Supercaps are certainly not a drop-in replacement for rechargeable batteries, but it can get irritating having to climb onto a roof every few months to switch out the rechargeable batteries. My latest Ambient Weather station is using expensive single use batteries which last about 2 years, so I’m living with it, but my previous Acurite 5-in-1 station was also chewing through rechargeable batteries.
Supercaps do charge very quickly, and their lifetime use can be a good 30% or longer than rechargeable batteries. But they take up more space, and they discharge linearly, so other allowances need to be made for their use. But even so they may be worth considering for some use cases.
Using supercaps though for this weather station example, the monitoring device is showing that the supercaps were fully charged in just an hour and a half on a sunny morning, and maybe three or four times that on a dark and rainy day, which is pretty good.
See https://hackaday.com/2022/04/07/wireless-weather-station-gets-solar-powered-supercap-upgrade/
#technology #supercaps #weatherstation #PWS #batterylife
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