Experiments with a supercapacitor, a solar cell and an Arduino

Experiments with a supercapacitor (two of them, actually), a solar cell and an Arduino on a nice, sunny day.
The idea here is that the solar cell will charge up a series pair of supercapacitors to just about 5V at which time a "switch" is thrown (an Arduino switching on a MOSFET) which dumps all of that charge through a flashlight bulb.
The point of the exercise (apart from playing with supercapacitors) is to demonstrate solar energy being harvested and stored and then later released.

[@NESDUB]

Thanks for uploading 👍

[@christiankulmann3325]

Powercap Supercaps 36× 500F Accu Battery 2,7V Farad ➡️ ua-cam.com/video/ihSc7Bj_oQk/v-deo.html
My 660Wp SunTracer Solar Tracker ➡️ ua-cam.com/video/X0lmYFwOq3U/v-deo.html

[@45rpm.]

Thanks - I was thinking of making a solar powered IP camera and using supercapacitors but I think I will stick with rechargeable batteries. I was going to pot everything in if I could use the caps because they would have lasted a very long time. It would have only needed an occasional clean of the lens and solar panel.

[@asifalishaz1890]

What is the rating of solar panel

[@jonathanhernandez90]

How much capacitance are the super caps? And this isn’t as easy to answer, would you happen to know how much current the bulb was drawing?

[@emcgon]

The capacitors are 3F each, wired in series. This provides 1.5F of capacitance in total, but the pair in series is good for 5.4V (2.7V each). The current drawn by the bulb will obviously vary (non-linearly) with voltage as the capacitors discharge through it. However, I still have that bulb and I just did a quick check and generated two datapoints: at 5V, the bulb draws 750mA and and 3V it draws 580mA.