Replacing My Car Battery with Capacitors! 12V BoostPack Update
Why Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange recommends it
Electronics Stack Exchange answerers and askers point people to it as a real-world example of supercapacitors starting a car, usually when discussing supercap alternatives to batteries.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2013 to 2017.
What it is
A hobbyist YouTube demo from the channel lasersaber that tests whether a bank of supercapacitors can replace a conventional 12V lead-acid car battery for starting an engine. It also gives an update on the creator's earlier BoostPack capacitor jump-starter project.
What people said
Cites Pennf0lio · 2013-08 · Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange · on “Using super capacitor alternative to battery as a backup power for laptops”
I'm interested building my own battery pack using a series of super capacitor, something like this : [this video] I plan to use it as a power backup solution for my laptop. Based on what i've been reading on the internet, using super capacitor to store energy are much more faster compare to using lithium battery and it weights more lighter than the lithium. After discovering that idea, that made me really interested in building one to be used as power backup for my laptop. Now I can just charge the battery pack separately (by regular outlet or solar) and when I'm low with battery for my laptop I can charge my laptop again using that battery pack. I really don't know how efficient is this idea and
Cites BeowulfNode42 · 2015-11 · Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange · on “How practical would a car booster using supercapacitors be?”
FYI, same tinkerer has had success with newer 350Farrad 2.5V wired with 6 of them in series to have a max voltage of 15V, because alternators will put out over 14V. See [this video] . Though he's gone back to the 6x 2600F plus a 2.5W solar panel on the dash in [LINK] for complete battery replacement.
Cites Juraj · 2016-11 · Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange · on “Why are car batteries still so heavy?”
Using supercapacitor as starter battery is fully feasible and was tried by enthusiasts in practice, see example [this video] . Aside from higher price, some examples of practical difficulties are reported: Supercap alone, while starting the car more easily than lead battery, will discharge in about half a hour of listening to radio if not continuously charged. Directly connected lithium battery+supercap combo does not suffer from above but ended up damaged when he used it to jumpstart a lawnmower - the Li battery would need extra electronics to prevent this.
Cites alphasierra · 2017-05 · Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange · on “Using Li-Po or LiFePo4 for diy motorcycle battery”
An alternative you might consider is using a small bank of supercapacitors. They're super simple to use, can last longer than electrochemical cells, and have much better behavior over temperature. There's examples on youtube such as this video which prove it works on cars. [this video] The leakage is low enough to leave it sitting around for a while too. Not quite as low as I would like, but extra parallel banks help solve that issue. The associated costs used to be fairly obscene but they're much more reasonably priced now. I would also recommend packaging the capacitors better than that example shows. If you wanted extra capacity you could even parallel it with a battery that you keep on standb