Archive for October, 2008
Holding the Charge
This next question comes to us from James Beatty- How long will the flashlight hold a charge when not in use?
James,
The ability to hold a charge is often known as leakage. advanced capacitors have a leakage comparable to NiCad batteries. They will loose more energy when they are fully charged but the loss decreases over time.
There are no negative impacts to the advanced capacitors when it is left off of its charger. If left off the charger for a month, a flashlight could be used for 45 minutes of light or it could be fully charged in 45 seconds. If you left off the flashlight for a year, there would be 25% of the energy left. No negative memory effects or degradation would result. Similarly, if you left a battery to drain down to 50% of its capacity can reduce its life.
If you left your flashlight off for 5 years, it would only take 90 seconds to recharge the flashlight to give you 90 minutes of run-time.
Thanks for the question!
Differences between a Battery and Advanced Capacitors?
Hey Everyone! This next answer will require for me to put on my scientist hat.
What are the differences between a battery and advanced capacitors?
A battery stores energy through a chemical reaction. The flow of electrons (i.e. electricity) causes an oxidation/reduction reaction to occur between a metal and an electrolyte. This reaction effectively stores the electrical energy by forming a new compound. When energy is taken out of a battery, the chemical reaction goes the other direction. Of course since nothing is perfect, this process does not store 100% of the energy going in nor release 100% of the energy going out. Extreme temperatures dramatically effect this reaction resulting in poor battery performance. Also, this reaction gives off heat which increases the temperature of a battery resulting in low performance or reduced life. Every time this reaction takes place a battery looses its ability to transfer energy. After about 500 to 1000 cycles a typical battery needs to be replaced.
An advanced capacitors does not store energy through a chemical reaction.
The electrons that enter into an advanced capacitors get stored in tiny pores that exist in the carbon material on each electrode. The carbon material is like a sponge storing electrons through millions of nooks and crannies. Because the electrons are not converted into a chemical compound, they are quickly stored, and there is very little degradation. In fact, an advanced capacitors can be cycled 50,000 times without loosing more than about 20% of its original energy.
Remember to keep those questions coming and make sure you pre-order you Light for Life Flashlight!
What is an Advanced Capacitor?
Hey everyone! I want to start answering a couple of questions regarding our new Light for Life Flashlight. Here is on of our first questions and a good start to the blog.
Question 1: What is an Advanced Capacitor?
Advanced capacitors have been around since 1957 when they were discovered by General Electric somewhat by accident. The first commercial use was in 1978 when the NEC used the technology to provide backup power for computer memory. The challenge isn’t building the advanced capacitors, the challenge is to harness the energy produced by the advanced capacitors.
Today, the most common use of a capacitor is in your compact camera. The capacitor has the ability to quickly load energy, and then quickly unload it. The technology is gaining attention as the globe looks harder and harder at renewable energy systems, and traditional batteries, although they have made great strides, still have significant issues with heat, weight, and their effect on the environment.
Welcome to the New Light for Life Blog!
Hello, everyone, I’m Tom and welcome to the new blog we created specifically for the Light for Life UC3.400 Flashlight. Over the next few weeks I want to use this blog as a way of communicating with everyone about the flashlight and the technology behind it.
Before I do that I want to tell a little about myself and how I got started with this project - After 10 years in Sales and Marketing with one of the most recognized brands in the world, I met Dan Costa, CEO of 5.11 Tactical. He told me about a product that 5.11 was developing that would “change the game” in it’s category and invited me to join the team to help to bring the product to market and here I am!
Feel free to ask anything within the comments and I can not wait to share more information about this exciting project.
One Lasting Thought:
It’s one thing to look at a product and make some improvements to what the competitors are doing. It is another, to have a technology, that exceeds what anyone thought was possible. This flashlight does that.
