Supercapacitor Energy Harvesting - What You Need to Know - Workbench Wednesdays

Low-power IoT devices can harvest energy from wind, heat, and solar sources, and you can store that energy in a battery or a supercapacitor. With help from Eaton, James talks in this episode about what electric double-layer capacitors (EDLCs) are, considerations for when you'd want to use them, and a small demo where we harvest solar energy into a supercapacitor to drive a Raspberry Pi Pico W.

#0:00 Welcome to Workbench Wednesdays
#0:53 EDLC Overview
#3:30 Charge-Discharge Behavior
#6:14 Energy
#8:05 Harvest "Solar" Energy
#12:09 Give Your Feedback

#supercapacitor #capacitor #eaton #solarenergy #energyharvesting #battery #raspberrypi #raspberrypipico

[gosdeCarrer]

I did a very similar project. With just 10F and a small solar panel, sending measures every 15 mins it survives almost 3 full days without any sun!
It was with Arduino Pro mini, a boost converter to make sure that you get always 5V even with weak sun, to get all the supercaps voltage range. Otherwise the panel almost never produces anything close to the maximum, 5V, and you loose the caps voltage range (5V down to 2.8V aprox).

[Electronzap]

Very cool, you have covered a lot of supercapacitor topics that I have been thinking about for years.

[oliverer]

The first thing that comes to mind is spot welders, the second thing is unintentional spot welders. Followed closely by expensive.

[chrisw]

Any chance you can tell us where that EDLC charge controller board came from? Or the chip part number??

[gendragongfly]

For a super hero name I'd go with "Captain Super Cap" 😁

[JieDu-eu]

So, is it correct that there's no way to lock the charges in it and use whenever need it?

Great video by the way 💯

[MasterIvo]

still looking for a proper module for series super capacitor management (balancer). mostly for over voltage protection.
Post a link if you know one

[bbbb]

Cost? Li battery can get you exactly what you presented at significantly lower cost? Which supercap properties might justify the extra cost? Increased cycle lifetime, I guess would be the main one?

[yigitozen]

Just out of the curiosity; is this a sponsor driven video or you decide to make a video on supercaps and notify potential sponsors?

[serggo]

if supercap can replace capacitors in PSU, we can replace UPS? For safety shutdown or hibernation mode.

[Peter_Enis]

SC = charge quick, drain quick, longer lifetime, needs more power to stay charged
Battery = charge slow, drain slow, shorter lifetime, needs less power to stay charged
Choose wisely 😉

[zitechnicalengineering]

Need more explanation on super capacitor from start

[paulp]

Given E=1/2 * CV^2 it is incorrect to say 'Energy is directly proportional to the voltage'.

[Bob-zgzf]

James, you speak formal English like "pronounced". 😅