Building a huge audiophile Ultra Capacitor Power Supply
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- čas přidán 15. 03. 2023
- This is how I put together 3000 F ultra capacitors to make a power supply using some of the largest capacitors with UcPure charging board by Ian Canada. The results are the best power supply you can get..
Please make sure you are familiar with the Dangers involved and do not rely on this Video as it is not a tutorial. Do your own research and abide by all safety protocols.
Main parts used
Maxwell Durablue 18V 567F Super Capacitor Battery 6pcs 3.0V 3400Farads amzn.to/3Fv7oxS
UC Pure UltraCapacitorPowerSupply
Ian Canada: github.com/iancanada/Document...
(Scroll down the link to find the UC Pure UltraCapacitorPowerSupply, if you click on the link below each image it opens up so you can download the pdf manual for each component, valuable info.)
UcBalancer (#41F)
or
3000F 3400F Ultracapacitor Balancing Borad ebay.us/YCalgh
Heat shrink tube wrap amzn.to/3JMs1Z1
Vacuum Soldering Iron and a Desoldering Tool amzn.to/3LvHldH - Jak na to + styl
It could be the best ultra-low noise power supply in the real world. Great for high-end audio clocks, oscillators and other noise sensitive applications.
You did a good job. Congratulations!
Thanks Ian for all your contributions to the DIY community. Brilliant designs on so many levels.
Wow. When I saw the picture on the video I wasn't expecting those yellow caps to be that big!
Love it, great video. Got myself from Ian as well.
What fantastic and beautiful equipment I would want it all in full glass cases the innards would distract me from the music though.
Awesome ... Thanks
At work, our vibration table amplifier has banks of HV multi Farad caps. One day one of them blew up. We heard it go off though one floor and walls made of concrete. I would not want that to go off in my living room!
😮
Yes, that unit sound be in a grounded metal case.
A friend of min had it in the car bluw up like a bat out of Hell
With how low noise the ultracaps are, I also wonder about their use and utility for DC welding, like stick or TIG.
At a guess, the reason the solder pad is so close to the nut on the ultracapacitor balance board is to act as a nut-stop after the wire is soldered. Nuts can start backing off due to thermal cycling, vibration, etc, and soldering the wire end right next to the nut will prevent the nut from turning. Yes, it does make soldering more difficult. but it is a good safety feature.
Given the consequences of a loose bolt I would use a dab of threadlock!
Increíble, I still don’t what they are for, but is a nice and neat job.
Capacitors act like a battery, but with lower capacity in exchange for a far faster charge and discharge rate. In a power supply, they work to filter the incoming power and provide a reservoir of reserve power to accommodate swings in demand. In an audio device, that might come from a low bass hit or other transient, where a quick surge of current is needed to properly motivate the drivers.
In this particular case the capacitors ARE the power source. If they are charged, they get disconnected from the electric grid. So no parasitic frequencies can sneak into the power supply, and on top the noise from an activ filter / supply are avoided, too.
@@Mat-Thias I understand what are they for, but it doesn’t explain to people that is not technical how to implement this in a sound system.
How would one go about switching off some that are connected to mains for charging -- i.e. ensure total galvanic isolation when one is being charged from mains?
It's time for the Gabster to obtain a 3D printer for some nice end caps :)
How does this power supply set up affect the music or listening experience?
Gaby, I am curious to know how much difference you found between the LinearPi+UcConditioner vs UcPure. Was the difference in noise level considerable?
Cool.
How could I get the plans and parts for a 19V 90W version of this?
Hello! First i want to thank you for your commitment to DIY. I really like the modular buildup method! I was thinking of building a +5V supply. If i understand you correctly, i can use two 3V Ultracapacitors with a balancing board for this? I thought that due to the fact the capacitors are mounted in paralell, the voltage rating of 3V would be exceeded with 5V loading. Kind regards, Leo Sweden
The capacitors are mounted in series not parallel so 2 x 3000farad at 3 v become 1500F at 6v max but you need balancing boards to avoid accidents
Does it sound, like you are upgrading Zero Zone preamp already?😃
Great job, Gabi!
Recently I received a UcPure MkII with 12 and 21 kΩ resistors installed in stock, so it should give out the promised 5 V. But with a full charge and all glowing diodes, it gives out only 4.8v without load. The first version produces 4.95v. Is the new one worse than the old one? The switch is now on the board itself, and not on the end as before - also not so convenient for me. Could you check what voltage on yours in 5v mode?
I have a MK1 in my dac measures 5.03 as it goes pure and the MK2 I just built goes to 5 exact bear in mind is as soon as it goes pure Voltage starts to drop over time with load down to 4.5v not sure where is the lowest before it triggers back in charge
also check your volt meter make sure it is acurate try a couple if you can
hope that helps
Sorry, now i saw that the capacitors are connected in series. That explains it all!
How do you continu to make it 5v output, how do the wire go.
Realy love this video
When they dip low every couple hours the charge relay kicks in and the charge for 2 min or so Also between songs
Check out the UCPure pdf on Ian’s GitHub
Hello! I just bought Ian Cana UcPure thinking I could connect some smaller ultracapacitors, but then I checked the manual... Is it possible to connect something smaller anyway? All I want to achieve is 5V and 2-3A at the output of this module. Thank You for any piece of information. (btw... how about hybrid ultracapcitors?)
How do you power these ultra capacitors. You mentioned you would be using the transformer. But how do you wire up the transformer to the capacitors themselves? Also can you please add a link to the transformers as well?
You wire the 12v ac to the Ucpure board
A link to the transformers from Moyer is in one of the d11 Dac videos
Any reason why one wouldn't cover the aluminum bus bar as well since one can still discharge one of the capacitors from that bar if one is grounded?
If you can why not ideally shrink wrapping the 2 batteries is best but the protruding nuts are the most likely culprits
Could you put these in a case with ac inlet grounded to the case and a DC barrel output?
Yes you can
Hi Gab , I am trying to locate the transformer you used. Any links would be a big help!
Check my Dac build got a link in the description
Gaby, does the output of the board come on straight away to power the downstream modules or do you need to build in a time delay relay before powering the FIFO, DAC etc? Could you show a power up sequence?
It comes on straight away but the first 30s or so are not in pure mode as the caps are topping up.
the very first time you power the caps it takes a good 3 min to charge after that 10 to 30s but during that time you still have power from the Charging psu. No need for time delay.
see this Video at 46:10 for a real time there are 5 banks of capacitors each is 20% of the VU
czcams.com/video/ZP3sEmygBDo/video.html
I see you had an issue at 55:10 with timings. This was something that crossed my mind with the power up sequence but great that you solved it. I'll see if it happens with the smaller Uc supercap supplies when my kit arrives, they function in a similar way. Ultimately I would like to build the big ones!
Actually I see that these big Uc boards "Has built-in on/off control switch (on-board or external)" so this could be useful for any specific board timings for power up.
Hi Gabby,
yesterday I picked up my Eaton Ultra Caps. How do you discharge them ? I connected a 10 W 5 Ohm resistor to the plus and minus of the cap. I will leave ist over night. How do I know the capacitor is empty? Thank you for your kind advice.
Greetings Stephan
with a voltmeter measure the voltage the next day should be very low I use a 6v old fashion light bulb I find it the easiest way and when the filament is cold you are good and you avoid overheating a resistor
Hi Gabby,
First of all, thank you for your kind reply.
It seems my super Caps are discharged due to a long period of storage. To be on the safe side I connect them to the lamp overnight.
Can we chain 3 of these to get a 15v output or we should classify that idea under "home made explosive device"?
You can put 6 in series with balancers for 15v but need to be careful with them not to short them
I will be posting a video in a couple weeks or sooner on a couple ways about it.
@@Gabster1 thank you ! I will wait for it.
Gabster have you ever looked at gel cel or AGM those could run a Pi for a week or more
Not expensive enough obviously, they are however a much better solution in my opinion.
@@schrodingerscat1863 Ha ha ha ha! brilliant answer!
@@MisterJDee An audiophile and his money are easily parted. 90% of the stuff in these builds is completely pointless. The constant obsession with jitter for instance, just not an issue unless the jitter is bad enough to cause framing errors which it won't be over the two inches of cable it is traveling along. Even if it were a PLL locked buffer at the DAC end would be a better solution than re-clocking at the source. Most DACs have this built in anyway, it is the way jitter is dealt with over S/PDIFF TOSLINK optical interconnects allowing 24bit 192Khz over something that was never originally designed to run at such high bit rates.
Is it possible to build 24v dc power supply with this method ?
possible but would need 10 caps in series it will reduce the capacity drastically and will be huge
How can i make one of these for my raspberry pi streamer? (5v only)
Not suitable for a high power consuming device
Like the pi
A linear pi with a Uc conditioner is probably your best bet
See Ian’ link and the pdf of these 2
@@Gabster1 thank you gabby! You are the best!
Thus made for upgrading your raspi 5v to hifi .
Have someone design a cap for the ends that can be 3D printed. It'll be much safer, and you could add mounting points for the circuit board.
My first project ☠️
baby's first funeral
I don't see how this is any better than a lithium ion battery supply, it may charge quickly but is very low energy density compared to lithium ion. What is the benefit?
Internal resistance is much higher on L-ion. Not great for noise filtering.
@@FineArtPrintmaker It would be fronted by a linear regulator and a low ESR capacitor to deal with spikes in current supply just like any battery supply. It would be easily a match for the super capacitors in this application for a tiny fraction of the cost and store considerably more energy or similar energy storage in a much smaller volume. This is just another example of audiophiles wasting money on things that don't matter. I suppose next we will hear some clown talking about how super capacitors expand the sound stage or some other nonsensical audiophile babble.
@@schrodingerscat1863 You asked how is a super cap any better and the answer I posted covers that. You made no mention of topology so I didn't expand the comment.
@@FineArtPrintmaker Super caps need linear regulators too to get a stable output voltage, what are you talking about, topology. In this application they are a complete waste of money and lithium ion cells are superior due to charge density vs volume and price.
@@schrodingerscat1863 you obviously have an axe to grind. You asked what is the benefit. If you don’t like that fact and want to interject other factors like cost or size, that’s a personal preference that does not alter the lower ESR difference. You asked for the benefit and if your preference is a cost saving approach thats fine but it in no way changes the internal resistance metric.