Big Joule Theif

[Vaporizer]

Hi Tec & all.
I looked up The Dr's page on the captret.

http://67.76.235.52/capret.htm

I haven't read much on it at all, but I'm struggling to see any significance of the circuit. Is it supposed to raise the battery voltage? On the Dr's page I can see where the cap could get voltage to it , but its flowing through 2 different resistors lowering the current(the LED being one). If the LED does indeed pulse "vlf" as the Dr noted, it should pulse charge the cap, but there is no evident indication of the voltage being raised to a higher potential that I can possibly fathom. Pulsing the cap in this configuration can cause the cap to react differently than normal. Like a battery, but it should not get a higher voltage than the battery. If a potential diff in voltage across the cap is causing the cap to react like a battery, it will develop gas and possibly blow if the reaction is large enough inside the cap.

All in all, I'd have to say pass on this one. If you do play with it...keep that cap in an open top container in case it does pop & flash.

[Tectalabyss]

Captret & JT working together

Hello All.
I made the simple captret this morning it worked so I tried adding my JT to it. sofar they are working together.I dont see how since I have the pos + from the JT going to the Neg - on the captret? The battery is slowly building up the led are very bright Fingers crossed.Pictures included below. Thanks Tec

[NickZ]

@Vapor, Pen, and All
I agree with the solution of changing transistor and resistor to see if the current ones are not working right. The leds and can be lit and also last a while even when just running straight off of the battery. But if the Jtc lights with one AA, and last all night, then it's probably is ok. If it lasts a week or two, you know it's ok.
The magic is in getting it to light a bunch of Leds for a long time. I'm looking into the Captret Thread to see if a Jtc can be made to work off of, what? Capacitors, and dead batteries???

[cikljamas]

@ cikljamas,
It's easy to misundersand sometimes what is said in type. Without a "j/k" I had to assume you were serious. I apologize for taking what you said wrong. I have seen many get mad and much drama over things like this. We don't need that here. All is good.
Glad the cfl mystery is over! The picture I posted of the 9w "U" bulb had a neon and cap in the plastic part between the pins. I cut the bottom off to remove them. All you want from a floro is the wires coming from the glass tube or it wont work. Sometimes you have to look with some style bulbs. The bigger "straight bulbs" seem to have nothing in the ends and can be used without removing anything.

Thank you very much Vaporizer for all these details, it help a lot someone
like me who has not experience at all with these stuffs...

Has anyone tried this :
YouTube - Water Battery - Quest For Free Electricity Part 1

I think it would be great to take two glass of water and use that power
for one of our small JTs ?

I m going to try this tomorrow anyway !

Cheers !

[synchro]

A.p.m. -j.t.

I connected my flash mod neon to my Joe Tate Ambient Power Module and measured .02 amps from the ground antenna on a draw of .16 on the 1.5 volt AA. It would take 8. 4 cap 4 diode modules to run the light with no battery.

[pentiger]

Ok. Yes it should work. As I said, the resistor will limit the whole circuit current draw for extended run times, not just protect the Base from having the 1K to low. If the core is painted, I'd say the transistor is damaged from no LED on the E-C connections. It's probably been damaged and even though working, its not doing well. If it's hot, that means current is being used to create it. You have eliminated abt all but that. If you replace it without the LED, you'll likely damage the next one. My best suggestion at this point. If the transistor is damaged, adding the LED to it now won't prove much as the secondary seems to be putting out low from what you posted. It may light, but that doesnt confirm the condition of the transistor. Just that the circuit is working, but maybe not well from what you describe.

On my 1st 1 had issues like this and found it was just better to fall back to basics and then use a new transistor. That solved my problems and then as I substituted old parts back in a good circuit, the bad one was easily found.

Thanks, I will try this last setup I posted before and then I will try and replace the transistor.

[pentiger]

Hi and thanks. I was thinking the same, that the toroid has low permeability.

Anyway I tried what Vaporizer and Tec suggested. I added a LED inline with a 10k resistor, because I burned one with the resistor.

I am still running it with 3v and it looks promissing.

I will keep you updated.

Pentiger

It lasted 45 minutes in this setup. The transistor was hot all that time. I now run it with 1.5v and I still have the same voltage (with some tuning)

This may be the setup. I removed the 10K resistor that was inline with the LED.

Pentiger

[pentiger]

Hi and thanks. I was thinking the same, that the toroid has low permeability.

Anyway I tried what Vaporizer and Tec suggested. I added a LED inline with a 10k resistor, because I burned one with the resistor.

I am still running it with 3v and it looks promissing.

I will keep you updated.







Pentiger

[xee2]

@ pentiger

I think you must have picked a toroid with very low permeability. I suggest you try the following circuit. The toroids are 5 for 1$ at electronic goldmine.

[Vaporizer]

Ok. Yes it should work. As I said, the resistor will limit the whole circuit current draw for extended run times, not just protect the Base from having the 1K to low. If the core is painted, I'd say the transistor is damaged from no LED on the E-C connections. It's probably been damaged and even though working, its not doing well. If it's hot, that means current is being used to create it. You have eliminated abt all but that. If you replace it without the LED, you'll likely damage the next one. My best suggestion at this point. If the transistor is damaged, adding the LED to it now won't prove much as the secondary seems to be putting out low from what you posted. It may light, but that doesnt confirm the condition of the transistor. Just that the circuit is working, but maybe not well from what you describe.

On my 1st 1 had issues like this and found it was just better to fall back to basics and then use a new transistor. That solved my problems and then as I substituted old parts back in a good circuit, the bad one was easily found.

[pentiger]

Just saw your post. The wire gauge is fine. I found the RS green wire coating very poor. It will come off very easily and it may be shorted to the core if it is not painted. It would be easy to remove it , put on a layer of thin tape and rewrap it to make sure. That would make a high current draw if it shorted there.
The 25ohm resistor will limit the current to the coil in that position and can reduce the output as its there to extend run times.

Hi, the toroid is painted. I had to do it because it was shorting out before.

The 25ohm rheostat was Lidmotor's idea.

It should work.

I will try to add a LED and run it on one AA. I will let you know.

Thanks for all the help.

[Vaporizer]

Just saw your post. The wire gauge is fine. I found the RS green wire coating very poor. It will come off very easily and it may be shorted to the core if it is not painted. It would be easy to remove it , put on a layer of thin tape and rewrap it to make sure. That would make a high current draw if it shorted there.
The 25ohm resistor will limit the current to the coil in that position and can reduce the output as its there to extend run times.

[Vaporizer]

@ Tec,
Looks pretty good. Yes, that's common with rechargeables. Off the charger they will be 1.3v. They are rated @ 1.25v so anything above is considered a surface charge. No real current to back it up. If left off the charger it will drop to 1.25v. I have had fully charged ones do that and without using, you can put them back in the charger and they will go back up to 1.3v. Car batteries are rated at 12v but are charged to 13.5v. Its the only way to get the battery to its full potential even @ 1.25v.
Hope that makes sense.

@ pent,
I think I see your problem. Actually you have 2. The 25 ohm resistor is holding current back from the whole circuit. A fixed 22 or 25ohm is commonly used on the Base of the transistor so you cant make the Base voltage to high by lowering the 1K pot when tuning. The battery + goes to the coil center(no resistor). Also, you need a LED across the E-C until you have the circuit running well and a secondary load working or it will damage the transistor. The transistor can be damaged and still work poorly. Tec is correct too, you would be safer with 1 1.5v battery till you get it working as it will make smaller spikes that might damage your transistor.
I can redraw your circuit if that would help you. The pic you have is Jenna's low power draw proposed circuit. It probably works, but until you have a stable running circuit I wouldn't do those changes.

@ cikljamas,
It's easy to misundersand sometimes what is said in type. Without a "j/k" I had to assume you were serious. I apologize for taking what you said wrong. I have seen many get mad and much drama over things like this. We don't need that here. All is good.
Glad the cfl mystery is over! The picture I posted of the 9w "U" bulb had a neon and cap in the plastic part between the pins. I cut the bottom off to remove them. All you want from a floro is the wires coming from the glass tube or it wont work. Sometimes you have to look with some style bulbs. The bigger "straight bulbs" seem to have nothing in the ends and can be used without removing anything.

[pentiger]

Hi Pen Tiger and All.
What Gage wire are you using? If the JT is working correctly you should be able to use a 1.5 AA battery and get it to work.Try it with just a small 2N3904 or 2n2222 transistor .One variable resistor and one AA battery.The other's will have better Ideal's I am sure. So hang in there. Tec

Hi Tec,

for the primary I used a green one 26 gauge from radioshack and for secondary I used the red 30 gauge.

The variable resistor at the battery lets me to limit voltage, so I believe that both of them are good choice for this.

It does work with 1.5V but not as bright as with 3V.

Maybe there is something else I am missing?

[Tectalabyss]

@vaporizer and NickZ

Thank you for the support. I don't know just how to do it?

here is my circuit:



for the primaries I tried other ratios and there's no big difference so I left the last version 6,6,400.

Pentiger

Hi Pen Tiger and All.
What Gage wire are you using? If the JT is working correctly you should be able to use a 1.5 AA battery and get it to work.Try it with just a small 2N3904 or 2n2222 transistor .One variable resistor and one AA battery.The other's will have better Ideal's I am sure. So hang in there. Tec