Ultracapacitor to Recharge My Laptop?

<...recharge something like a laptop in seconds rather than hours...>

What on earth is the incoming cable going to look like to cope with all that current?

Ultracapactiors can only store about 5% of the energy in lithium Ion batteries, size wise, so you'll need a large bank of ultracaps....Kinda pricey too...Then there's that whole energy transfer thing mentioned above that has to be worked out....Better to just have spare batteries....

Additionally to the power density difference of an ultracapacitor versus a Li-Ion battery there are time limitations due to chemistry on how fast a Li-Ion battery can be re-charged.

...which in turn means that ultracapacitors are a non-starter, which is sort-of-why they aren't being used.

Ultracaps in this particular application wouldn't work.

tho I have no idea how to convert Farads into watt hours as this really isn't my field

Try the link below.

Link

That answers that question.

I shall return to waiting for this technology to arrive.

Buy a second battery if it's critical.

The rate determining step is the charge rate of the on board battery. I don't see how your proposed setup would eliminate that.

Probably the best option at this stage, yes.

The idea was that I would be able to quickly charge the ultracap any time I happened to pass a wallport, then plug that into my laptop and have it charge the battery over the next hour or two.

Would be a good setup, if the ultracap part of the process was more viable, which I guess it will be at some point.

If that hour or two is in a car then get yourself an invertor and plug your PCs power supply into that.

Train or tent, more likely.

Also looking into solar, but again, not quite arrived for this application.

Extra charged batteries (extended autonomy batteries are also available) and rationing is the way then. You don't want to be lugging a PV panel around, and then having to stay put during the day to use it.

I was going to suggest an auto adaptor too. Taxis have ciggy lighters.

In addition, the charge on the capacitor determines the voltage as per the Q = 1/2 CV²

^{so as you use of the charge, the voltage declines.}

^{A battery depends on the voltage between two electromotive pairs and is more or less constant as the battery capacity is consumed, and then declines rapidly.}

yes you can do if you can put a gang of ultracapacitor at cost which is at least 10 times for same work done by battery.

Now solution is on the horizon by end 2013 or first quarter of 2014 you can buy fuel cell from www. lilliputiansystemsinc.com or from stores at airport and charge your battery.

Buy 2020 you will have in your device this power generating plant and will allow your system to run 24/7

The use of Ultracapacitors to store energy captured by regenerative breaking in electric vehicles, and then immediacy apply that energy to the overwhelming needs of acceleration would be a good application of the current technology. My hope is that some day we can improve the characteristics of Ultracapacitors to accommodate the needs now assigned to batteries.

The only way to overcome the decline in the voltage as the charge is drawn is to use a variable input power supply to bring the voltage to the required level - which means a death spiral of larger and larger current needed as the voltage declines.

Ultracapacitors will never do the main job of batteries because batteries charge and discharge by bulk change of charge state to give the same output until the charged species is depleted, and they can be quite deep. Large car batteries have more than 1/8 inch of material change state. Capacitors are like springs - quick, but no endurance.

If you use high voltage to charge the capacitors = thicker insulators which strikes at capacity.