Mobius Mini and supercap? Anyone tried it before? DON'T have to anymore, it WORKS!!

[dirkzelf]

OK, let's go... it's worth mentioning it's 5.5V instead of 5.4V, but I guess that's no biggie....

 

[Dashmellow]

I didn't see a size specification listed for those button cell caps (diameter). Hope they fit!

 

[TonyM]

Although Mobius do not list capacitors in their eletoponline365 online shop, they have advised me that you can send them an email to purchase a capacitor.

 

[dirkzelf]

I didn't see a size specification listed for those button cell caps (diameter). Hope they fit!

25 x 6 mm

Yeah well, too late for measurements now, I ordered .... if need be, I'll apply a little dirkmagic to make it fit....

 

[dirkzelf]

Although Mobius do not list capacitors in their eletoponline365 online shop, they have advised me that you can send them an email to purchase a capacitor.

for the mini?

 

[TonyM]

for the mini?

No, not specifically. They were referring to the M1/M2 and Maxi capacitors at the time when I asked.

 

[dirkzelf]

I'm going to be ignorant and just ask.....be right back.

 

[TonyM]

I'm going to be ignorant and just ask.....be right back.

I've just sent them an enquiry on your behalf regarding modifying the Mini for use with capacitors

 

[dirkzelf]

Me too!! Hahaha

 

[dirkzelf]

So the word is out, they (Mobius) are not doing a Mini with supercap, but I pointed them at the button cell caps, and they would have a look, also they will consider a f/w mod for the longer power button press / delay.

 

[dirkzelf]

What about these:

4.8US $ |capacitor 5.5V 5F 5.0F V H SRT type super farad capacitor|Capacitors| - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

OK, I got the supercaps, and they do NOT fit without applying any force to it, so that's not what we want.... Now, they consist of 2 button cells, if I devide these two, do I get

2x 5.5V 2.5F or
2x 2.75V 5F?

 

[dirkzelf]

I tried the halfsies, because they were soldered together + to -, so I deducted the Voltage of both must be 5.5. However they do not get charged, so just soldering the + and - to the connector obviously does not work.

Neither does the full 5F (2 buttoncells on top of each other).

Do we need more to it to get it to work? The working supercaps have some sort of printboard between cables and cells....

 

[Dashmellow]

The pcb on the Mobius supercaps has some voltage balancing resistors that insure that both capacitors maintain the exact same voltage which is required in the long run to keep them from failing and to provide the camera with the specified voltage and capacity. At least in the beginning, the button cells should charge AFAIK.

 

[dirkzelf]

The pcb on the Mobius supercaps has some voltage balancing resistors that insure that both capacitors maintain the exact same voltage which is required in the long run to keep them from failing and to provide the camera with the specified voltage and capacity. At least in the beginning, the button cells should charge AFAIK.

So, even without the pcb, the supercaps should charge...?? Hm... not sure what to do now....

If the cells are bad, the green charging led should light up? Because the green LED does not light up....

The supercaps normally charge pretty fast, empty ones charge within a minute, tops. These don't trigger a green LED at all, not even after 10 minutes....

 

[Dashmellow]

Do you have a multi-meter? You could do a little testing to see if you can track down anything obvious.

 

[dirkzelf]

Do you have a multi-meter? You could do a little testing to see if you can track down anything obvious.

tried measuring Voltage, but meter says nothing. Zero, ziltch, nada, njet.

 

[Dashmellow]

tried measuring Voltage, but meter says nothing. Zero, ziltch, nada, njet.

I don't know if you ever saw my old thread from 5 years ago where I spent months experimenting with installing aftermarket super-caps in a GT680W, but I just dug the old DIY super-cap module out of a drawer and tested it. You can see the homemade dual super-capacitor module I'm talking about in the last photo on the left at the bottom in THIS post. Those two super-caps have been sitting untouched in a box in my office for years now. My multi-meter showed them to still be putting out 0.95 volts. When I test for continuity between the positive and negative leads I get an audio signal, as expected.

Sounds like something is wrong with the caps you have.

 

[dirkzelf]

I have to correct myself, I retried and this is what I got:



Also did the contact-test, works ok, got the beep (mine doesn't beep, but shows a random number).

 

[dirkzelf]

interesting is that the one half that hasn't been connected to the Mini shows 0 Volt....

 

[Dashmellow]

Sounds a little better. How long have you left them charging? Somewhere, I once read about certain capacitors needing to "break-in" but I don't know if that applies to super-caps or even whether it is true at all. I read it on a forum discussion that was all about using large capacitors in high end audio and as you may know some high end audio fanatics often seem to engage in magical thinking, so who knows? Anyway, just try leaving them charging for a while and see if anything different happens.