Capacitor life and charging times

[drcubbin]

We have noticed with two of our capacitors that given the same charging time they seem to be holding less of a charge forcing us to change out the power source. Is this a common problem? How many charges can these power sources accommodate?
We are using charging times rather than a voltmeter and J & H gliders. Is there an "average" charging time? We started out with 15-30 seconds but went over 1 minute at States, and it was ok, but not what we were hoping for.

[coachchuckaahs]

Charge amount in a given time could be strongly dependent upon charge state of your battery cells too.

I cannot imagine we are putting enough load on the Cap to degrade its performance, but we have not monitored or taken data in this area. It would certainly be good to look at a discharge curve (voltage vs time) through a fixed resistor and snapshots during the life of a capacitor.

The majority of the charge comes in the first few seconds, adn then the charge rate decays. Charging by time, in order to set the climb, may be limited in accuracy compared to charging by voltage, especially as the battery cells get used. We used a cheap (under $5 on sale) Harbor Freight voltmeter. Similar bargains, perhaps slightly better quality can be found on Amazon. Just like a torque meter in WS, I would not do EWS without a voltmeter, especially so cheap.


Coach Chuck