"Jeffrey Angus" wrote in message
. ..
On 2/22/2011 2:52 PM, Meat Plow wrote:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:21:55 -0800, DaveC wrote:

My question: what's the impact of replacing a supercap with one with a
higher ESR?

Logic would dictate it would discharge quicker but my logic is usually
flawed.

Huh!

The higher the ESR the lower the peak current you can draw from it and the
longer it will take to fully charge with a given source.

Considering that the draw on these caps is usually measured in
microamps, I doubt the higher ESR is going to effect how well
it works.

Huh? (Again!)

The draws are usually measured in the 10s of Amperes. In some
applications, the 100s of Amperes (such as when a super cap is used to help
start something.)


Maybe might make a bit of difference in how long it takes to
fully charge though.

That but also how much the cap heats when both charging the discharging.
If it's being used in a power supply filtering function, a high ESR will
both reduce the filtering effect and increase the heating of the cap.