Home Technology Self-Built Super Capacitor E-Bike Prototype

Self-Built Super Capacitor E-Bike Prototype

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Electric bikes typically use lithium batteries: energy stored there powers the electric motor. But there is one interesting energy storage alternative called a supercapacitor,so if cars use them, can we put a supercapacitor in an e-bike too?Youtuber Tom Stanton wanted to see if supercaps have any practical use on e-bikes, and built a DIY electric motor in the process.

source/image: Tom Stanton

He built a capacitor bank using six 2.7V 400F supercaps, only equivalent to the capacity of a single AA cell. Although it worked, the total range was only around 100 m at low speed,uilt his own axial flux motor for the bike, using 3D printed formers for the coils and an aluminum rotor with embedded magnets.Watch the video from Tom Stanton:

He also found a solution to add regenerative braking to this supercapacitor setup by installing the six 2.7V 400F supercars on a different e-bike that had the feature.Supercapacitors work differently than lithium cells.

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The main difference is their charge and discharge rate, which is several times faster compared to other modern batteries. This advantage, however, has an annoying downside: the amount of energy stored in these fast-charging elements is tens of times less for the same mass.

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