Big Joule Theif

[Jbignes5]

Well...

@Jbignes.
I'll try that and see.On the transistors I am not sure I've tried some very old and some new one's If you know you JT is working Ok then you can try the C4632's with a 1.5 AA and go up from there.and if the work great.Hope that helps.someone here will know for sure. Thanks Tec

I am trying to build the unit. I have not built it yet just wanted to know if the trannies would work...

Also when dealing with the captrets be advised that once in awhile you must short them out entirely. All connections need to be shorted together to bring the strength back up of the captret. It is one thing that keeps me from saying this is an effect that we need to investigate further. Something in there gets built up and needs to be reset periodically.

Ok I got one running off the captret. Mine is 4 captrets in parallel. A small torrid bifiliar wound, only one pair all the way around. Oh and I can say that adding a magnet does increase the light seen. I had to put some spacers in between the magnet and torrid. If you get too close the light goes out but i also don't have a resistor on the base because of the little real current in the circuit due to the captret. I'll add a variable resistor to it and see if putting the magnet on the coil itself increases the light or makes it go out again.

*edit* After adding the variable resistor getting the magnets anywhere near the torrid lowers the light...

I'll add my photo's of the beautiful h-wave i got on my scope.

And here they are:







Sorry I don't have smaller ones...

[synchro]

Funsaver Neon

Check out my new Kodak disposable flash circuit neon video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFwh4nZNHXA

[xee2]

@ Jbignes5

Nice scope shots. Perfect Joule thief waveform. I am surprised you are able to get the Joule thief to work from the capacitors. Good work. What transistor are you using? The MPSA06 seems to work well at low currents.

[Jbignes5]

believe it or not....

@ Jbignes5

Nice scope shots. Perfect Joule thief waveform. I am surprised you are able to get the Joule thief to work from the capacitors. Good work. What transistor are you using? The MPSA06 seems to work well at low currents.

The package says 2222a... I'll have to get me some MPSA06 then because the torrid I wound just isn't enough to fuel itself yet. I got another torrid here at about 1 1/2 inches or so and I'll wind it up tomarrow. I'm just doing the standard JT circuit. Nothing special yet but I am running it through the captret 4 banger I made. I also paralleled the battery with a nice 1000uf 200v cap and I have been filling the cap then taking it off of the battery to see the run times. For some odd reason the JT likes the led on full in order to have the run time be extended. But I get about 30 seconds of run time then it is exausted. Maybe a bigger torrid might give me the oscillation I need to become self sustaining. I am also running it on my dead 12 volt gel cell with about 9.2 volts in it. Because of the Captret I can run it on larger batteries. I have not gotten the results yet but I need the bigger torrid....

We got buried today in snow... Rofl... Catcha later....

*edit* After making the big one the h-wave is now reversed? Did I wind it wrong?

[Vaporizer]

Hi all,
I'm getting behind. Haven't felt the best.

@ Jbignes5,
I'd say if you reverse the scope leads the wave will invert and be back on top.

I did my test with the 2 3/8" 16 turns 26ga 8 turns each side. 1.5v adjusted for the brightest LED across the E-C. It was really bright and then went dim. Hmmm..TIP31C, changed it even though it shouldn't have blown. Still dim...
Changed the LED and it had blown it so I figured it was just a weak one. Nope, 2nd one blew too. Ok, enough is enough so I put 10 on it. Still very bright and 12 is all I had of the 12,000mcd 5mm white. I have never came close to blowing an LED at that connection point before. That toroid has no secondary winding either. All were with smaller toroids though. So, it cruises nicely with 12 and draws 265ma @ 1.25v. I ordered 50 white 140,000mcd that have a stated draw of 20-30ma. The 230,000mcd LEDs were rated at 300ma ea. Hmmmm sounds like not so good a choice so I passed on them.


eaby has the same 2 3/8" toroids I bought up again. They are from Valley Surplus. 10 for $9.99 + 9 S&H. If you win it comes out to $2 ea. I saw 2 postings. I figure they can't be to bad if the can blow the LED thats supposed to be protecting my transistor. lol

[Jbignes5]

H,,,...

Hi all,
I'm getting behind. Haven't felt the best.

@ Jbignes5,
I'd say if you reverse the scope leads the wave will invert and be back on top.

I did my test with the 2 3/8" 16 turns 26ga 8 turns each side. 1.5v adjusted for the brightest LED across the E-C. It was really bright and then went dim. Hmmm..TIP31C, changed it even though it shouldn't have blown. Still dim...
Changed the LED and it had blown it so I figured it was just a weak one. Nope, 2nd one blew too. Ok, enough is enough so I put 10 on it. Still very bright and 12 is all I had of the 12,000mcd 5mm white. I have never came close to blowing an LED at that connection point before. That toroid has no secondary winding either. All were with smaller toroids though. So, it cruises nicely with 12 and draws 265ma @ 1.25v. I ordered 50 white 140,000mcd that have a stated draw of 20-30ma. The 230,000mcd LEDs were rated at 300ma ea. Hmmmm sounds like not so good a choice so I passed on them.


eaby has the same 2 3/8" toroids I bought up again. They are from Valley Surplus. 10 for $9.99 + 9 S&H. If you win it comes out to $2 ea. I saw 2 postings. I figure they can't be to bad if the can blow the LED thats supposed to be protecting my transistor. lol

When I said it was backwards i mean the hump went left. The h is reversed. Also I fried an led when I changed from the captret to nothing in between the dead 12 gel cel that has 9 volts on it. Rofl.

I went back to the small torrid and I believe the trannie was controlling over 60v. This is with a single bifiliar torrid.

The one problem that I see with the captret it blocks the feed back to the battery. Thats why I dropped the captret for now.

[Tectalabyss]

Sounds great

Hi all,
I'm getting behind. Haven't felt the best.

@ Jbignes5,
I'd say if you reverse the scope leads the wave will invert and be back on top.

I did my test with the 2 3/8" 16 turns 26ga 8 turns each side. 1.5v adjusted for the brightest LED across the E-C. It was really bright and then went dim. Hmmm..TIP31C, changed it even though it shouldn't have blown. Still dim...
Changed the LED and it had blown it so I figured it was just a weak one. Nope, 2nd one blew too. Ok, enough is enough so I put 10 on it. Still very bright and 12 is all I had of the 12,000mcd 5mm white. I have never came close to blowing an LED at that connection point before. That toroid has no secondary winding either. All were with smaller toroids though. So, it cruises nicely with 12 and draws 265ma @ 1.25v. I ordered 50 white 140,000mcd that have a stated draw of 20-30ma. The 230,000mcd LEDs were rated at 300ma ea. Hmmmm sounds like not so good a choice so I passed on them.


eaby has the same 2 3/8" toroids I bought up again. They are from Valley Surplus. 10 for $9.99 + 9 S&H. If you win it comes out to $2 ea. I saw 2 postings. I figure they can't be to bad if the can blow the LED thats supposed to be protecting my transistor. lol

@Vaporizer.
Sounds like you are on to something! I bet with the right secondary you could make some volts I've never tried that type transistor before? Thats why I use a variable resistor I can start with one led and increase slowly and leds till I get to the limit.(Thank Lidmotor for that )Ideal(.Opps I Think you did use a variable resistor sorry) I Hope you get to feeling better. Keep us posted.Tec

[Vaporizer]

Hi Tec & all,
Had an interesting experience. Finished winding one of the 2 3/8" cores, same as the one in the previous post, full 1 layer with 30ga RS red. I didnt count the turns....naturally(to many distractions here), but there has to be 200-300 maybe more. I left enough room for a 3 & 5, trigger & primary of the RS 26ga green. Set it up with 1.25v, a 22ohm and 1K base resistor. I tried a floro on the output after adjusting the LED for max. Well, nothing...ok it takes quite a few hundred volts for a 9w with low current. I exchanged the cfl for a neon expecting major brightness. Hmmmm...not so. It lights both prongs indicating AC so I measured it with my meter. I get 57.8v ac. Actually abt what the neon should look like at that voltage. Disappointingly low after the other test. I upped it to 2.25v, 3v increase on the secondary. TIP31C on this one too.

Kinda puzzling. I'm wondering if the low number primary windings are limiting it? Best guess I have other than the transistor being flaky. I'd hate to think the core have that low a saturation, but I did contact the supplier and he has no data on them. I was trying to keep the ratio of primary to secondary high for a higher output. I was pretty sure I saw Jenna post a 3, 5, 80, but that may have been on a Goldmine core. This is my 1st big jump up in size. Guess I'll swap the transistor and if no improvement try a 10:10 primary and see where it goes. Neither will take much time. I'd like to find out before someone else might buy these.

[NickZ]

Guys:
I was given a 20 led warm white bulb. It is perfect for my Jt circuit, and it gives the right color. I am so happy that there are leds now that give off an acceptable light color. I'll be buying more of them soon. The Jt will light all the bulbs that I put on it. I have connected about 40 or so.
I am having shorter duty cycles on a one inch toroid with secondary on it, using TIP3055, probably due to the draw from the 20 led bulb. But it is very bright, and still last all night.
I bought a new 9 volt battery to use to light a Captret. I can light two leds with it, somewhat dimly, but as time goes by, the leds start to get brighter. At first the leds would only brink. But now they are both on steady at about 50% brightness. I will connect the captret to one of my Jtc tonight and see what happens. In anycase it's pretty neat. I'll need to find which capacitor(s) will work best. I used a 10mf 200 volt, but will try different ones when I get a chance.
Nz

[Tectalabyss]

Sounds great !

Guys:
I was given a 20 led warm white bulb. It is perfect for my Jt circuit, and it gives the right color. I am so happy that there are leds now that give off an acceptable light color. I'll be buying more of them soon. The Jt will light all the bulbs that I put on it. I have connected about 40 or so.
I am having shorter duty cycles on a one inch toroid with secondary on it, using TIP3055, probably due to the draw from the 20 led bulb. But it is very bright, and still last all night.
I bought a new 9 volt battery to use to light a Captret. I can light two leds with it, somewhat dimly, but as time goes by, the leds start to get brighter. At first the leds would only brink. But now they are both on steady at about 50% brightness. I will connect the captret to one of my Jtc tonight and see what happens. In anycase it's pretty neat. I'll need to find which capacitor(s) will work best. I used a 10mf 200 volt, but will try different ones when I get a chance.
Nz

Hi All.
@NickZ Sound like your doing great Getting it to run all night long now that usable light. How's Pentiger coming along? Thanks. Tec

[Vaporizer]

Hi all,
Time for a followup. I swapped out the transistor for a TIP35. The circuit "sang" as it did with the TIP31C and it measured 10v higher on the output. No other changes were made. I did notice it tingled me a bit and the other transistor never would. Put the 9w cfl on it and after abt 5-10 seconds, it lit right up!
Woot! Ok, this proves that even with a working load, you cannot trust the output reading without a scope as 67v will not light a cfl.
I decided to try the 13w spiral and the 8" halo cfl. All lit just the same on 1.25v or 2.5v the same brightness as the Fuji/Kodak transformer. I did find and good oddity, the 13w spiral will run full bright at abt 100ma less than the the other 2.
It's taking abt 455ma right now on the 13w spiral @ 2.5v.

I looked at some saved pics in my folder and ppl that lit cfls with 1.5v , 2-2.25" core used 10, 10, 450 for windings. Next is to add the 10:10 and see if it gains or loses. Once I know that, I can stretch a thin wrap of electrical tape over the 1st layer and add a second layer if needed.
Also I can now start looking at adding the 555 to see if I can get the duty cycle down. Lidmotor & Slayer were down to abt 15% on time. If I can get it non-flashing at 20% on, that should extend my 2.5hrs to to well over 10hrs. I can live with that.

@ Nick,
Sounds good. What is the duty cycle you refer too? Are you using a 555 timer or is that the battery swap out time? Also how many total LEDs, mcd ea voltage & current draw if you don't mind?

Addon: I tried the 10:10 wind on it and wasn't as bright no matter where I adjusted it. Time to try a lower primary wind. I expected the ratio to go that way, but as odd as these work, one really needs to keep and open mind and try to find out.

[synchro]

Two mods,

Here's a cool white toroid lit up with two Funsaver flash circuit chips and two AA batteries at maximum brightness.

YouTube - zebok3's Channel

[NickZ]

Vapor, Tec, Pen, and All:
I have been playing with the Captret circuit tonight, and I connected the Jtc to the Captret.
I still have a 20 led bulb on the Jt, and the Captret was able to blink all of the leds for a second, every couple of seconds between each time, Good start...
Next I changed the capacitor to a higher value one, (10 volt 4700 mf), and was able to light a single led or two leds steady and brighter, but still only blinking the 20 led Jt., although a lot brighter also. I will connect a 4 capacitor bank that I just made like in Lidmotor's Captret video, to see what happens. But, it does look very interesting, so far, and does seam like this captret thing is going to work.
Vapor: the duty cycle I mentioned is the time is takes the Jt to drain a single AA. If a Jt can last all night on a single AA, with a bunch of Leds on it, I would think that it's working ok.
I can't get any readings on my analog volt meter, but the leds are bright so.. I can't really trust the meter anyways.
I was also surprised to feel a tingle from the secondary on a one inch toroid, first time for me too. The coil is singing so loud that my wife can hear it from outside the house. If I put a magnet on it it gets louder yet, but I haven't really seen any improvement in the light output from the magnet.
If you leave the Jt circuit running all night (like I do) it can overheat and fry the transistor.
I cooked two trim pots already. The TIP3055 type transistor do have a lot of amplification power, even when using them on a one inch coil, and a single AA. Not so with the 2n2222, although they are hard to beat as far as being the most economical on the battery's charge by almost twice the duration.
My feeling is that the Captret circuit is worth upgrading and experimenting with, and might be just the thing the Jtc needs to run on its own. But still alot more work is needed to find all the magic.
NZ

[Vaporizer]

Calculating your number of turns without counting!

Hi all.
Been pondering just how many turns I have on my single layer wrapped 2 3/8". I was wrapping toroid #2 so I can do some comparison tests and I lost track, interrupted and what ever. Ah....30ga wire is .010, looked it up , measured it, and even with RS's red coating it measures .010. Ok, that 100 turns per inch. I do wrap tightly and make sure I dont over wrap. Can't measure the outside as it always will be "loose" with small gaps due to the larger dia than the inside, but the inner ring doesn't. I actually counted the outer ring wraps and was right at 350. I left a gap for the primary wind. Hmmm..ok that's abt 100-150 less turns than most schematics show for a good cfl. About 78% of what I need or most successful projects have posted. Actually, it's quite a bit since the voltage is multiplied across the # of turns and its 22% short! I took a piece of tape cut it to 1/4" wide and put it inside the core from where the wire started to where I ended, looked closely and nipped it with small scissors. The tape
Took it out and carefully laid it on a ruler. 3.5" dead on.

Ok, now I can do what I want without counting and be very close! A correct length can be cut for the 1st layer and put in the toroid before winding and just cover it. It could be marked and removed. If a second layer is needed, due to to space limitations, cut the length you need and after you've wrapped layer #1, put the correct length of tape on the inside again covering it or marking. I prefer to cover the 1st layer with stretched thin electrical tape. I split the tape by width as it leaves less over lap and keep the windings closer to the toroid.

Not all insulation will be the same. The clear seems to be a little thicker, still, you should be close without all that deep concentration. If another gauge wire is used for the long secondary wrap, now you can look it up and it's an easy calculation. If it were a really fine wire like the Fuji with 45ga, I tried it by marking a bamboo skewer stick 1/4" with an Xacto knife and wound from cut to cut. Works and you have a new multiplier.

Hope this helps some out as much as it has me.

[synchro]

Twin Funsaver video.

Got a new video on the twin package:

YouTube - zebok3's Channel