PowerCache Announces Availability of PC10 Miniature Ultracapacitors
PowerCache (San Diego, CA), a Maxwell Technologies (San Diego, CA) company, announced the availability of the PC10, a miniature, 10-farad ultracapacitor. The PC10 can increase battery operating life while reducing battery size in wireless consumer electronics and medical devices, automatic meter readers, scanners, power tools, or any other product requiring pulsed-power capabilities.
The PC10 can be used in automotive subsystem applications for power locks, inside lighting and power windows, and can provide extended backup-power availability, allowing critical information and functions to remain available during dips, sags and outages in the main power supply or battery charge. Measuring 24 x 31 x 4.5mm, the PC10 caches 31 Joules of energy at a nominal 2.5V for high-powered discharges ranging from fractions of a second to one minute.
According to Robert Tressler, vice-president of sales and marketing for PowerCache, its small size and pulsed-power capacity can decrease the weight and cost of batteries in devices requiring bursts of power. "With roughly 10 times the power density of ordinary batteries, the PC10 can provide power during an application's peak periods, such as when sending messages or linking with satellite communications," said Tressler. By doing so, the PC10 relieves batteries of peak power functions, so a product's life can be drastically extended while the overall system cost is simultaneously reduced.
Available immediately, the PC10 is packaged in a durable, lightweight, hermetically sealed stainless-steel prismatic can. It features easily accessible, solderable terminals and an electrostatic storage capability that can cycle hundreds of thousands of charges and discharges without performance degradation, and is capable of accepting charges at the identical rate of discharges for systems that can benefit from regenerative energy.
