Batteries and New Battery Technologies

For Pete's sake please not to Venice again. I've been there once to please my wife, but as far as I'm concerned the sealevel may rise a few meters tomorrow.

I'm afraid I have some bad news for you: you cannot make a Supercap other than with your soldering iron and a big bag of capacitors. I'd go for electrolytic caps with 63 VDC, that's the cheapest capacity/price.

Barium titanate has been used for ceramic caps since early 70's, there are no secrets there. A breakthrough came in the 90's when they started to make wafer-thin caps, stacked on top of each other to form "multilayer caps". Each wafer of barium titanate vacuum metalized ON BOTH SIDES, then isolated from each other, stacked and tin sprayed to attach the leads. I cannot imagine you doing that in your shed. The result is very small but high leakage cap to suppress spikes. EEstor is dreaming of a similar construction that can withstand a few kV, but they still have to find the dielectric that does it. They won't find it in this solar system.

For your boat you do not need fancy technology, just the right amount of Farads. And please avoid a short circuit or we'll never hear from you again!

 

"Wasn't the definition of 1 Farad the surface of a sphere with a radius of 9 times 10 to the 9th power? That is quite a lot of paint."

I fully agree with you that in 1/8th of 5cm x 5 cm x 8mm (refer 252 lower 8 Farad cap) I will have difficulty in putting a lot of paint in it.

"And please avoid a short circuit or we'll never hear from you again!" You did not notice a fuse in the circuit diagram and also which engineer will leave Voltages higher than 48 Volt open for such a blatant problem.

Dear CDK, Why are you so aggresive? You make bold statements, I prove it to you otherwise with hard proof. What do you know what is in our "sheds" ?. Why should I believe you in the future with whatever you are saying? There were such discrapancies in your past statements, I will have difficulty in taking you serious.

Bert

 

Been reading with interest and curiosity and have a question, With your cap fully charged and in said drawn circuit, fuse blows, and you go to replace fuse????? or even to remove fuse to closely inspect if it is blown?. Do not ask me.... I have been charged at Qld U., with a couple of million volts of static, and that was very "difficult" to discharge safely before I could leave my insulated position

 

Hi Malasai,
Yes, Indeed a good question. I was planning to limit the voltage to 1000 Volt and to use in line circuit breakers. It would be suicide to replace an open fuse. With the salt in the air, I am not concerned with static. There are 1000 Volt circuit breakers on the market at a reasonable price. I will have to have an lower current for the current used for the appliances switched by the double multi-vibrator circuit and a separate higher current for the charging current. Also the insulation and waterproofing of the cabling will be an headache. But like I have said before, I would go for CAN potted small 32/64 bit radiotransmitters switching. Thus only 2 wires to worry about. The plus and the minus. (and separate charging line) Also the normal lights I would only connect to 12 Volt system and not to the higher voltage required for the motors. I.e. I would step down in voltage. Or use a separate super capacitor circuit for the day to day lights and appliances.

You may have noticed in the circuit (330) that if the capacitors are flat, the double multi-vibrator will not start. I will kickstart this with a switch only when an appliance is switched on, otherwise the multi-vibrator will drain the super capacitor for nothing.

Malasai, I am a positive thinker. Yes, sometimes weird, years ahead, but all I want at this moment is to make a super capacitor working and although I admit, it will be difficult.

And need all the good questions like yours and positive inputs like others. I have created a number of provisional patents and even one patent. Sadly as the mining engineers were too conservative, it took 12 years before they implemented this in the mines. Needles to say that after 7 years the patent was lapsed. Today it is used in millions down in the mines. Sorry to learn that 9 miners died yesterday at 9000 feet due to rock fall and earth movements. My sympathy to the families. But if we can make a super capacitor, the mines can even transport more ore instead of heavy batteries.

I have to balance it out for the boat. 48 Volt motors, high currents or 200 Volt motors, lower current, which automatically implies higher super capacitor voltage.

Bert

 

You are way up/ahead of me... I am just going for off the shelf stuff that works and fits with the rest of the stuff on board - 48V battery bank using spiral wound AGM's, PV panels to about 2000 watts, a diesel genset that can peak for half to one hour at 6000 watts and a pair of Torqeedo Cruise 4.0-R 'electric outboards' and a 4500 watt 48v/240v AC inverter to deliver energy to a "domestic 240V AC galley"... Ships-services/Nav are separate from engine-start, but shareable 12v systems with its own PV panels & engine alternator... Most seems to be matched and systems are manual with appropriate measuring 'instruments' and will hopefully work well....

 

BertKu I am not intentionally aggressive, merely skeptical. I founded a Dutch electronics company in 1969 and sold the flourishing enterprise in 1994 because I got arthritis and saw a wheelchair in my future. They went downhill a few years after I left, faster when my former assistant, a very resourceful electronics engineer changed jobs and they went bankrupt a few months ago.
Between 1969 and 1994 I developed numerous applications for the machine industry, pioneered in fields like solar energy, power conversion and computing. We even produced some innovative thick film circuits with an old installation from Sprague in Belgium but it was a financial disaster. But we did manage to produce millions of small signal and medium power transistors that were used in ITT consumer products when demands were high and their own plant Intermetall had production problems.
In fact I spent so much time in my companies I hardly saw my kids grow up.

And now you tell me you can't take me serious. That is your prerogative.

 

Pcb

A quick printed circuit board was made to test the principles of using an Super cap as battery. As soon I have all the components together and my overseas visitors are on the way to Cape Town, I will test the circuit next week and will report back with the result.

Hi CDK,

My CV is simple.
I was divisonal manager for the electronic components / uP division for 16 years in South Africa.
General manager for the Automotive division which we closed due to lack of support from the mother company.
2 years Chairperson for the Solar Energy society.
12 years Chair/Vice person for the local components manufacturing association.
Retired early, I don't believe in working until you are too old to enjoy life.
Have an expensive hobby in manufacturing wireless timers for the Equestrian Showjumping sport which I export to Europe.

I hope that you will support me in trying to prove that EEstor may have a brilliant idea we haven't thought about. My shed is useless, but I have still some connections who are willing to make certain trials for me.

Bert

 

Carbon Aerojel Sheets

Hi CDK

My neighbour just walked in with the information on the Carbon Aerojel Sheets. It is quite pricy, not so much the sheets themselves, but USA$ 115 for the transport allone. Over and above I need 10 sheets to start with the experiments. USA$ 300 to start off. I have no idea how many Farad I will be able to create from those sheets.

Here is the link.
http://www.reade.com/Products/Carbons/carbon_aerogel.html

Will first with a 400 Volt 100uF capacitor test that little pcb and see how it performs with a 6 volt motor.

Bert

 

Hi Masalai,

We say here in RSA, Moe nie worrie nie (don't worry) you enjoy making it all work with items you know it will work. People like Rick and me and some others enjoy to experiment with new idea's. We blow some money, the wife's moan, buy them a bunch of flowers and we are ready to blow some more money.

Thansk for the question. If you have more, let me know.
bert

 

Excellent stuff, let them ship it with US Mail, regular service for $5.
Then find someone who can vacuum deposit some silver or gold on one side where you can solder strips on (like a silicon solar cell) so you can draw some Amps without vaporizing the expensive black bubbles. And you'll need some kind of isolator that indefinitely withstands the working voltage. Remember that the distance between sheets must be as small as possible, every micron reduces the capacity. All existing materials like PVA, polystyrene and polyester are unsuitable, you need something at least 10 times better. Aluminum oxide comes closest, but how you can deposit that on the black surface I do not know. Sounds like Klingon technology to me.

 

Don't follow you here on shipping rates?? USPO has pretty good rates. Can I help somehow?

 

Shipping cost

Hi Brian,

If you click on the righthand thumbnail 341, they only have a fixed rate. Most companies do charge special rates for overnight express service. As soon I am ready to order, I may give it a shot and see whether they are willing to compromise.

bert

 

New IBM Batteries??

I just learned about this new battery IBM is supposedly working on, anybody know more?

Boldest Baddest Battery By IBM

Posted on July 7

th​

, 2009 by admin
IBM, yes, the computer company is fed up with the lagging green economy. That is why they have decided to build the boldest battery yet that will put lithium ion to shame.
The next generation battery by IBM is said to be able to store 10X the power that today’s top lithium ions can handle. Now, some may scratch their heads as to why a computer company would want to build next generation batteries.
They may even liken it to Exxon building hybrid car enabling technology. But the pot of the gold at the end of the rainbow for IBM may be smart grid technology. The aging electrical grid, if converted to smart grid technology will need new software and hardware for its infrastructure.
I’

ve​

talked about smart metering as one way for computer software, hardware and infrastructure companies to make money. Smart grid technology is similar.
The new IBM batteries will help solve the problem of intermittent energy from wind and solar power. Some advocates want to store this power as hydrogen or molten salt or many other methods. Storing the power in batteries and then using it when the wind

isn​

’t blowing or the sun

isn​

’t shining solves the problem and is a potential money magnet.
In addition if the same battery technology can be used in hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric cars, (along with software and hardware controllers) then this could mean a cash windfall for Big Blue (IBM) as well.
As Big Blue goes green, this may just be the change for which we’

ve​

all been waiting.

 

Boldest Baddest Battery By IBM
Forward looking statement by Chinese company?