Big Joule Theif

[pentiger]

I busted up five or six disposable cameras and tried as many different failures before I tried this Kodak funsaver modification. Turned out to be real easy and worked like a charm. I"m lighting a flouresent off a 1.5 volt AA. Here's the link:

YouTube - Micro Camera Circuit Mod!

Hi, great tutorial. Do you have a photo of it lighting a cfl?

Thanks.

[synchro]

Flash mod.

I busted up five or six disposable cameras and tried as many different failures before I tried this Kodak funsaver modification. Turned out to be real easy and worked like a charm. I"m lighting a flouresent off a 1.5 volt AA. Here's the link:

YouTube - Micro Camera Circuit Mod!

[cikljamas]

cikljamas,
Don't go with cfl because I did. I was very impressed with Lidmotors vids and bought 4 9W on and order from Goldmine. Of course I found out later LED's are better bang for the ma so most say. Now I have to get some better led's. lol
I have some 12,000mcd white 10*, but they aren't very impressive. I'm looking at a way to diffuse them. The one 13w spiral at good brightness, 2.25v draws 465ma. They lasted for abt 2.5hrs before dropping out. Not really suitable IMHO for long outage use. I'm abt done with the fuji transformers. I can use them for 1 aa and only draw abt 130ma so I should get 20hrs from my power outage "safety" lights to sit around the house. Next is back to coils and see what I can do.
Good luck on what you try and keep us posted!

Hi Vaporizer !
Thanks for answer !

I just wound one coil L1 4 turns, L2 8 turns, and L3 120 turns, and after
FWBR it gives 220 V which is in Europe standard but without FWBR it is
about 100 V with 1,5 batterie...But what is total mystery for me is this :
if i get voltage that i need for cfl to work what about amps, i mean could
one 1,5 V battery give enough current to supply such a thing as it is cfl ???
Do you maybe use some special cfls or it is common cfl for AC current from
the wall socket ?

Maybe stupid questions, but i recall how i made a year ago two inverters
12/220 V with four 2N3055 and i know how these transistors become very
hot very soon so i just doubt whether 1,5 battery with a help of one little toroid of 1 inch can light common AC cfl, it seems unlikely to be true, but who knows...There is lot of things in electronics that i still have to learn, and when i do not know something i just ask without too much shame...

If i understood you well you suggested me to give up from cfls and stick
up with leds ? I already have two little JTs that gives very good results
lightening leds 30000 cd, pretty nice stuffs, and maybe it will be something
that i am going to use much more often then cfls, but i have to try that
(cfls) too, just to see how it works...

Thanks for understanding !

[NickZ]

Guys:
I wonder where he got this coil, (IST- newest coil). He has been posting on Overunity.com's Joule Thief thread going by the name -Osiris, now. He was the one that came up with the toroid tuning method mentioned in my last post here. I would not have expected the results that he came up with on those tests. The more windings on the secondary coil, the more juice, but not so on the primary side. So, it is very important to have just the right L1 to L2 turn combination. Or poor results may be the outcome. That might be what is going on with some of our Jt circuits less than brilliant results. I also notice that not all transistors of the same type run the same, some just aren't any good at all, some are very strong but can also use up the run battery's charge up way too fast. Also, if the transistors gets too hot just once, they are never the same, even though they keep working, but not like before.
I'm still working on finding a feed back system that works, and keeps the run batteries voltage level constant, otherwise its useless, as the frequency is always changing, and no circuit will work properly like that. Resonance has to compensate for all the loses...
Big Coil Builders... good luck to you all.

[pentiger]

where do these come from:

Thanks.

[pentiger]

***Edited below

Hi Everyone

I was away for couple days trying to resolve my problems with the big toroid.

Today I returned and was surprised by this much new info from you.

I need to ask Vaporizer, I loved your modified Fuji circuit, I noticed you have a big transistor there, can you tell me what kind it is?

I did try to use the Fuji JT and also burned the original transistor which is very hard to find from what I saw.

I did have luck with my 3inch toroid.

YouTube - Big joule thief finally working

It was a great project. I need to get myself more toroids and make more of these boxes.

pentiger

--------------------------

I thought it worked, I am getting tired of it. It lasted 30 minutes

I thought I did everything perfect this time around.

Back to the drawing board I guess. I'm gonna cry.......

[Tectalabyss]

Tec & all,
Variable resistors are necessary to find the lowest current draw for the circuit to operate as you want it to. Once found, it can be measured and replaced with a fixed one. If the JT is used for different things, many leave it in so it is versatile for different applications.
Using a meter on a JT circuit is almost useless. You can put in a 1ohm resistor off the battery and measure the current draw across the resistor using the volts range. 1v = 1ma current draw. Sometimes the circuit will dim from that. If you are charging a cap, it can be measured, but not much more. The spikes occur to fast for a meter to read. Most of the reading you see posted on the high voltages and such are from scope measurements.
Good point Tec.

@Vaporizer.
Thanks You made it a lot clearer than I ever could.I don't have a scope yet just my bearskin's & stone knife's I just have to backtrack and recheck my finding's a few time's to be a little more sure and then I can't say with 100 % . But I love the learning. Thanks also for the link's.A lot!!! of very useful reading. Tec

[Vaporizer]

Tec & all,
Variable resistors are necessary to find the lowest current draw for the circuit to operate as you want it to. Once found, it can be measured and replaced with a fixed one. If the JT is used for different things, many leave it in so it is versatile for different applications.
Using a meter on a JT circuit is almost useless. You can put in a 1ohm resistor off the battery and measure the current draw across the resistor using the volts range. 1v = 1ma current draw. Sometimes the circuit will dim from that. If you are charging a cap, it can be measured, but not much more. The spikes occur to fast for a meter to read. Most of the reading you see posted on the high voltages and such are from scope measurements.
Good point Tec.

[Tectalabyss]

@Tec, I can't say I'm surprised abt your finding on the LED's. I can't wait to get some big ones. It seems you just cant say, without testing , what the draw will be vs the light output. It certainly doesnt seem to be what they normally draw when used with a battery and a dropping resistor. On the Darlington, I couldn't see an advantage in this type of circuit. It has a terrific gain in rf applications, but these circuits seem to be using the transistor for high speed switching. So I've been looking for ones that have the high A rating with the lowest Base on voltage needed. 2 transistors can be and are used in some circuits. The 1st like a 2N2222 is used as a low A draw in the oscillator and a second larger one used to drive the load grabbing its Base trigger signal from the C of the 1st.
So much to decide and test......................but an interesting learning experience.

Hello Vaporizer and All.
Yes I've had some strange things with the JT and Leds right now I've added a diode between the base wire and the variable resistor going to the base of the transistor.seems to have helped with the drain on the voltage.
One thing I did want to share (do Not leave your meters hooked up to your JT during a test) it will almost all ways show a incorrect reading even with the meters off a case in point I had forgotten to unhook my amp meter and even with it off when I checked the next morning My voltage had increased I knew that could not be,so I ran the test again without the meter hooked up at all sure enough the voltage had dropped .My Point If I had ran to the computer and said I am gaining volts !!!!! and no one else could do it I would have been labeled a nut or worse.I did that once and took the post off with the statement (Did not work Has stated) Tec

[Vaporizer]

cikljamas,
Don't go with cfl because I did. I was very impressed with Lidmotors vids and bought 4 9W on and order from Goldmine. Of course I found out later LED's are better bang for the ma so most say. Now I have to get some better led's. lol
I have some 12,000mcd white 10*, but they aren't very impressive. I'm looking at a way to diffuse them. The one 13w spiral at good brightness, 2.25v draws 465ma. They lasted for abt 2.5hrs before dropping out. Not really suitable IMHO for long outage use. I'm abt done with the fuji transformers. I can use them for 1 aa and only draw abt 130ma so I should get 20hrs from my power outage "safety" lights to sit around the house. Next is back to coils and see what I can do.
Good luck on what you try and keep us posted!

[cikljamas]

cikljamas, Welcome from another noob here. lol Nothing like feeling 2yrs behind and abt 10,000 post to read huh? The thread above abt 1/2 way down the page has a post that shows what i think you are looking for by Gadgetmall. It seem to have the right title. There are 3 of the same circuits posted on that page. The one with the red line connecting the 2 tank circuits to the base is the correct one from what I've read. Also look at that transistor. You'll need to see if it can handle the load you are describing. Lidmotor used a 3" toroid for the Jennas light in the vid.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Vaporizer for your answer ! It did help, i just have to spend
a certain amount of time reading a lot from this thread to be able
to participate equally , but i am interested in this light producing
stuffs very much...I ll try to plug myself in this discussion and then
plug my cfl to JT too

All:
I received a PM in Oct. from Conradelectro from the OU.com. In the attachment is his message which he had sent to me, and had also been posted at that forum earlier.
I think it might help in understanding the ratio of turns of the primary to secondary in a Jt, for the desired voltage results, as also the layout pattern.
Yes, IST is back, and wants to build something new (10kw device)... Now he's going by the username -Osiris-.
Toroid Tuning:
Jule Thief

Hi NickZ !
This link is superb, thanks for that !!!

[Vaporizer]

Nick & all.
Good reading on that link Nick. The pic showing the 10p cap was interesting as it is only isolated from being across the battery by a resistor and they claim a 300% improvement. I can't say that amount, but non-electrolytic caps pass ac, but not dc. So it has to be refeeding an ac pulse back into the step up of the circuit if its adding brightness. If it extended time run or lowered ma's, it would be going back to the battery. The pics and descriptions above that are really nice. I need to read them more closely, but they are saved in my now 56 page Word doc. lol
All but one of the pics shows exactly what I was describing in my previous post. All but 1 have the coils opposite on the toroid or equally spaced. I wish i could find out if the toroid was being completely charged magnetically. I did score a couple ferrite rods from a couple motherboards. Actually 5 1/2" dia toroids and 2 rods. Both rods are abt 1/4" in dia and they are abt 1/2 & 3/4" long. The one pic with the 10p cap would be an easy wind on them and I could try a 3 winding too. One would have the trigger & primary JT on the rod, a layer of tape then the big winding over it all. The other would start with the output coil on the rod. I can glue index card disks on the ends so they can be wound level end to end.

@Tec, I can't say I'm surprised abt your finding on the LED's. I can't wait to get some big ones. It seems you just cant say, without testing , what the draw will be vs the light output. It certainly doesnt seem to be what they normally draw when used with a battery and a dropping resistor. On the Darlington, I couldn't see an advantage in this type of circuit. It has a terrific gain in rf applications, but these circuits seem to be using the transistor for high speed switching. So I've been looking for ones that have the high A rating with the lowest Base on voltage needed. 2 transistors can be and are used in some circuits. The 1st like a 2N2222 is used as a low A draw in the oscillator and a second larger one used to drive the load grabbing its Base trigger signal from the C of the 1st.
So much to decide and test......................but an interesting learning experience.

If someone wants the schematic of what I did above, I'll be glad to trace it out and post it. The problem is that the camera circuits are a few yrs old. I need to try to get some more recent Fujis. some are Kodak and some are Fuji, but none match what has been posted so the best I can do on the transformer would be to give the ohms reading of the 3 windings, not the turns. This seems kinda pointless since I dont even know the gauge of wire. Sorry....

[NickZ]

All:
I received a PM in Oct. from Conradelectro from the OU.com. In the attachment is his message which he had sent to me, and had also been posted at that forum earlier.
I think it might help in understanding the ratio of turns of the primary to secondary in a Jt, for the desired voltage results, as also the layout pattern.
Yes, IST is back, and wants to build something new (10kw device)... Now he's going by the username -Osiris-.
Toroid Tuning:
Jule Thief

[Vaporizer]

Hi TEC & all.
I gutted a 13w spiral cfl and put it in the circuit that had the 9w "U" shown above. It's much better at light output, but the current went up as expected.
I decided to try adding a cap and found that a .047 from ground to battery + increased the brightness noticeably. Yep, across the battery. Also, again I tried placing a magnet on the top of the "E" core. I can dim and make it brighter than "normal" still.

On the placement of the windings....... Most pics show opposite positions or equally spaced positions. I think there may be some food for thought here. Lets try a mental example. The secondary winding is wrapped 1/2 the toroid from 9-3 o'clock. Most will wrap the trigger and primary equally spaced at abt the 5 & 7 o'clock position. Seems logical, but what if the toroid isn't being 100% saturated? The trigger coil need very little, but the primary when fired will saturate equally in a radial pattern. So, this means the 3 o'clock side sees more magnetic charge than the 9 o'clock side. This thought could leave part of the secondary seeing little or no charge to pickup on collapse. It would seem more logical to have the primary wrapped at 12 o'clock right in the middle of the secondary coil. E cores and rods are "over wrapped" so its not impractical to think abt IMHO. If this were true smaller toroids of smaller size and less permeability may be used. Some with better results.

Comments?

[Tectalabyss]

Thanks

Hi all,

TEC, it seems the JT running alone ma's load can be set by many different means. The type of transistor, base resistor value and I'm guessing the # & gauge of primary winds/resistance. In this link Jule Thief Xee has a schematic and a chart that may help you. Looks like some can run as low as 3.4ma at idle, but also look at the output capability.

Nick, As far a over winding the 1st toroid layer..... I haven't done enough to really answer that. Most wind on a single layer unless the secondary needs more room. The "E" cores are wound on a plastic bobbin and used in many circuits. They are are all wound on a single form over top each other just as the ferrite rods are in many examples. I'm fairly sure it would be better if a specific wind was against the core, but it may make little difference. That Fuji transformer I refer to has 1750 turns on the output coil. Very fine wire 45ga? But looking at it, the primary or trigger coil is the outer wrap over it all and it seems very efficient.

cikljamas, Welcome from another noob here. lol Nothing like feeling 2yrs behind and abt 10,000 post to read huh? The thread above abt 1/2 way down the page has a post that shows what i think you are looking for by Gadgetmall. It seem to have the right title. There are 3 of the same circuits posted on that page. The one with the red line connecting the 2 tank circuits to the base is the correct one from what I've read. Also look at that transistor. You'll need to see if it can handle the load you are describing. Lidmotor used a 3" toroid for the Jennas light in the vid.

Hope this helps.

Hello Vaporizer and All.
Thanks for the link I checked it out It looks like he's running off the E/C with a diode and cap added to the circuit. I have tried the darlington transistor but I never added the other two parts.I did get a toroid sanded and painted I am going to use this for a test coil to try different JT windings its over 2" diam I have another when I settle on a JT to build the whole thing.(I am wondering if it matter's where the JT is in relationship to the secondary On the Toroid?).I know sometime its the small things that make a world of difference. I have ran some tests and JT's and Leds do some strange things I get less of a drain on the battery with a 10mm 120.000 led than I do with a 5 mm Flattop/Strawhat both white/or a 5mm Blue round top led Thank you for all the help sorry I cant get on has much as I would like too.I looked at your build great work and to everyone here thanks and if I've not answered you back please overlook me. Tec