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Go buy a disposable camera, and cannibalize the flash system.
Be careful with it, though: my buddy once melted a fork tine with the capacitor from one of those.True but barring discovery of some new chemistry I think in the next few years supercaps will equal, and then surpass, chemical cells. I'm sure a lot of R&D money is going into this. Supercaps are the ideal battery-hundreds of thousands of recharges, ultra-quick recharging, potential to be very light yet store a lot of energy. Flashlight use is just the beginning. Supercaps should make EVs mainstream. They can also be used for storage on solar and wind systems. Really no end to the uses to which they can be put.
No new chemistry is needed. Just the existing experimental ones combined with the carbon nanotube technology and batteries will still be ahead.
It isn't as bad as you think. Most things which accept alkaline batteries function over a range of 0.9 to 1.6 volts per cell. A supercap starting out at 1.6 volts will discharge 69% of its energy by the time it gets to 0.9 volts. Something purpose built to work with supercaps can be made to use an even larger percentage. This is hardly a show stopper with today's electronics. On thing great about ultracaps is you know exactly how much energy is remaining based on the capacitor voltage and the initial/minimum voltages. No fancy guesswork as with chemical cells.
Realistically nobody needs 30 second recharges. The quickest fast charge rate anybody needs is on the order of 5 minutes. This would be for EVs stopping at recharging stations on long trips. Consumer cells don't need to be charged this rapidly. And in the event you want to, the charge rate for 5 minute chargers would be about 24 amps, not much more than 8 minute chargers.
It all depends upon whether ultracaps can outcompete chemical cells in terms of energy density and price per watt-hour. For now chemical cells win hands down but I see a bright future in ultracaps. I especially like the ultra-long lifetime. A battery pack from a vehicle which is past end of life might have considerable resale value because of this.
Nanotechnology will help ultracaps as well. In fact, I think it's the one thing needed to get ultracaps on par with chemical cells. If we happen to see 5000 mAh NiMH AAs before then thanks to nanotechnology, then that's great also.
That doesn't square with the capacitor discharge curves I know of. How are you achieving that?
LiFeP04 cells can be both discharged and recharged in a few minutes, yet are much better off in terms of actual energy density than ultracaps. So in terms of power density, A123 cells for example are already up for just about any task an ultracap woudl be needed for. However, the projected improvements in energy density due to nanotubes are massive.
) after charging the cap in your light (or other device), although it'd probably be easier to just swap the caps when your light is drained instead of using one to charge the other.
