Supercapacitor USB Light

For those who never heard about supercapacitor, you can check for more info about supercapacitor here. Supercapacitor is basically a capacitor with very high capacity, and the capacity rating is normally around few Farads. With the “super” capacity, it basically can store a lot of charge, and I am going to use the “super” capacity to store charges for a 5mm LED. Let’s see how long will the 5mm LED last.

Step 1 Components Needed

The components you will need for this project is basically a supercapacitor (I am using 5.5V 0.1F supercapacitor which I bought from Farnell), a White LED, a 1K Ohm resistor and a USB male connector (I get this from an broken pendrive).

Comments

[progman32]

Pretty cool idea! One possible issue for people duplicating this. Depending on how fast your supercapacitor can charge, you may end up overdrawing on your USB port if the capacitor is fully discharged. Won't hurt anything, but the port will shut off power to protect itself, thus not charging your light. You may want to include a low-value resistor (maybe 1-3 ohms) between the cap and VCC if you find your light won't charge at all or just blinks once when you plug it in.

[htetkyawlwin]

Absolutely.. that much of capacitance will initially make nearly short circuit current,
damaging the USB port... this is a good idea to place a low ohm resistor to charge capacitor...

[XOIIO]

Why not just throw a diode in to prevent discharge?

[bustatech]

Ya, notice about that issue, and I actually update a new circuit at step 7 and step 8 with the charging resistor included.

[buckminsterfullerene]

I just made mine and it is so awesome!! I did add a modify it though, instead of using just one LED I used two, and used a slide switch to alternate between them.

[petalee]

could you show me how to make this, thanks :)

[wessamer]

Hi
can have the circuit you made to have the design
thanx

[bustatech]

Very nice! You can use "3 step slide switch" (not sure the exact name of the slide switch with 3 steps), and you can choose to ON LED1, ON LED2, or OFF both LEDs.

[madmanmoe64]

3 stage slide switches really hard to get a hold of, I've looked several times. Do you know anywhere good?

[busterdavidson]

allelectronics.com has them but all I could find were ON-ON-ON, I didn't see any ON-ON-OFF switches there.

[madmanmoe64]

Just don't connect the third input and it's the same thing.

[charger25]

Very interesting item. Nice led

[physicsguy137]

My version, based on your Instructable. The two 1-F, 5-V super caps are connected in series with a 10-Ohm resistor (behind the round PCB). The 330-Ohm, current-limiting resistor is attached directly to one of the LED legs. All this fits in a small Altoids tin.

[dragon_shadow88]

it would be great to put a couple of supercap in paralel to get a larger capaticance, and you forgot that if not healty for supercaps to charge them with unlimited current, the USB port has a limmited current to 500mA , and it would be great to add some PWM to circuit, it's more efficiant than a ressistor, besause the ressistor turns the unused energy to heat, so the NE555 SMD in C-mos used like PWM would be perfect for this project

PS, there are supercap that has a capaticanse of 7F but only 2V , add a hand generator to charge it and a 1,5V LED driver and ingoy your hand rechargeable flash light.

sorry for bad english, I'm from Serbia :)

[uberdum05]

I know of a company that makes 150F supercapacitors at 1.5-2vdc for use in industrial applications

[htetkyawlwin]

I never heard that much of capacitance before. 150F supercapacitors, that's monster size... I wonder what kind of circuit will need that amount of capacitance.

[coilsinamotor]

resently maxwell tecnologies came out with a 3000F 2.7V Boost cap! :D it's now avalible on the consumer market the only place i know that sells these is electronics goldmine and mouser there very nice capacitors and thier about 20-30$ on avrage each but if you get lucky you can get them for 10$!!! oh an answer to your qestion, these high capacitence capacitors are used in green energy, energy storage, and well as hybird cars :D

[htetkyawlwin]

thank you for your answer :)

[Mvtnns]

2 Farads?!?!?

Isn't that more than twice than earth's capacitance?!

[SinAmos]

Why?

[TechKid67]

So in theory, could you attach a few of this set-ups to a 5v solar panel but with a few adjustments: Switches on the lights so they just charge and aren't lighting when not in use. Also, can the supercaps. be over charged?
p.s. Im looking toward ideas for a handy emergency light source

[keithyboyx]

hi, relative newbie here, but how would you suggest wiring 5x capacitors to the circuit. forgive me i am new. thanks

[bustatech]

To use 5 capacitors, simply parallel them.

[rocketman221]

Nice. I want to make one with a pair of these.

[account3r2]

What voltage does the LED need to be?

[billbillt]

A white LED uses 3.0 VDC.

[bustatech]

The forward voltage for White LED is around 3V.

[matchlighter]

This seems like it would be a pretty neat technology to use in an IR pen input. Do you know if Supercaps are sensitive to being charged for too long? Or do they just reach their maximum and let any excess pass through?

[ryanmercer]

Emergency USB back-up lighting :) although always on.

[Caboose98]

awesome! how much was teh capacitor? i want to make this in a little flash drive case.

[robot1398]

whats the need of knowing the polatiry

[greenkush]

if you dont connect it right the capacitor will short circuit make the capacitor hot and maybe make it explode.

[ukkr]

cool

[nclark557]

when i make this im going to put in a small switch from radio shack and make a case for it great job man

[account3r2]

(removed by author or community request)

[bustatech]

I am not sure if you can purchase from http://www.farnell.com/, they do have various type of Supercaps.

[He11uvaCook]

Try looking for them in an old pc power supply or CRT television. Be careful because the giant caps in tv's can retain a charge for a long time and are powerful enough to kill you. They aren't hard to find if you know where to look!

[lordxenosi]

You can find some at the Electronic Goldmine: Super Caps

[vosgians]

i french and i speak litle english i said just for you on trick to simplify your "calculations" i dont think this is the good word xD.

when you have 2 resistor "parallele" you can write and only if you have two resistor "parallele".

(R1+r2)/(r1+r2)

i like your instructable thank you.

@dragon_shadow88 good idéa for the 555 but it's hard to make it, if you want make it in a minimal space.

sorry for my english i'm french xD

[simonrichards150]

Just a note I think the equation is slightly wrong there. It should read:

(R1xR2)/(R1+R2)

As 2 parallel resistors can be given as product-over-sum. :)