Quote:
Originally Posted by hayden55
Have y'all tried the 16v Maxwell modules yet? I think they are only $150 assembled and self balancing. They have been used on the Ford Focus forums.
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I would highly recommend against them (500F) for a light vehicle:
The leakage current goes up with capacity, but the ESR of even a small ultracap is way lower than a battery. After some point, you are wasting the power density of the ultracaps because you'll never need it, and paying extra for its poor energy density, while increasing leakage current.
I really don't think you should ever need more than 100 farads on a car, even if you're starting a Dodge Viper. 100 farads keeps the leakage current to a reasonable 1ma, while providing 7kJ of cranking energy. There's a reason those 500 farad packs are used on semi trucks!
Put it in parallel with any cheap battery to provide reserve capacity. The caps do the cranking only.