John in Arkansas is doing some experimentation using capacitors to store power for LED lighting. He’s connecting one of our small solar panels (6Volt, 2 Watt) to a variety of capacitors and using those capacitors to run LEDs.  He reports that a 55 farad – 5.0V capacitor took about 20 minutes to charge on a sunny day and powered a single, bright LED (3.5V @ 20mA) for about 3-4 hours before it tailed off to a weak light for another two hours or so.
Wikipedia goes into detail about some of the advantages and disadvantages of using capacitors over conventional batteries here. If anyone has first hand experience of using capacitors with solar power, or are doing any interesting projects, please let us know.

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