o0norton0o
VIP MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,756
My Capacitor welder is charged by a 2 amp 12 volt charger with an LED indicator that indicates the current flow into the 3.5 capacitor. It generally takes about 10 seconds to go from yellow (charging) to green (charged) It seems like at 12 volts, it would take longer to charge a more powerful capacitor from full discharge to fully charged...1 time constant is just R*C, that brings it to 63%. Full charge is 5 time constants. The car audio guys say to put a tail light bulb in series with the cap and when it goes out, the cap is charged.
I don't know if a capacitor on a motorcycle works like my spot welder does, (complete discharge for every weld, then completely recharged to be ready for the next weld) but perhaps it's similar in the sense that it only has to supply enough voltage for the first few sparks until the alternator raises the bike's system voltage...
If that's the case then there could be an optimum sized capacitor to make dead battery starting easier, rather than the 2MC (as Ludwig showed in his earlier post) I'd be interested in opinions of what that size would be, and what the pro's and con's of making that change to the bikes electrical system would be.