Discharging a Super capacitor

Thread Starter

Macky Buenaflor

Joined Feb 25, 2016
6
How do you discharge a super capacitor without the use of any discharging circuit? What load can I use for it to be discharged to near single digit volts in minutes? Can I use an LED light here and if so, how long would it take to discharge it if I'm using a 3-5W LED light bulb? Thank you! :)
 

Thread Starter

Macky Buenaflor

Joined Feb 25, 2016
6
What voltage is the cap charged to?
What is the capacitance?
What is the rated Vf of the LED?
Sorry i forgot to put in the details
48V, 165F supercapacitor. :)
Any other way to discharge it that you would recommend (besides having a discharge circuit)? Thank you! :)
 

Alec_t

Joined Sep 17, 2013
14,280
A 220V 3kW fire would make a relatively safe load to discharge the cap.
Here's the discharge curve over a 100 minute period
DischargingSupercap.PNG
 

kubeek

Joined Sep 20, 2005
5,794
The capacitor when fully charged stores roughly 190kJ, so if you were to draw 5W from it it would take 38000 seconds to discharge, that is 10.5 hours.
 
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