Big Joule Theif

[serfer5]

winding

Hi All
This is my first post, I have been just taking in all the great info and the last few weeks. I tell you its nice to be around a group that actualy does the hands on work and experimentation, hats off to all of you.

I just wanted to put in my two cents worth about toroid winding. I used the toroid from the cfl as Jeanna suggested for the basic joul thief. I wound with 24 gauge aluminum magnet wire tightly all the way around leaving two wires at one end of the toroid , then on the opposite end I wound all the way around again, this second winding was used for the base trigger. works great with about 24 volts from the collector. Works great.

has any one tried a one wire transmission with the JT, I had 6 leds lighting off the collector through an av plug like in the SEC project

[jeanna]

choke cough choke cough

55u is a choke.
I got burned 35 bucks last year on some chokes. You need 40 turn primaries and even then you need more for the secondary.

The permeability should be 8.000u - 11,000u or higher.

If you are going to make a jt gift I suggest you get a 10w cfl from the store or garbage. Then you can make a "world light" with the tiny toroid inside.
It is the new kind of cfl that has the toroids. The older ones had some radioactive stuff like old fashioned ballasts in them. Now they have toroids and sing.
They also get hot and burn out very soon so there may be some around in the trash.

Did those chokes come from the goldmine grab bag?

I am sorry to hear this.

jeanna

[CosmicFarmer]

More tinkerings...

I decided to doodle in my workshop, was going to make someone a nightlight but of course I had to obsess over the inductor ;-)

I decided to compare scramble style vs conventional.

For those of you who don't know, scramble style is as haphazard as possible, very unsightly, Doing so removes some capacitance. Conventional is much neater and can cram more wire on the toroid.

So, I wound both toroids with 3/9 wraps for primary oscillator and put 40 wraps on the secondary, one was scrambled and one was normal.

I used a bridge rectifier from radio shack and I know it was not as best as possible but I used the same rectifier for both to keep things scientific

Source was 2.2v
Scramble style got me 12 volts, and conventional got me 9. about .25 to .3 volts per turn. Not bad I guess..... Initially, conventional style got me only 5 volts, but then I squished the primary winds together more, and got a little more out.

Inter wind capacitance/position is important.

but then I tried another toroid I had wound previously and not tested. This toroid I found in a kicked-in broken up television that was rained on for 2 weeks in someones back yard. I had put 15/15 wraps "Makezine" style bifilar for the primary and 60 conventional wraps with a smaller ga. wire as the secondary.

The thing screamed at me and put out 40 volts.

Highest peak resonant with 21 ohms.
So now I doubt my purchased toroids

Toroid Specs: * 55 u * 1.57" OD x 0.95" ID x 0.57" high * Al of 73 nH/Turn-Squared



So maybe a higher permeability is needed.

Tomorrow I will see if I can wind the exact same 15/15/60 style on the cores that I bought and see the difference between the found core and bought core.

The difference that I think will matter is the wires position. Instead of having A side and B side separate, to have both together might be stronger, but that's just a postulation.

When you see "Toroids for flyback / HV Balun" they might be for choking it, not making more flyback.

[mk1]

@all

Here is my latest joule thief coil , lighting a filament bulb on the secondary .

YouTube - mk1 TPJT (joule thief) Filament bulb (size49)

Thank

Mark

[jeanna]

rules

....
..... photo of the correct joule thief with three different inductor types and still thinking about the connections to the coil and transistor so back to the schematics for some pondering...


Today's question is this the right hand rule...does this affect a toriods performance by any detectable amount as I realized that I wound my toroid with 20 turns of a twisted pair to the opposite of the rule...

Mostly I wind according to the easiest way for my hands, but the thing about the center tapped primary is that it is being fed in the center of the wires and while the wires go the same direction, the voltage comes in and splits direction.
I think spatially, and this is tricky for me, but I am quite sure this is the cause of the magic of the jt.

So, to review for anyone:

The center tap is where you connect the pos of the battery
the Emitter is where you connect the neg of the battery
the 2 remaining wires can connect to either the
Base through the resistor, or the
Collector
Many of us who worked on this realized that to use fewer turns on the base improves the performance, but for the first 2 or 3, make the makezine way then move on.

and smile

jeanna

[area46241]

Thanks Tectalabyss- windings...

my electronics hobby is in full swing again thanks to this forum and the youtube...you all have put on quite a show and I feel blessed to have been allowed to be part of what I consider something that could have a positive impact on everyone...
currently I am waiting for a chance to go to the shack for a neon as I have put the imhotep bedini fan circuit together...very excited about that...
...and I have rewound my ten mil toriod according to the makezine video thanks for the advice jeanna and someones photo of the correct joule thief with three different inductor types and still thinking about the connections to the coil and transistor so back to the schematics for some pondering...
Today's question is this the right hand rule...does this affect a toriods performance by any detectable amount as I realized that I wound my toroid with 20 turns of a twisted pair to the opposite of the rule...

[Tectalabyss]

Thanks for the reply

i was reading the forest mims engineers book from the shack today and ran across a bunch of optoelectric circuits were real simple for a night light circuit I would post the circuit but I havent figured out how to do the url string for an upload yet.....
can anyone explain how to wind a toroid for these circuits? I have a ten mm toroid from a power plug transformer board and tried a 14/85 wind and it doesnt seem to work for the RLC not sure where I went wrong on that...

Hi Area.
Thanks for the reply I was wondering how much more of a draw this would be on the JT circuit Has far has the winding read back a few pages there is a lot of very good info posted on winding.I've used everything from bead type to the round type with good results.I've even heard of winding the coil around old nails and it worked. Thanks Tec

[area46241]

night lite reply

i was reading the forest mims engineers book from the shack today and ran across a bunch of optoelectric circuits were real simple for a night light circuit I would post the circuit but I havent figured out how to do the url string for an upload yet.....
can anyone explain how to wind a toroid for these circuits? I have a ten mm toroid from a power plug transformer board and tried a 14/85 wind and it doesnt seem to work for the RLC not sure where I went wrong on that...

[Tectalabyss]

Led Night light with JT

Hello Everyone.
I've been working with a circuit board from a 120 volt ac night light so-far I've gotten it to run 15 leds.The thing I am after is the fact it shuts down when its daylight. I am trying to get that part of the circuit board to work with a 1.5 volt aa battery The results look promising Tec

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, I put together the silver ferrite core/coil setup. i decided to just wrap it fully from end to end and started with 18 gauge with 5 layers bifilar wound and tested across c/e and bedini flyback mode. Bedini mode lit a single led a little better at around 45mw @ 1.2volt input. The silver ferrite core seems to be more efficient than previous coil/core of about 1/4 the size with laminated core. Next i'll be wrapping the primary with a 30 gauge pickup coil for flouro light. It does seem that the more core material and coil used, that efficiency increases. And of course resonance between coil and core and coil to coil.
peace love light
Tyson

[kooler]

6 volt fun

sorry guys but i couldn't find a high voltage section..
but since this is the second stage that once was on my joule theif.. i will post it here.. the mod can move it if needed

the first video is a bulb lite.. nothing kool but it is lite bright enough..

YouTube - 4 watt bulb on 6 volts

the second video is just high voltage.. sparks and stuff..

YouTube - koolerization's Channel

but thats it for now..
keep it safe
and be warned...... high voltage

robbie

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, thanks for that info jeanna. So it looks like common rust is (magnetite) which is what Bill Muller used. And magnetite (iron oxide) can be converted into ferrite. I recall that a chemical that is used for cars to neutralize rust, turns the rust (iron oxide) into a black color substance which may be ferrite in nature. And may be useful to make homemade high frequency cores. Let me know what you folks think. Also i glued my silver/gray ferrite cores together with end caps and will be winding coils next, will see how it works.
peace love light
Tyson

[jeanna]

rust

From many years ago memory
rust is
Fe3O4

Bill who knows tells us that ferrite is
Fe2O3

jeanna

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, ok the aircore isn't going so well for me. So i have been digging around and found a couple of inductors from some old speakers cross over networks, the cores do not appear to retain any magnetic field, so i am assuming they are ferrite of the silver/gray color variety, they're 1 1/4" X 3/4" cylinders, i have 2 so maybe ill glue them together and make a flouro driver with it. i'm going to put a central bifilar coil with pickup coils on each side. Also, i remember someone mentioning rusty nails, does the rust give similar attributes as ferrite. Any help is greatly appreciated. My goal is like jeanna's, a good performance low volt input, light driver. Thanks.
peace love light
Tyson

[SkyWatcher]

Hi jeanna, thanks for that info. I'm not going to pursue this iron powder toroid anymore until i can get my hands on a ferrite one, i'm more interested in powering a flouro lamp, so i'd need a larger one that the orange size. Right now i'm winding the aircore idea with 100's of turns of 30 gauge for first pickup layers then 24 gauge bifilar then 100's more for pickup layers over primary. will see how it works. Thanks.
peace love light
Tyson