12v 5AH powersonic 1250 F1 + 6x500F super capacitors
I had the battery in parallel with the 6 super caps in series
Thick huge massive beefy cables and battery clamps.
and neither of them alone will jump our dodge ram V8 2500 gas truck
but both of them combined. it actually cranks it and starts it up!
It was really cool when I showed someone it starts it right up like that they were surprised such a small battery and super capacitors started it up
it cranked a little slow but it still started right up!
On a smaller car it would probably start it right up immediately cranking full speed.
And since the super capacitors are there. the battery actually has enough power to get over the first rotation and crank it over
I had the battery in parallel with the 6 super caps in series
Thick huge massive beefy cables and battery clamps.
and neither of them alone will jump our dodge ram V8 2500 gas truck
but both of them combined. it actually cranks it and starts it up!
It was really cool when I showed someone it starts it right up like that they were surprised such a small battery and super capacitors started it up
it cranked a little slow but it still started right up!
On a smaller car it would probably start it right up immediately cranking full speed.
And since the super capacitors are there. the battery actually has enough power to get over the first rotation and crank it over
I wonder if that is what they are making for car boosters?
Amazon.com: DBPOWER 800A Peak 18000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter (up to 6.5L Gas, 5.5L Diesel Engine), Car Battery Booster & Charger, Power Pack and Phone Power Bank with LED Flashlight and Dual USB Ports: Automotive
Amazon.com: DBPOWER 800A Peak 18000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter (up to 6.5L Gas, 5.5L Diesel Engine), Car Battery Booster & Charger, Power Pack and Phone Power Bank with LED Flashlight and Dual USB Ports: Automotive
nope that has a high power density, low energy density lipo battery pack and no super capacitors.
not a lead acid battery with super capacitors in it
even though that they theoretically do the same thing. boosting a car.
with an ideal sealed flooded lead acid battery designed for high cranking amps. and a super capacitor bank paralleled to it they would come in pretty close to each other.
the supercaps supply the initial engine surge to get it turning over and the battery handles the continuous cranking amps to keep it cranking and turn over and fire up
the longest I got out of it was a few seconds of runtime (before I had to wait for the battery to charge up the super capacitors again.
its also suprising its not formulated for even use in an engine to crank an engine over. (more like for backup home alarm systems or for a kids electric four wheeler/scooter)
but surprised it actually has enough continous cranking amps to keep the engine turning over for a while and start it up
its TINY compared to the size of a normal 100amp hour flooded lead acid battery designed for high cranking amps.
Able to give out at least a hundred or more amps (when its rated at)
Max Short-Duration Discharge Current (10 Sec.) .... 50.0 amperes
so possibly 100 to 150 amps for 1 second to 5 seconds fresh off the charger.
which is just barely enough to boost a large vehicle
It would likely have no trouble starting a normal sized v6 small cylinder engine and crank it right up
You might even be able to simply use it as-is as a drop-in replacement for the huge bulky car battery the car comes with. and the super capacitors mean it will crank easily even during absolutely freezing cold weather.
and since its an AGM (absorbed glass matte) type battery it should have a long life with the capacitors doing most of the work and being kept at full charge topped off at around 14v
When I tested it. the battery didnt even warm up at all. so I know it wasnt being stressed too badly even when it boosted such a massive vehicle.
infact the battery even seems healthier now. the voltage stays stronger after giving it a few runs cranking over the cars engine
stays stronger under load when running a power inverter as well.. lasts longer. seems like it gave the battery an extra boost of power density
not a lead acid battery with super capacitors in it
even though that they theoretically do the same thing. boosting a car.
with an ideal sealed flooded lead acid battery designed for high cranking amps. and a super capacitor bank paralleled to it they would come in pretty close to each other.
the supercaps supply the initial engine surge to get it turning over and the battery handles the continuous cranking amps to keep it cranking and turn over and fire up
the longest I got out of it was a few seconds of runtime (before I had to wait for the battery to charge up the super capacitors again.
its also suprising its not formulated for even use in an engine to crank an engine over. (more like for backup home alarm systems or for a kids electric four wheeler/scooter)
but surprised it actually has enough continous cranking amps to keep the engine turning over for a while and start it up
its TINY compared to the size of a normal 100amp hour flooded lead acid battery designed for high cranking amps.
Able to give out at least a hundred or more amps (when its rated at)
Max Short-Duration Discharge Current (10 Sec.) .... 50.0 amperes
so possibly 100 to 150 amps for 1 second to 5 seconds fresh off the charger.
which is just barely enough to boost a large vehicle
It would likely have no trouble starting a normal sized v6 small cylinder engine and crank it right up
You might even be able to simply use it as-is as a drop-in replacement for the huge bulky car battery the car comes with. and the super capacitors mean it will crank easily even during absolutely freezing cold weather.
and since its an AGM (absorbed glass matte) type battery it should have a long life with the capacitors doing most of the work and being kept at full charge topped off at around 14v
When I tested it. the battery didnt even warm up at all. so I know it wasnt being stressed too badly even when it boosted such a massive vehicle.
infact the battery even seems healthier now. the voltage stays stronger after giving it a few runs cranking over the cars engine
stays stronger under load when running a power inverter as well.. lasts longer. seems like it gave the battery an extra boost of power density
It might not be able to do it every single day for 5-7 years like a lead acid could/would. That is up for debate.
I would be monitoring your car's alternator voltage to see if it drops to 13.8v after running the engine for a few minutes, that will tell you if your alternator is capable of charging an AGM battery long term without damaging it.
Charging an AGM battery above 13.8v for long periods is going to cause it to gas and expand.
Other than that it should be fine
. I'll probably be putting in a second AGM battery in the boot of my car to power an amp, AGM is pretty good. Gel not so much.I would be careful in using an AGM battery in a car with a high power car stereo, at least until I can figure out charge current ratings. Charge the battery too low and it will draw more amperage from the alternator than the battery can handle. That is my concern around initial charge current ratings.
One last thing which keeps me up at night though is the initial charge current ratings.
When you take into consideration the initial charge current ratings I honestly have no idea how it will work in a starter battery arrangement or even in a dual battery setup like how I'm going. Its something that I haven't even figured out yet. Maybe I'm just being too thorough.
Charging a battey at 2x or 3x of its initial charge current ratings surely can't be good....
Then again thousands of dual battery setups with AGM are run all around the world and apparently work fine?...
According to this website you shouldn't exceed a 10 or 30 percent charge rate.
So 100 ah battery = 10% = 10 amps.
or 100 ah battery = 30% 30 amps.
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So if an alternator is charging a 50% dod discharged 100AH AGM battery at 60 amps, its exceeded the initial charge rate by 50%.
So I would advise caution and not discharge the AGM battery too much by using a high powered car amplifier.
It might even be advisable to be using a flooded or sealed calcium cell instead of an AGM as a starter battery if you have a high powered car stereo.
A 5 amp hour sealed AGM wouldn't be able to withstand a test condition such as a faulty alternator regulator or diode pack and you desperatley needing headlights running, with the front window demister going and the rear window demister heater going. It just won't have the reserve capacity needed to get home. Battery FAQ’s | AGM Battery - Challenge Batteries
In fact I'm pretty sure that the small 5 AH battery will melt and explode or something, I think the best case is that the battery cables will melt and/or start a fire.
I'm also pretty sure that trying to jump start a car with this hybrid battery configuration in place will also cause the AGM battery to explode or at the very least make a very loud bang. (Many moons ago I popped a 5 AH Powersonic AGM in a closed room once when I forgot to remove it from the manual charger that I was using and it sounded pretty cool, thankfully the vent caps only popped off like a balloon, the battery hydrogen/oxygen mixture didn't ignite.)
Pretty lucky there actually, I was smoking in the same room at the time.
So I would advise caution and not discharge the AGM battery too much by using a high powered car amplifier.
It might even be advisable to be using a flooded or sealed calcium cell instead of an AGM as a starter battery if you have a high powered car stereo.
A 5 amp hour sealed AGM wouldn't be able to withstand a test condition such as a faulty alternator regulator or diode pack and you desperatley needing headlights running, with the front window demister going and the rear window demister heater going. It just won't have the reserve capacity needed to get home. Battery FAQ’s | AGM Battery - Challenge Batteries
In fact I'm pretty sure that the small 5 AH battery will melt and explode or something, I think the best case is that the battery cables will melt and/or start a fire.
I'm also pretty sure that trying to jump start a car with this hybrid battery configuration in place will also cause the AGM battery to explode or at the very least make a very loud bang. (Many moons ago I popped a 5 AH Powersonic AGM in a closed room once when I forgot to remove it from the manual charger that I was using and it sounded pretty cool, thankfully the vent caps only popped off like a balloon, the battery hydrogen/oxygen mixture didn't ignite.)
Pretty lucky there actually, I was smoking in the same room at the time.
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VF
You really need to read more about how AGM and SLA batteries respond to different charging regimes; if the supply voltage is limited on average - and up to 14.2-14.4v is fine for SLA and AGMs as a charging regime, and what you will find as the average the output of car alternators these days - and far higher than that is tolerable for short periods with no implication! - there is no such fireball/'omg' risk at all.
13.8v is merely float voltage for SLAs for a start.
'Very limited battery capacity +supercaps' as a pleasing bodge have other issues long-term. But being exposed to full alternator output voltage while it works isn't one of them, unless alternator 'load dumps' - now not limited because the real 'battery' is tiny capacity - take the supply rail outside what the supercaps can stand for long enough to damage one. That would be my first thought, but it's a totally different issue from your scaremongering.
You really need to read more about how AGM and SLA batteries respond to different charging regimes; if the supply voltage is limited on average - and up to 14.2-14.4v is fine for SLA and AGMs as a charging regime, and what you will find as the average the output of car alternators these days - and far higher than that is tolerable for short periods with no implication! - there is no such fireball/'omg' risk at all.
13.8v is merely float voltage for SLAs for a start.
'Very limited battery capacity +supercaps' as a pleasing bodge have other issues long-term. But being exposed to full alternator output voltage while it works isn't one of them, unless alternator 'load dumps' - now not limited because the real 'battery' is tiny capacity - take the supply rail outside what the supercaps can stand for long enough to damage one. That would be my first thought, but it's a totally different issue from your scaremongering.
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I wasn't talking about exceeding charge voltages.
I know very well and have done so for 20+ years that the cycle and float voltage ranges of AGM batteries are printed right on the side of all AGM batteries.
I know this because I have two 200 AH batteries sitting on my front porch.
I'm talking about current limits while charging, not voltage limits. If you discharge a 5AH AGM SLA to say 11 volts, and you hook it up to an alternator that is capable of outputting 60-80 amps at most (most times it won't go anywhere near this). Then you are going to end up melting the battery terminals of that little F1 connector battery... or exceeding the rate at which the battery can accept a charge.
A simple solution to this would be to use a 21 watt 12v indicator globe in series with the AGM battery.
Also I don't consider a 5AH AGM battery going *poof* to be much of a threat. So not sure what you are implying in regards to "scaremongering".
I'm just trying to prevent the poor guy from wondering why the battery went poof after he asked for a jump after the alternator in his car went south.
An ideal design implies that any failure modes will be safe, an alternator diode pack failure for example that isn't putting out sufficient current and voltage will in this circumstance cause the OP to ask for a jump, if he does this for a long enough period of time (once or twice might be ok) until he can get a new alternator, will probably result in the little 5AH AGM battery going poof.
And last time I checked an alternator failure is a fairly common occurrence in cars, so are jumping cars with much larger batteries.
To give you an idea what I'm trying to get across, try jumping a dead 5AH AGM battery with a fully charged 50AH battery sometime, see what happens.
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Don't do this.
Also don't ever charge supercaps and then connect them to even a partially flat AGM battery, or one with some kind of internal fault, which are difficult to determine without proper examination with a visual inspection and a multimeter after waiting for the battery to settle.
That is the problems with this idea:
#1 if there is ever a fault in the AGM battery the alternator and supercaps will continue to push power into the AGM battery causing it to fail and it will fail a lot quicker than a larger car battery intended for the purpose leaving you with less time to find the fault and disconnect the battery before a fire occurs.
#2 if you ever need a jump start and the AGM battery is dead flat and you try to jump start the circuit it will cause the AGM battery to fail.
#3 if the leads coming from the AGM battery ever short or fail to chassis ground (and they aren't fused) the supercaps will feed through the tiny F1 connector cables and melt them.
#4 also related to #3, if you have a cable come off the AGM battery and you find it later on, and the voltage of the supercaps and the AGM battery aren't the same/aren't equalized then you could have a melting cable literally in your hands burning a hole or the AGM battery could fail when you go to reconnect it.
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That would be a spectacular event too if the alternator isn't fused (most are, some aren't, depends on the car, I would check.) can you imagine the destructive power a set of supercaps can do to a faulty diode pack?
Good to know.
My purpose in this thread is so that you understand what is going on when you wire up supercaps and SLA batteries like that. Just so you know the dangers involved with the project so you can stay safe. Knowledge is safety after all and safety is paramount when dealing with electricity.
The primary fear that I have is that if you ever jumpstart the sla battery and supercap combo that it will exceed the current limit of the SLA battery and make it vent. If you however charge it using a 1 amp smart charger then it should be safe to continue to use. Provided that you don't use the supercap/sla battery in a car and have an alternator failure aswell, if you do then you will have to shut the car down and recharge the battery with a smart charger.
There are a few methods of mitigating the dangers, a light bulb (or wirewound ceramic resistor) wired between the SLA battery and the supercaps will limit the charging current going into the SLA battery but it means that if you ever need a jumpstart that it will take a really long time to charge the SLA battery, at say a 1 amp rate.
In the event of a jumpstart with the resistor in series your supercaps will charge fast but the SLA battery won't and it will continue to draw current at hopefully a safe rate (I would put a multimeter in series with the light bulb to check the amount of current going into the SLA battery), I would keep it under 1 amp.
If you don't want to use the light bulb (or wirewound ceramic resistor) trick then I would proceed with the project with just the supercaps and not the SLA battery, I would ditch the SLA battery. Its too much of a risk having it there.
My purpose in this thread is so that you understand what is going on when you wire up supercaps and SLA batteries like that. Just so you know the dangers involved with the project so you can stay safe. Knowledge is safety after all and safety is paramount when dealing with electricity.
The primary fear that I have is that if you ever jumpstart the sla battery and supercap combo that it will exceed the current limit of the SLA battery and make it vent. If you however charge it using a 1 amp smart charger then it should be safe to continue to use. Provided that you don't use the supercap/sla battery in a car and have an alternator failure aswell, if you do then you will have to shut the car down and recharge the battery with a smart charger.
There are a few methods of mitigating the dangers, a light bulb (or wirewound ceramic resistor) wired between the SLA battery and the supercaps will limit the charging current going into the SLA battery but it means that if you ever need a jumpstart that it will take a really long time to charge the SLA battery, at say a 1 amp rate.
In the event of a jumpstart with the resistor in series your supercaps will charge fast but the SLA battery won't and it will continue to draw current at hopefully a safe rate (I would put a multimeter in series with the light bulb to check the amount of current going into the SLA battery), I would keep it under 1 amp.
If you don't want to use the light bulb (or wirewound ceramic resistor) trick then I would proceed with the project with just the supercaps and not the SLA battery, I would ditch the SLA battery. Its too much of a risk having it there.
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A lot safer alternative would be a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery (LifePO4). That way you get the weight reduction and the long running time of a real battery without the whole mess of using an old lead acid one.
Even if you are just using a lifepo4 battery from a motorcycle to start a car it would still be safer than a supercap or sla.
I see one here for sale for $99: 12V LifePo4 Lithium-ion Motorcycle Battery 145CCA 4AH 5AH 7AH F0W109 Ultra light | eBay
Even if you are just using a lifepo4 battery from a motorcycle to start a car it would still be safer than a supercap or sla.
I see one here for sale for $99: 12V LifePo4 Lithium-ion Motorcycle Battery 145CCA 4AH 5AH 7AH F0W109 Ultra light | eBay
SLAs aren’t ‘a mess’ when that’s what vehicle charging systems are designed around...
Yes, LiFePo is useful in some circs, they get used a lot in vehicles for hillclimb & sprints here: they are not a 100% drop-in long term replacement at all, in fact not worth bothering with for use much wider than such, where the small weight advantage is worth throwing money at, and you’ll generally have a booster pack on hand anyway...
Yes, LiFePo is useful in some circs, they get used a lot in vehicles for hillclimb & sprints here: they are not a 100% drop-in long term replacement at all, in fact not worth bothering with for use much wider than such, where the small weight advantage is worth throwing money at, and you’ll generally have a booster pack on hand anyway...
You live in a dreamworld of perfect design and no failure modes and where the dealer is just down the street ready to hold your hand. Everyone else lives in the real world where the dealer is 400km+ away and you have to improvise on the spot.
If you were stuck in a rainforest and your alternator failed it would quickly overcharge the SLA battery and make it vent or explode. You couldn't simply replace the alternator in a rainforest unless you have one spare in the boot. You wouldn't be able to refill a sealed lead acid battery and make it work especially if the side of the battery case is missing. A flooded lead acid would be ok until it boiled dry, in which case you can just refill it and go on your way.
I've seen it happen before. Someone buys a SLA battery weather its calcium-calcium or AGM. They place it in either an automotive or solar situation and they cannot do an equalize charge on it, they can't refill the cells, they cannot balance the cells and when the alternator or solar regulator fails the battery explodes.
Flooded cells are dangerous too but its the lesser of two evils despite the caustic nature of sulphuric acid.
I would much rather stick with flooded cells and vent them and do the required maintenance and treat them right than have a pressure vessel SLA spontaneously explode in my face when the regulator decides to go south and overcharges them.
SLA is a curse.
If you were stuck in a rainforest and your alternator failed it would quickly overcharge the SLA battery and make it vent or explode. You couldn't simply replace the alternator in a rainforest unless you have one spare in the boot. You wouldn't be able to refill a sealed lead acid battery and make it work especially if the side of the battery case is missing. A flooded lead acid would be ok until it boiled dry, in which case you can just refill it and go on your way.
I've seen it happen before. Someone buys a SLA battery weather its calcium-calcium or AGM. They place it in either an automotive or solar situation and they cannot do an equalize charge on it, they can't refill the cells, they cannot balance the cells and when the alternator or solar regulator fails the battery explodes.
Flooded cells are dangerous too but its the lesser of two evils despite the caustic nature of sulphuric acid.
I would much rather stick with flooded cells and vent them and do the required maintenance and treat them right than have a pressure vessel SLA spontaneously explode in my face when the regulator decides to go south and overcharges them.
SLA is a curse.
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Not to mention diagnosing a sla battery is difficult if almost impossible, a flooded battery will easily give away the fact that one of the cells is shorted:
YouTube
By taking the caps off you can tell weather or not a cell is shorted, by seeing if the cell is bubbling or not, if its not bubbling then it has a dead shorted cell.
YouTube
By taking the caps off you can tell weather or not a cell is shorted, by seeing if the cell is bubbling or not, if its not bubbling then it has a dead shorted cell.
I can't agree with that at all. SLA have been in use more than 30yrs and are likely one of the most predictable service bits of a vehicle. Alternator failure in deep rainforest leaving an SLA user stranded? I actually lived in one on N Borneo for 3yrs, did many stupid vehicle-related things there, never had that problem!
I'm afraid I now have you filed under 'tilting at windmills', and will leave the thread.
I'm afraid I now have you filed under 'tilting at windmills', and will leave the thread.
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