Big Joule Theif

[Tectalabyss]

running time

How long does a brand new aa battery last on a typical joule thief circuit? with a couple leds?

Thanks
UZ

Hi .
Ive had them run from a couple of days to over a week depends on the toroid and the way its wound.at least from my experience. which isnt to great.aways more to learn : )
Thanks Tec

[unzapped]

I have a dumb question

How long does a brand new aa battery last on a typical joule thief circuit? with a couple leds?

Thanks
UZ

[Mark]

Just a thought here but I wonder if it would be possible to incorporate the bipolar switch into the big toroid?

[Mark]

Hi Kooler

You beat me to the punch! After seeing Pirates video with 2 toroids stacked I was going to try what you did. Excellent!

What I want to try with a dual toroid set up is to light some leds with one side and try to charge up 1 or multiple batteries with the other side. Not sure if one side can charge while the other side lights leds though. Can you give it a try?

The other day I was lighting up a 150 string of leds and hooked a FWBR into the end and was charging a cap. Now my meter may have been wigging out but I started adding winds to the primaries and the voltage in the cap started getting higher. I added on both A and B sides till I ran out of the wire I had on both. Voltage climbed every time the winds got higher. But when I tried to light a CFL it would no longer light up which indicates lower voltage. I'll have to replace the battery in my meter and recheck.

Anyways nice demo Kooler and let us know if you get a chance to try and charge a battery with one side and put out some light with the other.

Mark

[Inquorate]

And now for Impedence matching

Sorry for the reply spam but I cant edit my message any more

@Jeanna
"Scramble wound" Sounds interesting! thats like how I wound my layers too. groups of 15 with equal sized space for return path. 4 layers and with insulation tape.

Right now I have 40 winds both A and B.... Would removing 90 % of one wind help in any way other then less copper onboard? I had my mind set in "Electrical Engineer mode" thinking high inductance and many wraps would equal a strong grip on the toroid but it seems all the toroid needs is to feel the oscillations, and like a SEC transmit it efficiently through the medium to a monster recovery wind. The next one I make will have your 10/1 ratio.

@Inquorate

I agree with your statement about the relationship between frequency and volts. I thought previously that since battery amps can not increase as Hz increases, thus less power per pulse(which IS happening) but that alone would not count for the obvious sweet spot when you are tuning. I made a short video illustrating this power reduction with frequency increase and sweet spot with my Christmas colored JT.

YouTube - Resistance vs Light output
Nothing fancy and I didn't edit it any.

I find it interesting Jeanna is resonating at such low resistances.

Also, I found if you use a secondary (third wind) with a load, then you can remove the LED load or whatever is in its place and the voltages will skyrocket on the recovery wind.

Having a JT hooked to a SEC in place of the normal LED spot, and a LED on the recovery wind is an Either/Or situation for me. Turn on the SEC, off goes the LED. Turn off the SEC, On comes the LED. The SEC works better hooked to the A+B wind pair instead of recovery wind, but both work fine.

More theory, but here it goes... Add a resistor to your xmas light led string, and the 'sweet spot' should shift a bit.

I think of Impedence as like a car exhaust pipe; without the exhaust the engine has no back pressure, and loses power. With too much constriction in the exhaust the car loses power.

Perhaps inductors between groups of LED's lowers Impedence as well as reintroducing particular frequencies of the ambient RF caused by the toroid.

Great work guys, keep it up

[CosmicFarmer]

more scramble

Im sorry to get hung up on this one specific part but I'm still obsessing over scramble windings.

Scrambling your "secondary" is what Jeanna suggested (right?) however I also scrambled my primaries too....... Every time I wind a coil I get hung up on every little detail ... Capacitances between wires, Field directions, clockwise counterclockwise...


@Jeanna
Would you recommend scrambling your A+B winds?
I am thinking that doing so, the field as its being generated would be weakened, but its all going the same clockwise direction so it might not matter. Maybe I am thinking too hard...
(I hate it when people say I do that! I usually tell them they aren't thinking enough.)

Hahahah I'll shut up now and finish what I was doing.
Cheers

[kooler]

3rd stage

i made a small video again to show you guys some thing interesting ... well i thought it was..lol

YouTube - joule thief w/3rd stage

no sparks this time ...sorry

[Lidmotor]

The new toy----A homemade SCR

Great Video Lidmotor.

Thats a Very Big spark from a 1.5v battery.

@All

If you dont have a SCR you can use two transistors to do the same.
A PNP and a NPN will do the same thing.

Here is a link showing how to wire the transistors for a SCR.

The Silicon-Controlled Rectifier (SCR) : THYRISTORS

@ Slayer
Many thanks for the link to how an SCR works and how to make one by using an NPN and PNP. That really helped. I can find many uses for that. It might just work in some of these circuits that we have been trying. That was like finding a new tool.

@ Jeanna
Thanks for all the work tracking down the Toroid cores.

@All
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays


Lidmotor

[CosmicFarmer]

Scramble!



1 turn and 12 turns. Will remove the extra 2 during testing to see if power of ten proportion is better.

@jeanna
Thank you for your reply!
Would this wind style be considered "scramble"?
Some times its hard to know where you have wrapped when you come back thru, so I did sets of 5 with spaces. Going to go back and forth like a printer until its done :-) Maybe all the individual bucking going on and back EMF from a "poorly wound" toroid includes more bloch walls (repulsion points, between 2 same fields, possible ZPE?) which add to the collapse.

Imagine a nice clean magnetic field collapsing, and then imagine a knotted looks-like-the-sun magnetic field collapsing. More lines of force crossing the wires in the same area might lead to more voltages? That's just my take.

Also, Maybe I was unclear earlier

I call it the thief when the led is between the C-E in the regular jt light position.

That LED between C-E on one of my JT's is optional and its removal increases recovery wind voltages by more then a factor of 10. If you call it "The Theif" with that LED there, I call it "The Bankrobber" with it gone ;-)

Lidmotor told me about the "wrap the wire around a pen" trick, but I found a thin dowel in a hand drill can take the wire off a radio shack spool in about a minute, and that can be passed through the middle of a small toroid. Saves Me So Much Time !!!!!!! I think this method is called "shuttle".
I can focus on wind neatness instead of where the wire is flying around the room and how many shorts in the coil the kitty is going to cause with the moving wire in his paws. The cat is the only one interested in me when I wind my coils ;-)

Thanks everyone.

[theremart]

RE: Keep up.

I know this is a bit late and I have not been here much but...here is my Limotor's Jeanna Light replication video:

YouTube - Pirate's Lidmotor Jeanna Light Joule Thief Replication.wmv

I can't keep up with you people.

Bill

LOL Bill,

I fully understand. I can't keep up either, it is so hard to choose between going out and trying a path that has never been explored, and doing all these cool experiments that are know to thrill

[jeanna]

@Jeanna
"Scramble wound" Sounds interesting! thats like how I wound my layers too. groups of 15 with equal sized space for return path. 4 layers and with insulation tape.

Right now I have 40 winds both A and B.... Would removing 90 % of one wind help in any way other then less copper onboard?
... The next one I make will have your 10/1 ratio.

It really does make a difference if you are pushing for volts.

My globe lamp is very low turns and 6 leds in series and 4 parallel to each and so really it is only 6 leds, so 40-48 turns is enough. and scramble wound is good enough too.

When you are trying to light a neon with a toroid that has a 1/2 inch inner diameter, which my new winding method does, you need to be careful and use the special winding etc.

I find it interesting Jeanna is resonating at such low resistances.

That is a whole other topic.
The resistance of 20r which lidmotor is using is lower than the 33r that I am , but this might be because of the individual transistor differences.
Again it is about pushing the volts.
You only need 450-550 volts to light a cfl.
So if I got 1400 volts and higher it is all wasted.
Well, it is wasted if I don't capture it.

And still another topic:
I have yet to determine how much juice comes out of the battery beyond what the transistor alone takes.
I always try to use the little 2N2222 and 2N3904's because they only drain a small amount from the battery. I can typically get 3 times as much life from a joule thief with secondary circuit with one of those when compared to the tip31c or tip3055, 2N3055.

Also, I found if you use a secondary (third wind) with a load, then you can remove the LED load or whatever is in its place and the voltages will skyrocket on the recovery wind.

I call it the thief when the led is between the C-E in the regular jt light position.

Thanks for the christmas lights!

jeanna

[jeanna]

Hi everybody,

I can confirm that the
OW48613TC is the one we want lots of.

The distributor has a $30 minimum.

gadgetmall has a website where he sells these kinds of things for making cool gadgets, and I expect him to be ordering tomorrow.
I got another smaller size which has a potential to make a higher voltage but the inner diameter is not big enough for the whole spool to fit through and therefore less attractive.

I will report the results of the 2 1/2" ones I got and gadgetmall will surely let everybody know when he has them for sale.
It would be kind of nice to make some presents for family with these
I hope there is enough time...

I will keep letting you know.

jeanna

[CosmicFarmer]

Sorry for the reply spam but I cant edit my message any more

@Jeanna
"Scramble wound" Sounds interesting! thats like how I wound my layers too. groups of 15 with equal sized space for return path. 4 layers and with insulation tape.

Right now I have 40 winds both A and B.... Would removing 90 % of one wind help in any way other then less copper onboard? I had my mind set in "Electrical Engineer mode" thinking high inductance and many wraps would equal a strong grip on the toroid but it seems all the toroid needs is to feel the oscillations, and like a SEC transmit it efficiently through the medium to a monster recovery wind. The next one I make will have your 10/1 ratio.

@Inquorate

I agree with your statement about the relationship between frequency and volts. I thought previously that since battery amps can not increase as Hz increases, thus less power per pulse(which IS happening) but that alone would not count for the obvious sweet spot when you are tuning. I made a short video illustrating this power reduction with frequency increase and sweet spot with my Christmas colored JT.

YouTube - Resistance vs Light output
Nothing fancy and I didn't edit it any.

I find it interesting Jeanna is resonating at such low resistances.

Also, I found if you use a secondary (third wind) with a load, then you can remove the LED load or whatever is in its place and the voltages will skyrocket on the recovery wind.

Having a JT hooked to a SEC in place of the normal LED spot, and a LED on the recovery wind is an Either/Or situation for me. Turn on the SEC, off goes the LED. Turn off the SEC, On comes the LED. The SEC works better hooked to the A+B wind pair instead of recovery wind, but both work fine.

[Pirate88179]

I know this is a bit late and I have not been here much but...here is my Limotor's Jeanna Light replication video:

YouTube - Pirate's Lidmotor Jeanna Light Joule Thief Replication.wmv

I can't keep up with you people.

Bill

[CosmicFarmer]

@Jeanna
Dramatic, how fast the inductance rises per turn...

I did a little more testing and found out the MPSA06 transistor can preform as well as the NT2222 336 did...

But now I have another ...

While testing a MJL transistor, my transistor tester "genie" went over to my JT, because as soon as the tester broke (dont know how) the JT 'fixed' and now EVERY transistor I test can light 15 LEDs ... There are differences in brightness, but I am using a 2n2222 now and its bright as can be. Better then before actually.


So one fixed and one broke. I would say the genie moved