15F Ti Powercore 66.6F upgrade for a client
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:51 pm
Here's another quick one. A few years back I designed a 66.6F replacement supercap board for the leaky 15F alumapro modules in the ti powercores. I've had one assembled for more than a year and running reliably in my daily shop. The same client I did the other ti amps for also sent me a powercore for repair. I didn't take many pictures, but what I did will be below. I'll take a few more as I assemble tomorrow.
Overall it was a pretty simple repair, there was more involved in sorting out the mechanical aspects than the electrical. It uses 6 Eaton 400F supercap in series for a total voltage rating of 16.2V and final capacitance of 66.67F. The board is made in 2oz copper for high current capacity. The biggest issue with the whole thing was needing to relocate the tri-leds and securely mounting the new board. The tri-leds used to tr to a steel cover plate which retained the alumapro module. The cover plate would no longer fit and the led boards needed to be mounted to the case to instead. Studs were added to the top of the case to hold the led boards. The other issue was the supercap board. Initially I tried to mount it on standard aluminum standoffs, but some of the clearances were too tight to the holes and it was potentially possible for the module to short to the case. I ended up using nylon standoffs which are mounted with countersink flush m3 screws up from the bottom. The stud of the standoffs goes through the boards mounting holes, then a 3d printed plastic washer, then a standard m3 nut. This turned out to be the winning combo. The next revision of my board will have the traces pulled back further from the mounting holes though. Also, on the bottom of the boards there is a balance resistor for each supercap. Simple passive balancing would not work well for scenerios where you need it to be super efficient for something like offline backup, but for an application like this it will work just fine and is the most cost effective way to do the job.
If there are any questions, I'll do my best to answer, just lmk.
Later,
Jason
Overall it was a pretty simple repair, there was more involved in sorting out the mechanical aspects than the electrical. It uses 6 Eaton 400F supercap in series for a total voltage rating of 16.2V and final capacitance of 66.67F. The board is made in 2oz copper for high current capacity. The biggest issue with the whole thing was needing to relocate the tri-leds and securely mounting the new board. The tri-leds used to tr to a steel cover plate which retained the alumapro module. The cover plate would no longer fit and the led boards needed to be mounted to the case to instead. Studs were added to the top of the case to hold the led boards. The other issue was the supercap board. Initially I tried to mount it on standard aluminum standoffs, but some of the clearances were too tight to the holes and it was potentially possible for the module to short to the case. I ended up using nylon standoffs which are mounted with countersink flush m3 screws up from the bottom. The stud of the standoffs goes through the boards mounting holes, then a 3d printed plastic washer, then a standard m3 nut. This turned out to be the winning combo. The next revision of my board will have the traces pulled back further from the mounting holes though. Also, on the bottom of the boards there is a balance resistor for each supercap. Simple passive balancing would not work well for scenerios where you need it to be super efficient for something like offline backup, but for an application like this it will work just fine and is the most cost effective way to do the job.
If there are any questions, I'll do my best to answer, just lmk.
Later,
Jason