What is Experimenting with Supercapacitors?
Supercapacitors, also known as ultracapacitors and electric double layer capacitors (EDLCs), are high-capacity capacitors with capacitance values greater than common types of capacitors such as electrolytic, ceramic, paper, etc. They are commonly used as energy storage and delivery devices that offer millions of times more capacitance than traditional capacitors.
Experimenting with Supercapacitors is an element14 community competition of electronics engineers where the participants had the opportunity to experiment with Cornell Dubilier's supercapacitors and compete for some great prizes.
The element14 Community would like to thank our sponsor, Cornell Dubilier, for providing the supercapacitor kits and support.
Grand Prize: Gough Lui
What’s Super about Supercapacitors? – Part 7: Quite a lot, actually!
My series of blogs “What’s Super about Supercapacitors?” is exactly what my project sought to learn. It was an exploration of how supercapacitors can be used, how to treat them properly, why they’re so special, and how they differ from ordinary batteries and capacitors.
Runner Up Prize: misaz
Supercapacitor Backup Storage for Low-Power Compact Sensors
One of my goals for this competition was to provide a guide for selecting supercapacitors. To do so, I wanted to experiment with measuring capacitance of the supercapacitors in the kit. Then I wanted to evaluate how effective the kit's supercaps were. Are there use cases where one of them had a benefit and are there different use cases when the other capacitors are advantageous? Finally, I wanted to evaluate and characterize the leakage of supercapacitors and evaluate a supercapacitor on Solar Sensor Node project I had previously designed.
Finisher Prize Winners
The Finisher's prize is for any participant who completed the required introductory blog and final blog that described their experiments and what they did. For this competition, element14 chose the Circuit Playground Express as the finisher's prize. It is a great little kit for your child or friend as an introduction to electronics and programming, Microsoft MakeCode block-based and more.
| BigG - Super flashes with super caps | dougw - Super Capacitor Meter | redcharly - Irrigation monitor using LoRa | |
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Judges
We'd like to thank Don Bertke and Annie Lavallée for judging the Experimenting with Supercapacitors Challenge! Their input on the projects was invaluable to our final decisions.
Top Member: DAB
Don spent 35 years in the aerospace industry working on many advanced projects. His range of experience covers nearly every scientific field and most ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. He has a very broad interest and knowledge in science with extensive analysis in image, multispectral and hyper-spectral analysis. He has also worked on a wide range of embedded computer applications, including integrated search and rescue systems.
Member: anniel747
Entering the exciting electronics world at 7 as a hobbyist and a lifetime in the aerospace and defence electronics R&D I now have my own full time home business with a well equipped workshop.
Resources
- Supercapacitor Technical Guide
- Glossary of Supercapacitor
- Supercapacitor FAQs
- Supercapacitor Comparison
- Product Compliance
- Supercapacitor Technical Presentation
- Supercapacitor Cells
- Hybrid LIC Supercapacitors
- Supercapacitor Coin Cells
About the Sponsor
Cornell Dubilier is a privately held company headquartered in Liberty, South Carolina. Cornell Dubilier is a technology leader and manufacturer of high-performance film, electrolytic and mica capacitors used in demanding medtech, defense & aerospace, and industrial electrification applications.
