When I was studing power supply electronics in school, the instructor always talked about adding BFC’s to the circuit – Big Freakin’ Capacitors. This here is UHFC – Unbelievably Huge Freaking Capacitor. If you have a super-cap project that needs up to 630 Farads of capacitance, check it out. Like most super-caps it has a 2.5V-ma rated voltage, and remember that unlike a voltage-output battery the voltage drops immediately as it discharges.
You can use this as a stand-in for a battery, its huge but can charge fast and doesn’t degrade like NiMH or Li-Ion/LiPoly batteries. We like to refer to this MAXIM super-cap calculator to figure out how long we can run a project.
Super capacitors are powerful beasts: the ultra low ESR means that shorting the outputs will create a big spark! Care must be used when working with charged super-caps, these are only for experts who are comfortable with high-current-capable power supplies.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
