Big Joule Theif

[shlodo]

Hi Zigis and Xenomorph thanks for help. I rewinded the 20turn part with thicker awg wire. Now the thing is that I had to do another layer for 20turns don't know if this is good
When I tested the joule thief only with a green led it lit with two 1.5vbatts. I tried it with one nothing came. Earth has to be on the 2n2222 no one told me about this Ok ok at least something is coming now.
The CFL still not lighting up.
Thanks guys

20 turns should be fine. CFLs dont work very well. try a Fluoro tube and run it at 3V. Also use 2n3055 not 2n2222.
u should be able to get a neon to light on the primary part of the JT. and a Fluoro off the secondary
-shlodo

[shlodo]

The Joule Thief is perfect for a 'School Girl' project!

Hi Lidmotor and everyone
lid can you do a upload of the setup from the solar thief would like to have a go? its so small on utube
also EVERYONE
Im doing a day at my little girls school talking about magnets, sparks and lights, but I was thinking of getting the kids to building a JT to take home.
Teach them young!!!
So I need your help for a very simple setup that the kids can do with charging!
So when the kids take it home the parents start thinking!!!!!
WHAT THIS A LIGHT THAT CHARGES A BATTERY TOO!!!
Take Care ALL
Bx

@Bodkins - I like your idea, it's great to get kid's into this stuff. And it will be a fun project. Here's some simple designs. Ive uploaded a simple circuit too






-shlodo

[Guruji]

Hi Zigis and Xenomorph thanks for help. I rewinded the 20turn part with thicker awg wire. Now the thing is that I had to do another layer for 20turns don't know if this is good
When I tested the joule thief only with a green led it lit with two 1.5vbatts. I tried it with one nothing came. Earth has to be on the 2n2222 no one told me about this Ok ok at least something is coming now.
The CFL still not lighting up.
Thanks guys

Guruji, maybe for testing start with larger voltage, say 9v battery.
If you have neon, solder it between collector and emitter, like in Bedini SG, this is good for transistor protection without load too. If BJT work without load, neon must light. If you have no neon, you can put LED here too.

If you turn on with 9V battery and without anything in output, and neon light - BJT work. If not light, try to change ONE 20 turn coil polarity, only one coil, triger coil only or output coil only.

Once you get neon working, you can start to experiment more with voltages, output etc.
Zigis.

[Bodkins]

Thanks Lid
Tectalabyss

[Lidmotor]

Automatic Solar Joule Thief

Hi all,
Here is a simple drawing of the "Automatic Solar Joule Thief" circuit. It turns the JT circuit off when the sun is charging the battery and when the ambient light gets dim it turns the circuit back on.
@Bodkins---The JT part of this can be run independant of the solar part and you can see how simple it is. I have used all kinds of (2) winding inductors and a regular 1:1 transformer works fine. The standard design is two 20 turn wraps of about 26 ga on a ferrite toroid. It is not really that critical but regular iron or steel for the core doesn't work well at all. The resistor on the "B" winding usually goes right before the base of the transistor in the regular circuit. You know me---I like to mess things up a bunch and see if it still runs.

Here is a video of the thing with a supercapacitor setup. It was just for demostration. Normally you use NiMh rechargable batteries or even just alkaline.

YouTube - Solar Joule Thief Runs A Fan

Cheers,
Lidmotor

P.S.---Circuit update! Today I moved the connection of A1 on the JT side around the 100 ohm resistor straight to the emitter of the 2nd 2n2222 so it gets more juice. This gives more light and the JT still turns on and off like it should.

[Bodkins]

Hi Lidmotor and everyone

lid can you do a upload of the setup from the solar thief would like to have a go? its so small on utube


also EVERYONE

Im doing a day at my little girls school talking about magnets, sparks and lights, but I was thinking of getting the kids to building a JT to take home.
Teach them young!!!
So I need your help for a very simple setup that the kids can do with charging!
So when the kids take it home the parents start thinking!!!!!
WHAT THIS A LIGHT THAT CHARGES A BATTERY TOO!!!

Take Care ALL
Bx

[Lidmotor]

Automatic Solar Joule Thief

@Slayer----This one should be an inspiation to everyone struggling to get this Joule Thief circuit to work. I finally got it to self- run on solar energy AUTOMATICALLY!!! Thank you --- and all the other people who keep the interest alive with this simple little circuit.
The next step for me is to make the BIG joule thief run like this one does.

YouTube - Automatic solar Joule Thief



Lidmotor

[slayer007]

I have been side tracked working with a similar circuit to the Joule Thief. It was posted by the Daftman at the "Teep" forum. It is like the JT circuit so I thought that it would be OK to post the info on it here. The circuit uses an small inductor instead of a toroid coil to generate the spike that runs the LED. I replicated his circuit and added a 'second battery' charging aspect to it. I then added automatic solar charging to it from a 'solar garden light' circuit that I found here: Solar Light This page at "talkingelectronics.com" gives a very good description of how these JT like circuits work and shows a diagram of the wave form. I found this very helpful.
Here is a video of my "Automatic solar charged Daftman LED/charger light"


YouTube - Automatic solar charged Daftman LED Light

Cheers,

Lidmotor

Great video Lidmotor,

It looks like you been busy very nice setup.

Thanks for posting the video.

[Zigis]

Guruji, maybe for testing start with larger voltage, say 9v battery.
If you have neon, solder it between collector and emitter, like in Bedini SG, this is good for transistor protection without load too. If BJT work without load, neon must light. If you have no neon, you can put LED here too.

If you turn on with 9V battery and without anything in output, and neon light - BJT work. If not light, try to change ONE 20 turn coil polarity, only one coil, triger coil only or output coil only.

Once you get neon working, you can start to experiment more with voltages, output etc.
Zigis.

[Xenomorph]

[Guruji]

Big Joule thief

Hi guys I am still with the problem that nothing is coming to my big joule thief by slayer007. When connecting the 20turn double wire to the 1.5v battery it should make a sound to know that it's working?.
My 480turn coil is about 5ohms and the 20turn ones are about 0.2ohm. Are these ok?
Any help please?
Thanks

[Lidmotor]

Solar Garden Light

I have been side tracked working with a similar circuit to the Joule Thief. It was posted by the Daftman at the "Teep" forum. It is like the JT circuit so I thought that it would be OK to post the info on it here. The circuit uses an small inductor instead of a toroid coil to generate the spike that runs the LED. I replicated his circuit and added a 'second battery' charging aspect to it. I then added automatic solar charging to it from a 'solar garden light' circuit that I found here: Solar Light This page at "talkingelectronics.com" gives a very good description of how these JT like circuits work and shows a diagram of the wave form. I found this very helpful.
Here is a video of my "Automatic solar charged Daftman LED/charger light"


YouTube - Automatic solar charged Daftman LED Light

Cheers,

Lidmotor

[tjnlsn255]

Thanks Tec.... looks good!

[tjnlsn255]

Toroidal cores?

Where does everyone get their toroidal cores from to make their toroidal coils?

Thanks for any and all help with this search.....

Tj

[slayer007]

Hi Slayer I did that and saw that video too it worked for me too.
The thing on the big toroid ferrite core I did it with just coil wire maybe that was wrong I had to use normal wires.
If it's because of that I will do it again it's ok.

The wire should be insulated wire.
The wire I'm using is magnet wire it's insulated with enamel.

The enamel coated copper wire will work better you just need to clean the enamel off the wires to make a good contact at the ends.

It's great you have it going now.