaps the supercaps will look really good?, most of us have seen just how awful a COLD battery can be when attempting to recharge the things, very difficult to take a charge when in the subzero environs.
There is more than a few times on my diesel big truck, that all I needed was just one good hit & the thing is running, I’m guessing a SC starting circuit would work…I’m sure the huge amperage would unload from the SC into the starter of the big engine, but we all know about battery voltage drop under a full load [over 400 amps, 24vdc]…so would the SC bank hold the voltage drop to a realistic value, similar or better than a battery?..I’m talking COLD difficult starts here, not hot restarts, like what most Utubers show with their little honda cars that might just be showing hot restarts, which is not a demanding test.
I think supercapacitors will be replacing batteries in some applications, they are easily 10X lighter which is huge if you normally carry around 6 big 12vdc truck batteries everywhere you go. Supercapacitors have a much longer duty cycle [a million cycles], and wouldn’t it be nice if all those lead acid terminal corrosion problems disappeared forever [as Jeff mentioned earlier], even if I have been known to make a little money cleaning up that kind of mess. I don’t even want to throw in the rich folk’s lithium type battery example, I don’t know how wicked those things really are.
Oh and as long as the supercapacitor voltage ratings are less than about 48 volts [what a human can feel], they are fairly safe for most people to work with. I guess we must be mindful that supercaps will blow up if the recharging polarity was accidentally reversed, as if jump starting a car with the jumper leads incorrectly attached…as far as I understand it from this webpost…http://www.instructables.com/id/Lets-learn-about-Super-Capacitors-A-Practical-G/ but then incorrect jump start connections are a problem for regular batteries as well, like the acid spew from a blownup jump to a car battery. I guess the general direction for supercapacitors is at least attempting to go with ‘people/environ friendly’ materials. That website, also recommends the use of a diode between the SC bank & the recharging set-up…I might be wrong about that.
And what if the typical automotive charging alternator ‘run time’,[ that is load requirement ] to recharge the SC bank to full starting capability is reduced easily 10X, or more, which should save some fuel consumption in a big way, when the alternator load immediately drops after the SC requirements are met, all your alternator has to do is run all the other stuff. I guess it wouldn’t be a stretch to have a supercapacitor for the starting only, and a different battery for all those other electrical functions? I think maybe if there are no parasitic loads [which are generally normal for most cars, example: leaky ignition switch] upon the supercap start/quick recharge circuit, the concept seems OK to me.
I must admit I’ve sold myself on the supercapacitor idea, even tho I took ‘the battery man’ position in previous post in this thread where I chimed in about my lawnmower application. As this thread has given some new, decent examples to examine. But my last car battery purchase also sold me on the supercapacitors…daRn typical car batteries are now in $100+range, which seems double from 10 yrs. ago, and I’ll be lucky to make that new battery useful for the next 7 years. I haven’t built a SC bank yet, but definately before my next car battery purchace, I should have a super capacitor bank with balance bar set-up, yanno if I don’t talk myself out of it. hahaha
As for my lawnmower, I’ve got a B&S 12HP and it has a ‘dual circuit’ stator, of which is basically a unregulated DC charging voltage, utilizing only a diode, 3 amp output, but the voltage can bump close to 15 vdc, [regular battery don’t care if the recharge voltage generally runs high, probably has a fuse on it] might take a while to recharge the supercapacitor bank at 3 amperes rate? Or is it enough to just reestablish the working voltage of about 13.2 vdc?—I’m expecting the SC bank will bump my working voltage to 14 or 14.7. I know for sure that permanent magnet starter on the thing, would love 14+ starting voltage…even on a COLD day. My lawnmower has no parasitic load, except maybe a leaky dashboard ignition switch.
Anyway I guess I’m leaning toward the ‘new normal’ not on all things, but I like the sound of the SC bank.
Oliver
[quote=“oliver, post:86, topic:1776”]
“Quote”
True the supercapacitor unloads somewhat, and voltage drops, but not all of it, & not completely. But a quick recharge of 12 seconds or 1 minute [whatever it actually would be, I don’t know] & your right back where ya need to be
“/quote”
Doesn’t this tell you that the super capacitor is only storing a tiny portion of the power that a lead acid cell would store?
Five hot starts from a super capacitor bank is not very impressive. Imagine that you ran out of gas on a dark night and had to run the starter and fuel pump long enough to get gas back into the system. Or if any “limp home” event occurred that made starting hard.
(Quote)
There is more than a few times on my diesel big truck, that all I needed was just one good hit & the thing is running, I’m guessing a SC starting circuit would work…I’m sure the huge amperage would unload from the SC into the starter of the big engine, but we all know about battery voltage drop under a full load [over 400 amps, 24vdc]…so would the SC bank hold the voltage drop to a realistic value, similar or better than a battery?..(/Quote)
Do you really believe that? Aren’t you choosing the absolute best case here? I have seen plenty of diesels start in cold weather, and I don’t think many drivers would buy all that.
You also need to remember that about 3/4 of the stored energy in a capacitor is GONE by the time the voltage drops in half. That last 1/4 isn’t even available in modern cars and spark ignition trucks because most the the ECUS shut down at about 8 volts.
Lastly, i wonder how an automotive electrical charging system responds to the “dead short” current that a totally “flat” super capacitor bank wants to draw. In heavy duty linear mode DC power supply design, they have to be careful not to use too much capacitance to control ripple. With excessive capacitance, the capacitors draw so much current that they can blow the wall circuit breakers. And they aren’t even super capacitors.
I’m not “anti capacitor”. I use them literally ALL the time. Hurray! T=RC!!!
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh OK, Hi Pete, thanks for getting me squared away somewhat, I see what ya mean now the SC is just a little thing, that the internet is blowing up to be some new wonderous thing, that really it ain’t.
I guess I got caught up in the comparisons of the things, microfarads and now farads on the SC, and it seemed like the name ‘super’ …is kind of like the word majic in my mind, but really it isn’t that majical.
The bottom line is the SC doesn’t have energy density like a battery, the wattage output is just not even close to a battery, I heard somewhere on the net that the typical car battery has billions of farad storage. It was wishful thinking on my part to think the SC bank could somehow hold or create more wattage than what is actually put into it in the first place.
Oh well, there is a whole host of things I track out, trying to find the majic of it, and sometimes I end up back in reality. hahahaha
Sometimes when I get things in a picture form I can understand better than words…so I started working on a picture with SC recharge & load thoughts…yanno just to make a big wide circle. hahaha
Hummmph maybe just a little SC bank to top off my sluggish COLD battery…hahhaa
Oliver
You can do supercaps on top of your battery. what they are really good for is charging and discharging quickly. They are used in a lot of regenerative braking systems because they charge faster then a battery, and they essentially don’t wear out.
I read somewhere the Aspark Owl, which is a new chinese hypercar start up, used supercaps to get their 1.9s 0-60 time. I assume, you couple those with a battery pack to get any further then the 100ft they needed for the demo of their 4.4M dollar car. In fact, I thought someone was making a hybrid lion/supercap battery now.
Sean there are a few new hybrid out there but I think the cost is crazy high. From what I have seen the Tesla super car approach of just adding a boat load of batteries to divide the load over is still more cost effective and gets you more storage.
The tesla roadster 2 is slower and costs less then the aspark owl. Motortrend said it is a japanese company, and it did two passes both at 1.6 seconds. But yeah, you need a huge battery pack so you keep it from catching on fire with that rate of discharge or supercaps, or a combination.
http://www.powerelectronics.com/news/ultracaps-help-hybrid-bus-pass-durability-test
Maxwell would not sell me Super capacitor
Henry,
Some to “play” with, be careful! 
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/maxwell-technologies-inc/BCAP1200-P270-K04/1182-1018-ND/3079282
You didn’t order enough!!! 
They only sell in volume. Mouser and digikey are probably the most common places to get them.
Illinois Capacitor may be a little more willing to work with you… They have a design form you can submit at the very least that allows you to create custom values.
I bought trojan L16 reb instead
Yesterday I got most of system working . generator three phase 240 , 130 amp 48 volt charger 80 % charge
Outbackpower inverter not working , something in settings . governor not working, linkage fell apart
Batteries hold more energy then caps. It isn’t really one or the other, nor do they work the same. They can prevent charge/discharge cycles on the batteries especially deep discharges like a motor starting. . I would still ask illinois capacitor about putting them in front of the battery since their inquiry form or the link I posted actually discusses it. They might have a “custom” solution already designed that can double the life of your batteries.
battery at 90 % , inverter output 7.6 kW to grid , charger output 129 amps at 48 volts . still can’t adjust speed with governor
Only used for grid tie . You could think that I could just connect charger to inverter . I did not do that , I do not suggest doing that . I thought I could use a capacitor bank instead of a battery bank . I think that is purpose of this discussion .
Maxwell did not want to sell me capacitors . I bought six thousand dollars worth of batteries . Power company would not accept system without batteries . I am glad they approved it
Do you have grid-tie with off-grid capabilities? The trick is you need to be able to disconnected from the grid when there is a power outages. It prevents islanding. A lot of times you do need a separate charge controller because different battery chemistries have different charging requirements. Speeds for generators are typically locked to keep the output within the voltage and frequency limits. I am sure you already knew most or all of that by now though.
One of the reasons I like the Schneider hybrid inverter is it will handle grid tied for you if you want. It has modes of operation for grid or off grid with battery support and also generator support. One word of caution if you run an AC generator into the inverter it will typically just pass it through to the load so your load sees the generator frequency and voltage which might be a dirty wave depending on how good the generator is. If I was going to build a generator I think I would convert to DC and use a solar DC charge controller to clean it up.
have 2 Kw uninterruptible power supply . 5 Kw diesel generator , used this for several hours week ago .
Installer vandalized inverter so that it would not have off grid capability .
