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Author Topic: Joule Thief 101  (Read 926846 times)

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #60 on: January 16, 2010, 09:30:35 PM »
As I see it  one of the  problems  with  using  toroids  is the big ones are relativly rare .

A way  to get the job  done with what is commonly available  is required.

I will  try to explain  a way  to use  a group  if small  toroids in  place  of  a larger  toroid

The  picture  below is of several of what  I call  candy cane  coils.
Why I chose that name  is not evident  in this picture.
When smaller  windings are  used  the  windings spiral  around the the  toroids  like the stripes on a candy cane.

All  the   toroids  in the picture  are wound with 20 wraps  of  cat5 twisted pair.

All of the  toroids  are wound in the same  direction.

I chose 20 wraps  because that is all that will comfortably  fit on  this kind  of toroid  with this kind of wire.

The  primary  for each of these  toroids is 4 wraps through the centers of  all the toroids
4 wraps  seems best  for  all the  5 for $1 toroids  I have tested so far. I am  sure that  different  kinds if toroids will require  different numberes of wraps for the primary

Both   the primarys  and  secondarys of all the coils  are connected the same .....end of one wire with the start of the other .......traditional JT style.

The  coil  with  6 toroids  produces  75 V  with no load ...... 37 V driving  my 90 LED array .....the  array was bright but not full power.

The  coil with 4 toroids produced  31 V unloaded   30 V loaded .......the array  was much dimmer

The coil with 2 toroids  produced  37 V unloaded   31 V loaded ..... the  array was  lit b ut  just barely .

The  voltage seems to be set by the number of wraps  on the  coils.
The power level  seems to be a set by the number of torids
If  you   try your circuit and do not have enough power........just add a few more toroids.
It looks to me that all the toroids  in a particular  coil should be wrapped  with the same number of wraps....... It seems better to  use one coil less  if  wire runs out .......rather than having a toroid with less windings.........the odd toroid  seems to drag  the whole thing down.

gary

« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 02:49:00 AM by resonanceman »

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #61 on: January 16, 2010, 10:10:55 PM »
This  is a coil with 8 wraps each toroid ( #20 bell wire )

Same configuration  as above.

This  coil  produces  19 V loaded .
21 V unloaded.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 01:24:43 AM by resonanceman »

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #62 on: January 16, 2010, 11:42:08 PM »
Lets see what can  be done  with this system

Below is a picture of an  unknown  toroid.
It is  from  a power supply .
The  toroid is probably  iron powder or something.
It  it takes  quite a bit to get it  going.

The second picture is  the same coil  with  the  8 wrap  coil
The  output  of the  8 wrap is the same as before.
The  output of the  unknown  coil  is 11 V foir the small winding 23 V for the larger winding.
The  larger winding is  clearly  not putting out as much as it should........underdriven .

gary
« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 01:22:23 AM by resonanceman »

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #63 on: January 17, 2010, 12:41:42 AM »
I added  2  5 for $1 toroids  to the  unknown  coil by putting candy cane  windings over the  empty spots on the coil.

I  used 3 wraps each toroid  with brown wire and  2 wraps each toroid with blue  wire.

The intention is to couple  the 3 toroids  to catch more magnetic flux from the  primary

gary


Edit

it turns  out that this  did  not work out...... I am pretty sure it can be done.......but  havn't got it to work yet


« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 02:35:37 AM by resonanceman »

jeanna

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #64 on: January 17, 2010, 01:24:37 AM »
What happened?
but first start another thread so this stays 101

what happened?

jeanna

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #65 on: January 17, 2010, 01:28:32 AM »
What happened?
but first start another thread so this stays 101

what happened?

jeanna

Jeanna

Nothing happened

I did not  have time to add as much as I wanted......and others  choose to add very little.

What I am posting now is  a little more advanced......but it still needs to be where people can get to it without having to go through 1000 pages


gary

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #66 on: January 17, 2010, 03:23:31 AM »
I put the  2  4 and 6   toroid coils in series

They produce  33 V loaded .......the array  is near full brightness

59 V unloaded


gary





Edit

I switched  the wires around so that the LED array is being powered by 6 toroids and the other 6 are connected to my Jesus charger ....... for feedback

I am getting 33 V with the array lit at least as bright  as before.


The picture is  of all the toroids in series
A picture of  the  toroids wired half  for feeback  would look the same  except each  set of 6 would be wired seperate one poweing the LEDs and the other  feedback

Note

I chose to  wire the  toroids in 2 groups mostly to show that it could be done .........as  long as the  primary ( blue and white wires ) go through the centers  of the  toroids  they are part of the circuit




« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 04:08:12 AM by resonanceman »

jeanna

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #67 on: January 23, 2010, 07:39:11 AM »
Hi to all people who are having a hard time finding good toroids.

I want to offer a ray of hope.

I just made a really great jtc today and with it I will be able to light up a small room with many leds in both series and parallel.

So, first the toroid came from the circuit board that was part of a 13w cfl.
(I think 13 watt. It could be 10w or 20w,) but you can see in the picture that the toroid was next to the can type capacitor which is bent over.
You can see the space where it was.

Now, look closely and you will see a gold wire which is the base coil. 9T
And, a green wire which is the collector coil, 12T
I then wound the red in the space that was left and it was 10T.
The transistor is a 2N2222. I am sure you can substitute with a 2N3904 or even the transistor from the same board, will probably work just fine.
The resistor is 470 ohm. It is one that I got for free from the purchase of some leds from china. For some reason if you use these leds in a car with 12v they have it figured out that you need 470 ohm resistors, so I have a couple hundred of these.

As you can see from the scope shot, I am getting 54v-62v
at 62KHz.

If I were to make a jtc with a Light from the secondary using this toroid as it is, I would solder 7- 8 leds in series and 4-10 in parallel. This will give you one light that is as bright as a 28-80 watt light bulb which will run off one AA or AAA for a very long time.

Remember this is being connected to the secondary.
That fact means that the number of leds you use will make NO DIFFERENCE WHATEVER to the length of time this will run on one battery.

Do you see how the red secondary wires are stuck into the breadboard?
They are on the ends of the 8 leds which are arranged in series.
BTW, if I put the wires in the opposite ends the lights do not go on at all, so always try both ways.
I realize most people do not have a scope, so, I believe you can follow this as a recipe with some assurance.

I hope this helps,

jeanna

kooler

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #68 on: January 23, 2010, 08:01:39 AM »
thanks jeanna
 i like to see stuff recycled.. i was worried about those toroids in the cfl due to there yellow color which i thought was a powder iron core..
you know it was a electronic ballast that made me build my circuit that i video..
then i saw it was also a stun gun and strobe circuit so i have learn alot since march 09

jeanna

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #69 on: January 23, 2010, 11:46:15 PM »
I had a thought this morning as I awoke.
I remember jesus nievesoliveras had only 2 leds which he had rescued from some things at the dump. One day he was devastated because he had popped one of them with too high a voltage spike. I certainly do not want my recipe to pop anyone's precious leds, since this may be the case for many that leds are hard to get, or that purchasing through ebay from china with paypal or credit card is impossible, so I have an alternative to the recipe that uses only one led.

Everything is exactly the same, except that I wound the secondary through the core only one and a half times such that the wire goes through the center 2 times. Here are the pics of the breadboard with one led lit and the scope shot.

jeanna

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #70 on: January 24, 2010, 08:32:55 PM »
Hi to all people who are having a hard time finding good toroids.

I want to offer a ray of hope.

I just made a really great jtc today and with it I will be able to light up a small room with many leds in both series and parallel.

So, first the toroid came from the circuit board that was part of a 13w cfl.
(I think 13 watt. It could be 10w or 20w,) but you can see in the picture that the toroid was next to the can type capacitor which is bent over.
You can see the space where it was.




Jeanna

Thanks for posting this

I got some CFLs  to try a Jeanna light  last week

I pulled the  toroids out of them and  tried making a candy cane coil with them......
I had hoped  to light up my 90 LED array  with  4 or 5 little toroids 

 I didn't get anything out of them.

Now  I will try again..........maybe I will pull some windings  off of them.

gary

jeanna

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #71 on: January 24, 2010, 09:25:58 PM »
Hi Gary,
I do not think this will work with 90 unless you resolder the leds in your bulb..

Quote
I would solder 7- 8 leds in series and 4-10 in parallel. This will give you one light that is as bright as a 28-80 watt light bulb which will run off one AA or AAA for a very long time.

I will be doing something like this today, and if I learn anything new I will post it.

jeanna

resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #72 on: January 25, 2010, 06:18:44 PM »
Hi Gary,
I do not think this will work with 90 unless you resolder the leds in your bulb..



Jeanna

I am not  going to re arrange the  LEDs in my  array...... I like them the way they are.

I do understand  that it might not be possible  to lite  my array with  the little  CFL toroids ........that is why I am trying it

I need  about 100V  to light  the  array to full  brightenss.........
I can  get that kind of  voltage  from a 5 for $1 toroid in  at least  half a dozen ways......

I think  we will  be much  better off if we find ways to use smaller toroids  for larger power  applications.

My theory is....... wind  a  toroid to get the voltage you need........then make   more  just like it ......... keep adding  more toroids in series until you have enough power.

To clarify.......  the primary  of the  original  toroid should  be removed...... and  a primary through the centers of ALL the  toroids should  be added.


gary


resonanceman

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #73 on: January 25, 2010, 08:29:23 PM »
I added  2  5 for $1 toroids  to the  unknown  coil by putting candy cane  windings over the  empty spots on the coil.

I  used 3 wraps each toroid  with brown wire and  2 wraps each toroid with blue  wire.

The intention is to couple  the 3 toroids  to catch more magnetic flux from the  primary

gary


Edit

it turns  out that this  did  not work out...... I am pretty sure it can be done.......but  havn't got it to work yet

I finally got back to the unknown  coil
Adding  a cancy cane  winding  did not  do the trick.
I  still think it should  have so I will try again later.
It does work  with  a few simple wraps  of wire  around each extra core.
You can't  tell by  this picture  but the 2 outside cores are there to " collect " more flux for the unknown coil .
The mumber of wraps does not seem  critical.
I used 5 for one  and 10 for the other.
I get 127 V with both  connected ...... that is powering  my LED array.
The  start  of the  wire connecting  the toroids  must be connected to the end ...... if I disconnect either  wire from its other end  the voltage drops to 10 V

gary

jeanna

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Re: Joule Thief 101
« Reply #74 on: January 25, 2010, 09:46:12 PM »
...

I do understand  that it might not be possible  to lite  my array with  the little  CFL toroids ........that is why I am trying it
yeay!!   ;D
Quote
I need  about 100V  to light  the  array to full  brightness.........
100 spiky volts?
That is nice to know.
I think I will pick up one of those next time I am in wallmart. I need another plaque, so that might be soon.

Quote
I can  get that kind of  voltage  from a 5 for $1 toroid in  at least  half a dozen ways......
I might try to get that much from the little one.
I just made a bunch of turns and it seemed good at 50-60v at 470r, but with less resistance or more turns or both 100v is probably possible.
I was addressing the cfl. I do not think that is possible with the tiny toroid.
I made one at the end of the summer from my 3/4 inch toroid that lit a 4 inch 4watt tube, but it fizzled. I think there were so many turns, that they must have shifyed and choked it.

I notice xee2 has re-wound his that got choked and he is getting good HV from it.

Quote
I think  we will  be much  better off if we find ways to use smaller toroids  for larger power  applications.
I completely agree.



Quote
To clarify.......  the primary  of the  original  toroid should  be removed...... and  a primary through the centers of ALL the  toroids should  be added.
This is something like the russian pictures from the other day.

I also had good results by winding the base coil around one toroid, and the collector coil around both. This gave me 2 toroids with similar voltage output, but if I remember, different shape.

I find it interesting to light a cfl, but it is not necessary nor very bright. Certainly using a bunch of leds is the brightest way.


jeanna