Capacitor As Battery Charger

Buy a charger that has an equalizing setting. Used about once a week it will help reduce the formation of lead sulfate.

Good call.

Why reinvent the wheel when you're sitting on the curb outside a tyre shop?

The charger will help to keep the battery in good shape much better that the capacitors will, and, if it's a decent one, it will be 'fire and forget,' hook it up, start it on the 'equalize' setting, and then go on with your day, and have a good night's sleep. Once the charger is done with the equalizing/conditioning, it should go into 'maintenance charge' mode, monitoring the battery and providing just the right amount of trickle charge so the battery will be in peak condition when you disconnect the charger.

http://batteryuniversity.com/

Maybe get some LiFePo batteries, plug in to lead acid when sitting, and charge LiFePo when not in use....

http://manufacturer.ec21.com/48v_lifepo4_battery_packs.html

Thanks for posting! This reminds me to get out and use my lead acid back up battery I have on exercise bicycle (i.e. hook up the inverter and run my shop off this battery for a while, then get on the bike and pedal fast again.

Unfortunately, had you done even some basic math you would have seen the obvious flaw in you logic and how so on the multiple levels of the concept.

For starters, the size of a capacitor bank that could hold even 10% of your LA battery system charge would be about 10 times it's size. Add in the cost to buy it would be between 10 and 20X the cost of your present battery system and those three aspects right there should tell you why it's not practical.

Size. Capacity and cost.

If battery run down damage is a concern the either you need to add a second battery set (if space and weight allows for one) so that for the same run time they ar only begin ran down half as far or a whole different battery chemistry like NiCad or NiMH that can handle being fully depleted without the problems it does to LA-based batteries would be a better choice to put your money into.

it is not for charging the battery. it is to keep the ions active, so that it does not settle on plates. it can be even intermitant burst of current.

Maybe a solar panel on the roof to trickle charge....

Link....

Umm.. What?

Got any links, data and physics/chemistry based numbers to show how that works or is supposed to work?

All of my battery knowledge say you can't borrow charge from a battery to feed back to itself to recharge it or prevent electrode conversion reactions. For every aH of charge you put back it takes at least double that out to run the process sort of like trying to put a big alternator on an electric vehicle's motor to supply extra power back to its battery source to reduce the load and increase range.

It doesn't work no matter how many YouTube videos say otherwise.

"Ions are atoms with extra electrons or missing electrons. When you are missing an electron or two, you have a positive charge. When you have an extra electron or two, you have a negative charge."

Sulfaction is caused by allowing a battery to sit with a depleted charge, a trickle charger keeps the "ions" active.....A battery is either charging or discharging...

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/what_is_the_c_rate

reduce the sulfation by keeping it fully charged with a floating charger. This charges at the 1/20 rate up to a certain voltage and then float charges at the 1/200 rate or 1/100 rate.

Make sure you use recombining platinum insert caps so the hydrogen and oxygen evolved on float charge are turned back into distilled water into the cell.

Lead acid batteries used this way can last 5-7 years in temperate climes - less in cold one.

Batteries allowed to fully discharge can lose 90% of capacity in less than a year as the plates get coated with insoluble lead salts

A capacitor involves no change of chemical state, it is analogous to a spring in mechanical devices. We enjoyed toys spring driven cars - there are few spring driven passenger cars.

A capacitor accumulates charge according to this relationship.

Charge (Q) = 1/2 C.V.V, where Q is in Coulombs, C is in Farads and V in Volts

A battery charges to a stable potential until all the components are changed to their charged state. Once you reach this, there is not more charging, instead water is electrolyzed to H2 and O2 (which may escape of be returned to the cell) until the battery goes dry(unless water added).

The charge on a capacitor can be increased by voltage increase until there occurs a break down of the electrolyte.

As you draw charge from a capacitor the voltage declines steadily as the square law dictates, leading to lower power avaliable (motor slows and then stops wheil teher is stil charge). The decline is an analog of the Carnot limitation, where maximum Carnot heat engine power exhausts to a vacuum at absolute zero - still well below 100%

So all these schemes to power cars by capacitors can never work as well as a battery, but they can be made for special uses. A capacitor, like a spring, can dump all their stored power very rapidly, being only limited by circuit resistance or mechanics. Who among you has not defeated the governor of a windup up toy to have it 'lose its wind/ in a short frenzy...

In a similar way these cars powered by compressed air will never become economic, due to Carnot losses both ways - that said, for special uses they can work where you want a vehicle that will never start a fire.