Captret - Perpetual Light with Dead Batteries

[ibpointless2]

ok, i put two LED's in series..both lit as bright as just 1 was ( at least as far as i can tell with my eyes ).....amp immediately went down to 0.119mA...and voltage on battery has gone UP to 12.68

DC volts across BOTH LEDS = 3.53V...equally split between them
VAC across both LEDS = 6.9VAC

WOW! Putting the LED's in series did light up as bright as if it was one!

Thanks to everyone who is giving such great ideas for the captret!

[dragon]

I think you found another form of Dr. Stifflers Sgate. I've had a JT circuit running for about an hour now and the input requirement has been falling slowly. It started at 4.5ma and droped very quickly to 4ma then slowly over time to it's present 1.7ma. No noticable change in battery voltage up or down but with that low of power draw I wouldn't expect to see anything.

I did check it with a scope and other than the normal 60hz noise I didn't see anything that jumped out at me.

In another test using a 10v 10000uf cap I found you can light an LED to full bright and it only needs to be tapped with the ground on the case every 3-4 seconds to keep it going with only a 1.5ma "boost" on each tap.

Fun little gizmo ibpointless !
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[rave154]

ok, i put two LED's in series..both lit as bright as just 1 was ( at least as far as i can tell with my eyes ).....amp immediately went down to 0.119mA...and voltage on battery has gone UP to 12.68

DC volts across BOTH LEDS = 3.53V...equally split between them
VAC across both LEDS = 6.9VAC

[rave154]

amp draw now @ 0.242 mA.....voltage still at 12.67V

definietely an AC component to this...bouncing back and forth between the "REAL" capacitor ( the normal + & - terminals)...and the psuedo capacitor ( the top of cap & either + or - )

weird how youre getting the same 3.2VAC across the LED as i am
???

very odd

[ibpointless2]

Truly amazing!

The captret might be AC by nature!
top of cap to + = 37.6 VAC
top of cap to - = 33.7 VAC
Across LED = 3.2 VAC

The battery voltage is only 17.39, how can it be higher and AC? Just amazing!

[dragon]

It runs a JT circuit very nicely at around 4 ma with a very bright output. The input to the cap is from a 1.2ah 6v SLA. Pretty impressive indeed.

Thanks for sharing your discovery, I can see this being used in all sorts of variations...
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[ibpointless2]

amp draw 0.384 mA now... and heres some voltage measurements

V Across LED.. 1.81V

battery 12.66V

top of cap to cap+ .. 12.62V

top of cap to cap- ... 10.81V ( which i guess when added to the 1.81 across cap gives us 12.62V ?)

amp draw now @ 0.378mA

now this is a little odd....

putting my volt meter into AC Volts mode...

across LED 3.2VAC with the leads one way around...when i switch them. 0.0VAC

battery 0.0V ( no surprise there huh )

top of cap to cap+ ... 27VAC

top of cap to cap- .... 23VAC

I got 3.2VAC too across my LED? my battery is two 9 volts in series to = 17.39 volts. My cap is 10uF @ 200 volts.

[rave154]

ok...

amp draw now @ 0.359mA

and voltage on battery HAS gone up to 12.67V ( from 12.62 when started )

oh i should mention, the LE Dis lit nicely, not quite fully bright..but.kind of how they appear when used as an indicator.....just not FULLY bright

[rave154]

amp draw 0.384 mA now... and heres some voltage measurements

V Across LED.. 1.81V

battery 12.66V

top of cap to cap+ .. 12.62V

top of cap to cap- ... 10.81V ( which i guess when added to the 1.81 across cap gives us 12.62V ?)

amp draw now @ 0.378mA

now this is a little odd....

putting my volt meter into AC Volts mode...

across LED 3.2VAC with the leads one way around...when i switch them. 0.0VAC

battery 0.0V ( no surprise there huh )

top of cap to cap+ ... 27VAC

top of cap to cap- .... 23VAC

[rave154]

Hi,

its a 10uF, 16V cap ( typical in circuit boards etc )

also the battery is a good condition 1.2AH 12V

also i did NOT pre-charge the cap

still @ 12.66V ( but i have a feeling its going to go to 12.67 )

amp draw @ 0.399 mA now

i put the scope on it....

putting just the positive probe of the scope ( ground of scope not attatched to anything ) onto the positive of the cap.....gave an AC signal...about 50Hz ( our AC is 60 Hz here )....but it was modulated up and down like crazy.... RMS value of voltage was about 112mV

[ibpointless2]

amp draw 0.517 mA.and voltage on battery gone up to 12.66V now... LED still lit of course.

also, i am not leaving the meters ON in case they interfere some how

Wow great results!

Yes its best to leave the meter disconnected. What capacitor are you using?

[rave154]

amp draw 0.517 mA.and voltage on battery gone up to 12.66V now... LED still lit of course.

also, i am not leaving the meters ON in case they interfere some how

[rave154]

amps from battery 0.717 mA now..and battery voltage gone up to 12.65V

[rave154]

Hi,

i replicated your setup as described using 3 AAA batts tostart with.LED lit..so then i changed to a 1.2AH 12V battery....ammeter in series from the battery..and also volt meter across the battery.

as i turned it on, LED lit brightly and still is..... also, over the course of perhaps 2 minutes.the current from the batt dropped from 21 mA to now at 0.824 mA( and still dropping )......but the voltage on the battery has increased from 12.62V to 12.64V

[ibpointless2]

Nice job ipointless, I played around with a 47uf cap and it all works as you said... could lead to some interesting experiments. I made some measurements and was able to light an LED with a .005ma current draw, not super bright but noticeably glowing. About as low as it gets and still light. Also found some interesting results with a pulsed input.

Great find ! keep up the good work !

Thanks!

Yup its voltage that matters and not amps, but a .005ma current draw is impressive! I've made one version that ran the LED and charge another battery too, so yes some very interesting things can be made.

Hmm, pulsed imput? didn't think of doing that. I've had tought of connecting a joule thief to it but figure the amps would be too low.



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So far i know is:

Voltage matters! around 20 volts is prefered.

using a 10uf instead of the 1uf does give off better light.

for some odd reason dead batteries work better? Makes a great circuit to use to recycle your dead batteries.

you don't have to use 9 volt batteries, AA or AAA and even button cells will work; the voltage in series just needs to be higher than 7 volts!

There is more than one way to hook it up.
-you can twist both leads together and connect the top to both leads and it will work.
-you can do top to + and vise versa

For some reason nothing gets warm or hot?

If your building one for the first time its best to use a capacitor that has been used at least once, a dead 9 volt battery with at least 7 volts and above on it, and a super bright red LED.

Aliagtor clips work best for making the connection to the top, for some reason solder wont stick and hot glue is not conductive.