Joule Ringer!

[bolt1]

Guys look at the circuit diagram. The diodes are adding bias to the base of the transistor which is why they need to be leaky. It because there is no real bias set on the base. This also accounts why when you hold the 2 wires of the bifilar the light goes brighter as you become the bias and turn the tranny on harder.

ALSO for those that are using caps, resistors and anything else instead of a bifilar you are only setting the bias nothing else so it runs as a normal JT and drains within seconds or minutes.

BUT without proper operation of the bifilar its the only component which can provide true negative inductance under pulsed DC HT and replenish the power caps. It also can not be shorted like a normal JT as its charging the supply so its a polarized device. Correct operation has its roots in GENESIS device if this is the real deal.

Solution - add proper biasing resistors to tranny base and scope for correct operation. Reduce the positive feedback from the tank coil by inserting 100 ohm res in the base to transformer.

Add a single 1n4007 to the bifilar so it pumps back into the power caps without losses.

Hope this helps.

[Lidmotor]

1st attempt

Here my 1st attempt at replicating. This is NOT the correct circuit but it was a good first look at using a bifilar coil in the circuit.

YouTube - Lasersaber Joule Ringer---1st attempt.ASF

Lidmotor

[dragon]

This looked quite interesting so I had to give it a go.. I needed a distraction from my other project and this looked fun.

I don't have a Fugi but I bought a bunch of the flash circuits from allelectronics when they were on sale 4 for a buck just for the caps. Anyway these have a basic 5 pin transformer and it didn't take to much to get it working.

I didn't have the right diodes, tried some 1n34's which didn't seem to work well and found that a 1m resistor worked fairly well. Still nothing more than a minute disconnected from the battery. I started swapping resistors and found that a 2.2m worked very nice, added an air adjustable cap and that really helped.

Checking various CFL tubes I had it still didn't have much longivity but they lit. My final try was a long 8W FL tube and it would light dimly and flickered quite a bit. With this tube I noticed a huge jump in voltage... my battery was a dead 9 volt that read 7.4 volts when I connected it to the circuit, my meter jumped to 11 volts almost instantly and started climbing - went over 13 volts and I disconnected it as fast as I could. This one ran for 5 minutes and the voltage would jump up and drop - back and forth. There may be something to the "flicker" or surge...

It's basically the same circuit as Lasersaber posted but it's not a Fugi and instead of diodes I have the resistor/capacitor in their place, I used 6 10000uf caps.

I plan to wind a better coil for it tomorrow and continue playing with it a bit... I must say this was a very fun 4 hours of playtime ! Thanks for sharing Lasersaber - what a wonderful find ! There is something quite interesting going on here.
________
Toluca Car Assembly

[kooler]

this is what i just bought and drawed up for us.. this is the same as what he showed two in the box both has the same components and have double a batterys in them.. and they wont light a cfl out the box..

robbie

[bolt1]

The pin is left out cos there is nothing connected to it. Now appears to be center tapped transformer with the last pin NC. This is common practice for like of IF transformers or small audio transformers in old pocket radios had 4 pins of which only 3 connected. Top, center tap, bottom.

The secondary will be hundred or couple k turns and primary is about 5 to 10 turns on HF ferrite core.

This is my understanding of it till other builders come up with something different. Most important is the circuit diagram rather than buying a fuji camera they are not available all over the planet but HT cores can be found.

[Lidmotor]

The not connected HV pin question

Xee2 @ All
The reason I think that one of the output HV pins is left not connected (like in your circuit) is because it leaves the output circuit somewhat open and yet the CFL will still work. I know this because yesterday I did this with a Fuji cam circuit and had great fun with it. It makes it a one wire "Exciter" like thing. The CFL will not go on very bright but it will glow if you give it a path out---to something--- like the (-) of the cap. This might be part of the reason why this circuit works. Just my thoughts.

Lidmotor

P.S. --- Thanks again Lasersaber for sharing this. If we could figure out the internal wiring of your transformer that would really help. If it is out of a Quick Snap Fuji then someone should have a diagram of it.

[mk1]

@lasersaber

When you make your coil , do you always make them the same ? i mean clockwise or cclockwise ?

@skaght

Nice find , i wonder if you tried the coil plus the leaky cap , or only with the leaky cap.

Thanks again great work everyone !

Mark

[skaght]

Bifilar coil unnecessary???

I'm getting the same effect by replacing the bifilar coil completely with a leaky capacitor. I put a ~50 nF cap with 20 MEG ohm resistance in parallel across it and the circuit works!!!! (although the fluorescent flashes a lot more) That's much easier than building a huge bifilar and you don't need any germanium diodes...

I will say that my fluorescent is not very bright, although it wasn't with my bifilar either...

[skaght]

I bought a fuji film camera this morning for the circuit and busted out the transformer. The side with two pins appears to be the primary with low resistance. The other side has one pin that is not connected, so basically three pins in a row (pin 1, 2 and 3). When I measure resistance between the three pins, it measures 175 ohms from pin 1 to pin 2 and from pin 3 to pin 2. The resistance from pin 1 to pin 3 comes up as a dead short.

Hope that helps in understanding the transformer...

[xee2]

@ Joit

As Lidmotor pointed out, the transformer that LaserSaber used has 6 pins. My best guess is that it is as I have shown. But, I am only guessing. Note that one of his pins is not connected (pin 1 on my drawing).

[Joit]

@ Joit

Thanks for checking me. I want to get a correct schematic.

Your Transformersymbol is somehow strange.
NC means not connected, but the Tranformer what there been used
have a Primary with one Coil Start and End,
and a secondary with Input output and a pickup at the middle.
At yours it says NC like Not Connected.
Further does it looks like, that your Bifilar is connected to the middle pickup,
and not between the outer connections
(actually start and end) from the Primary and secondary.
Look for an other Transformer symbol maybe you have the right one,
then the whole Thing will look different.

Where i now leave it, wich one is the Primary and which the secondary,
but one Coil( or Side) has only Start and End, and the second has Start, middle and End Pickups

[skaght]

22,000 uf cap

Now with a 22,000 uF I'm getting a couple minutes of light out of this thing. Even at full charge (initially 9 volts) my small fluorescnt tube isn't fully lit, but it keeps going for around 4 minutes or longer once the battery is removed.

[LaserSaber]

Edit: I scraped off some of the enamel to even out the bifilar, and I'm getting about 30 seconds of light from a 2200 uF cap. My coil is 3" diameter, 10" height, 20 gauge, with two layers. I wrapped a second wrap on top of the first to make a primitive bifilar. I'm seeing the same effects that lasersaber showed in the video. My run time isn't great, but I'm using a pretty small cap. I think this circuit is for real!!!

I am so happy to hear that you got it working! Now all you have to do is work on tuning it to make it run longer. I actually think 30 seconds of light from 2200uf cap is really amazing for a first replication and a great success!

[skaght]

Germanium diodes...

The germanium diodes seem critical, I tried high speed switching diodes and some other standard silicon diodes and they don't work. I also tried an LED and that doesn't work either...

EDIT: You can get decent effects replacing the germanium diodes with a 10 MEG ohm resistor without any diodes. It lights brighter and still has some reasonable staying power...

I tried hooking up a capacitor on the output instead of the fluorescent to see if I could capture more power in the cap than it takes to run the circuit. The output cap didn't increase at all, while my input cap drained completely...

[xee2]

@ Joit

Thanks for checking me. I want to get a correct schematic. However, I do not see the mistake you mentioned. I have attached the schematic from viedo 2. I think it shows the CFL going to pin 3 (on my drawing) and the negative of the capacitor. Am I missing something?