Fun with ultracapacitors!!

Here is my favorite movie about ultracapacitors: [VIDEO] Very good explanation on the general math and physics of capacitors, current, heat and energy storage, plus awesome demonstrations at the same time :)

Shorting batteries is also never a great idea, but supercaps are more dangerous because of their low internal resistance. This video is a good demonstration: [VIDEO] I was working on a controls project where we had large banks of supercaps that would charge up to ~900v. Have to treat those with some respect. However as long as they are kept cool the caps had no trouble being charged and discharged with a couple minute cycle with each bank providing 2kWh of energy. In the particular application I was working on we actually had 17 2kWh banks providing ~34kWh of energy every couple minutes. Would not fit in a cellphone though :)

Capacitors are great for high load requirements but not great as an energy storage device. i.e. if you wanted to draw several hundred amps for a second or two with relatively low heat waste, an ultra-capacitor arrangement would be the way to go, but for energy storage, a battery wins hands down. There's huge research going into expanding the capacity of capacitors. Check out this video about capacitors: [VIDEO]