Hi all just joined thought I would share with you my super capacitor power supply for the x rocker gaming chair.

My son had a x rocker gaming chair for Christmas for his xbox, he uses the chair wireless and the x rocker wireless transmitter needed 2 x aa 1.5v batteries, what I was finding was that after around 5 - 6 hours these batteries had run out.

So.. I bought a 2.7 volt 360 farad super capacitor from maplins for £12.99 I charge it up with this solar capacitor charger to 2.6 volts (depending on how much sun there is time varies ) on a good sunlight day it can be charged to the 2.6 volts in less than 20 minutes.
What made me do this was how much I was paying for batteries... wait I here you say get rechargeable batteries, yes I could but you still need electricity to charge them, solar is free once you have bought the equipment.

Any input would be great good or bad.

Full details and pictures are available at http://www.solarcapacitorcharger.com/projects/x-rocker-gaming-chair-runs-of-a-supercapacitor

 

You can get solar battery chargers as well.

 

"..on a good sunlight day it can be charged to the 2.6 volts in less than 20 minutes."



But how many hours are you getting out of the Supercaps?

5-6 hours?

 

"..on a good sunlight day it can be charged to the 2.6 volts in less than 20 minutes."



But how many hours are you getting out of the Supercaps?

5-6 hours?

And capacitors have a somewhat linear discharge curve...drop in terminal voltage over time. Where batteries have a relative flat discharge curve through most of their life. Go with a solar charger with rechargeable batteries.

Ken

 

Electricity is cheaper than batteries over the long run.

Solar panels can be used to charge batteries just like capacitors. It will just take a bit longer to get the full charge time into a battery.

 

That super cap will not operate that chair for very long if at all.

Why is it that so many new users base their user id off of ttheir first subject line???

 

I'm not buying it.

Two AAs discharging over 6 hours means about 400mA at 3V, maybe a bit more than 7W•hr. (assuming 2400mAh capacity)

A 360F cap charged to 2.7V doesn't hold that much energy. Only 0.73 W•hr by my calculation, or just a tenth of what the batteries should deliver.

 

Agreed!

And the cap linear discharge curve means it gets below 2.1v after providing only 0.16 Wh... So the cap gives about 50 times less life than the batteries.

Smells spammy to me.

 

Agreed!

And the cap linear discharge curve means it gets below 2.1v after providing only 0.16 Wh... So the cap gives about 50 times less life than the batteries.

Smells spammy to me.

50 times what? If you say the capacitor gives 50 times less than the battery, and the battery is 1500 mAh, then 50 times that value would be 75000 mAh. Now saying "less" I assume you want us to subtract 75000 from 1500 to get NEGATIVE 73500 mAh. That doesn't make sense.

I think you meant one-fiftieth.

 

50 times what? If you say the capacitor gives 50 times less than the battery, and the battery is 1500 mAh, then 50 times that value would be 75000 mAh. Now saying "less" I assume you want us to subtract 75000 from 1500 to get NEGATIVE 73500 mAh. That doesn't make sense.

I think you meant one-fiftieth.

I guess then that you are not familiar with the concept of "fifty times more" and "fifty times less"? A concept even I, non-native english speaker, have no trouble with

 

I guess then that you are not familiar with the concept of "fifty times more" and "fifty times less"? A concept even I, non-native english speaker, have no trouble with

The point is, it is terrible English.

It is not clear communication. What is 2 times less, what is a half times less? Are they the same? So then, 2 = 1/2?

 

Actually it is terrible maths, not terrible english - many different languages use this wording the same way. Anyway, I don´t know where the border is where x times less becomes subtraction instead of division, and I have no desire in finding that phillosophically-linguistic point. If you do, please feel free to drag this topic ad nauseam.

 

... I don´t know where the border is where x times less becomes subtraction instead of division

Yes, and nobody else does either.

 

It doesn't become subtraction. It is simply (and always) a division.

"X times more" is a multiplication; *X
"X times less" is a division; /X

Regarding the storage device, saying device B has "10 times less capacity" than device A is perfectly fine.

The capacity changes by a factor of ten times, in the "less" direction.

If you prefer to say "one tenth" that's your perogative but you are stating it as a fraction, which are obsolete. The modern trend is to move away from fractions and instead use a multiplier.

 

If a capacitor can do the same work as a battery, we should all be using capacitors even if they cost 10 times as much! I don't believe it can.

 

This is total BS. He is promoting his site.
Lock this thread.

 

We should be able to discuss it, but I did not find anything for sale at that link. I made a comment there and got a courteous reply.

I'd like to find out exactly how well these capacitors work! I saw some capacitor packs advertised as able to be used in an automobile even after it sits for a weekend.

 

I agree we should be able to discuss, since perhaps this will save many a newbie from the "super" capacitor blind alley.

There are specific applications where a big capacitor is useful, (huge transient or AC currents, audio for instance) but they cannot come close to competing with a battery for most of the projects we see around here, which simply need DC power storage.

 

Super caps won't run for long
They used for better transient response. As in car Audio and memory backups