Hi All,

I have made my version of the Lasersaber Joule Ringer version 3.

I use an air core (see image for plastic bobbin size) coil in my design.
The oscillator runs at a center frequency of 167KHz. I light up a 12 Volt
1,8 Watt LED bulb (real Watt used if run from 12 Volt DC) and the LED
bulb is light at full brightness. I get a little over 13 VAC out with the LED
bulb as a load. My circuit runs from two AA batteries in series.

Added: The transistor and coils stays cool when running, but the circuit uses
too much current from the batteries, so the batteries get hot (approx. 40 degrees Celsius)
when running. So I need to see if there is a possibility to reduce the input current usage.

Added: I have tested the circuit on one AA battery. The circuit did use 0,5 Ampere and the
output was 11,7 VAC with the LED bulb as a load.

Groundloop.

The important thing in this circuit is the "electromagnetic flux" in the coil:

When using a big Ferrite core, a high "electromagnetic flux" with a relative small number of wire turns can be reached, which translates into a high Wattage of the lamps which can be lit to full brightness. Therefore we see people light incandescent lamps which need 20 to 40 Watts with big Ferrite cores.

Air cores have in theory no saturation (in contrast to Ferrite, therefore size matters when using Ferrite cores), but one needs a very high number of wire turns to achieve a high "electromagnetic flux".

Groundloop's air core needs at least 5000 to 10.000 turns for the secondary and 500 to 1000 turns for the primary to get what he expects.

With an air core geometry becomes a factor. To achieve a high electromagnetic flux, one needs to put many turns of wire in a small space. That translates into "thin wire", which has a practical limit.


Limiting the current draw of the circuit:

To limit the current draw a resistor is needed between secondary and base (e.g. try a variable 1 K resistor). But of course, when limiting the current draw less current will be available to light a lamp. When trying to light a 10 Watt lamp to full brightness at least 10 Watt have to flow into the circuit.

Many lamps (e.g. LED lamps) look fairly bright when feeding less than the specified Wattage into them. And in some applications the limited light output might be sufficient.

Greetings, Conrad

I rearranged the components a little bit to make the circuit diagram easier to read. Hope this helps replication.

Looks pretty good to me..... I'd mount the light fixture in the center of the yoke, that would look cool!

Meanwhile here's my latest neon rattler, using an inductor/transformer I pulled out of an old TV set. It has 9 turns on the primary. The secondaries are buried and are connected funny, I couldn't figure it out, so I just used a function generator to drive the primary and probed the secondary pins until I found the pair with the highest output voltage. I was able to light the NE-2 using only the output of the FG, once I found the 700kHz resonant frequency.  I'm getting very short spikes that go to 600 volts peak, from the AAA battery, which will run the NE-2 as long as the battery voltage is above 1.18 v.

I still haven't been able to get a CFL to light up using the AAA battery, though. Off to find more ferrite beads to play with now.

Joule Rattler powers a Ring Oscillator of NE-2s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HqdlDAeRRA


Schematic for the ring oscillator below. You can extend to any odd number of stages. Flash rate is set by voltage and by the RC constant.

TK,

That was a really nice oscillator. :-)

Can't stop watching the blinking lights......................  :-)

GL.

  Tinselkoala, Gadgetmall, and All:
   You suggested that I mount the Cfl (65 watt) inside of the ferrite yoke, well, here it is:
   
   

@Groundloop: outstanding... the NTE109 is the germanium diode.... equivalent to 1n60, a little higher voltage than the venerable 1n34 of crystal set fame, right? Why did you choose germanium here, I am curious.  I think in motor pulse speed controllers a Schottky diode is used in the corresponding position.... 


@NickZ: Wowsers!! That is amazing, I didn't know it was so big....  very classy! 
I still can't get my CFL to light with both wires connected... it lights about half-way brilliance with only one wire, though.....


And I've made another video of the Joule Rattler running on 3 and 5 volts, charging an external capacitor while running the ring oscillator.... I'm exploring the high voltage capability, but I'm also able to run the ring oscillator for quite a while on two AAA batteries. And earlier today ..... a very weird thing happened to two D cells I was using to run it..... they started sizzling and leaking fluid bigtime but weren't even warm at all .......

http://youtu.be/_0SfDwyM7Kk   (Still uploading, sorry)

TK,

I trying to figure out how low voltage I can run this circuit on and still light one single LED.

I'm using the NTE109 Germanium diode because I have a lot of them.
(Did make an error in the past when ordering, thought I clicked the 100 pcs. but did clik the 1000 pcs. :-)

I have tested this circuit to run and still light my normal green LED at a input
voltage of 0,35 Volt. But the circuit needs a voltage over 1 Volt to start oscillating.

I'm currently working on a new coil (smaller more compact = more turns for less copper used).

GL.