NickZ:
 

I don't belief that anyone has really hit the nail on the head yet.  But, I do hope to see it done.
   Good luck with your tests... we may all learn something from them.

Thanks, Nick -- agreed.

I also agree with Xee2 on this; consistent with what I've been suggesting:

[snip]

LED should not be used when measuring output power. The LED should be replaced with rectifier diode. The power lost in the rectifier diode is I^2 x R where R is the on resistance of the diode

There is resistance in the diode chosen, and so we choose a STANDARD and I've proposed the 1N4148 diode since this is commonly available.

@NP -- I'm not surprised if your input power goes UP with a diode in place of an LED; this evidently means that the effective resistance of the diode is greater than that of the LED.  That's OK; we're seeking a STANDARD METHOD to measure Pinput for various circuits, so we can make valid comparisons.  Everyone using the same standard diode for the output leg.

IF we could find a commonly available LED, I suppose we could use that as a STANDARD...  it makes for a much more interesting video and allows one to SEE the output.  Are Radio Shack parts available worldwide?  we could choose a red LED from RS and make that our standard I suppose.  Meanwhile, testing with the 1N4148 should teach us something.

@Jmmac --

My led is so sensitive that i can light it up connecting one end to the ground of my scope and touching the other end with my finger!--Jmmac

if you will measure the frequency of the oscillation, I'm quite certain you will find that it is 60 Hz (or 50Hz in Europe).  Place your scope probes across the LED that lights up with the "antenna effect" to check this prediction.  Of course, poaching from the local grid is not allowed by the contest.  And I'm very sure you would not see this effect you describe inside a Faraday cage (also required in the "contest").

Xee2:  "If all of the energy dissipated in all of the components is added up it should theoretically always be exactly equal to the total input energy (n=1.00). "

Correct -- theoretically.  But here we are experimentalists and so we allow the possiblity of an empirical measurement of n>1 (as I think you would agree).  Right now we're seeking a consistent, straightforward way of standardizing measurement of Pinput.   Doing the same for Poutput (or equivalently, Eoutput) comes later and is beyond the parameters of this exercise / contest.  I'm looking at calorimetric methods, but again, that comes later.

  Possibly the adding of more than one led may help to obtain the magic numbers.  Kooler (my Hero) used three leds on one of his 5 month long test units.  Worth a try. 
Resonance has everything to do with this, but a steady voltage also needs to be maintained, as the battery is part of the draw in these circuits. The oscillator is also charging the battery or the cap to a degree. In most cases, without the use of the resonance factor the feed-back charge is not of a high enough degree to keep the voltage from dropping. So, it is a flow balancing act to keep it going strong. One volt input,  8 volts back to the battery.  Similar to the Joule Ringer.  I don't belief that anyone has really hit the nail on the head yet.  But, I do hope to see it done.
   Good luck with your tests... we may all learn something from them.
 

Nick:

First, I had no idea Kooler had used powdered iron for his core, I never had any luck with those...this is good to know.

Just a thought on the 3 leds idea...depending upon how the leds were wired, might this not be similar (if not exactly) the same as an Avromenko plug?  The AV plug is made from 3 diodes and, as we all know, leds are diodes.  IF this is the case, the circuit might be picking up high frequency energy through the air similar to Dr. Stiffler's SEC.  I am not saying this is what is happening, it just occurred to me as a possibility is all.  I have a small AV plug that lights up near my Jeanna's circuit built from the 3 3/8" toroid.

@ Dr. Jones:

My local RS does not carry much at all.  They do have a few leds, but like everything else over there, they are way overpriced.  I can buy 100 leds for the price of one of theirs.  I do agree it would be a good idea for all to use the same led though.

Bill

   Bill:
   I am assuming that the tiny yellow toroid core in Koolers video is a iron powder core, as he himself does not remember where he got it. Most of the yellow ones come from pc motherboards or power supplies.
   I have a dozen of those cores in my Jtc lighting up just about every corner of my house at night, they do work ok, but just not as well as the ferrites. So for those guys using iron powder cores, i suggest having two AAs.  They work just fine for at least a couple of days.
 
  In the Docs video he mentions that the regular Jt that he had, only last 12 hours.  So, my question to him is:  How long does the a regular AA 600 mA battery keep his Hartleys going???  I've asked several times, I hope that it's not too tough question. 
   I am not too concerned about the draw or efficiency of the circuits, as they are now connected to the cement batteries cells, which don't need ever need recharging.  I was hoping the the Hartley circuits would work even better with the cement cells, but they don't, at least not for me.
   I do think that trying three leds may help.  I use 15 leds on my BwJt.

@ NickZ

run time in hours = (battery mA-hrs) / (circuit battery drain in mA)

Most AA batteries are about 2000 mA-hrs. Therefore my 0.01 mA circuit should run about 2000/0.01 hours on one AA battery (which is about 22 years).

... what do you get as far as light with .01 mA draw.

Very dim light and batteries do not last 22 years. Circuit was posted a few pages back. Reduce base resistor value to increase LED brightness (and increase battery drain). 2 mA can give bright LED, 20 mA can give many very bright LEDs. Read through Joule thief thread and you will find a lot of info.

Steven

i'm thinking that it might be necessary for the different contributors to 'characterise' their caps (as well as get a more accurate reading of their value)

iirc you did this yourself a while back, when you first started testing the possibility of using caps to measure Pin

i've just charged my test system's cap to 2.55V and let it self-discharge for 10 minutes (a convenient value, similar in length to the discharge period for this system)

the cap discharged to 2.36V in 600 seconds, so the average self-discharge power (effectively an additional parallel load to the system) was 0.78uW, nearly 20% of the 3.8uW drawn by the total system

since the cap self-discharge is occurring completely in parallel to the main test, and is not involved in the functioning of the circuit, it seems logical to remove this variable from everyone's Pin results (since everyone's cap will have different self-discharge rates)

what do you think?
thanks
np

http://docsfreelunch.blogspot.com

I agree, NP -- we should characterize the cap used for the test; and this is not difficult to do as you point out. 


Bill: 

I do agree it would be a good idea for all to use the same led though.

And Nick notes that Costa Rica has Radio Shack also...  The cost of a high-brightness red LED should hopefully not be too great for all experimenters...   If anyone has one to recommend, by RS part number, that would be helpful...  NP?  Xee2?

Nick -- I'm running my sj1 circuit just for you, with a single AA battery.  Will report V-drop tomorrow.  Start:  1.623 volts (15h03 my time).

Dimbulb:

RE: the video smart_scare_crow
let's use a thermal wattmeter,  I agree, I think this is progress
when everybody has one of these there will be enough data
to create the kind of catalyst necessary to really take off.

Welcome to the discussion, Dimbulb.    Yes, although these thermal wattmeters are not so easy (or cheap) to procure these days.  I have a lead on one and will try to make it available to other users -- this will allow a test of Poutput to go along with the "standardized method" for measuring Pinput we've come up with here.  And thus, we can reliably evaluate efficiency n. 

(There may be other methods that are just as good....  but the discussion here suggests that the cap/time method for measuring Pinput is easy to do and worthwhile.  We'll see about calorimetric methods as we get more actual data on these...)

I agree, NP -- we should characterize the cap used for the test; and this is not difficult to do as you point out. 


Bill: 
And Nick notes that Costa Rica has Radio Shack also...  The cost of a high-brightness red LED should hopefully not be too great for all experimenters...   If anyone has one to recommend, by RS part number, that would be helpful...  NP?  Xee2?

Nick -- I'm running my sj1 circuit just for you, with a single AA battery.  Will report V-drop tomorrow.  Start:  1.623 volts (15h03 my time).

Dimbulb:
Welcome to the discussion, Dimbulb.    Yes, although these thermal wattmeters are not so easy (or cheap) to procure these days.  I have a lead on one and will try to make it available to other users -- this will allow a test of Poutput to go along with the "standardized method" for measuring Pinput we've come up with here.  And thus, we can reliably evaluate efficiency n. 

(There may be other methods that are just as good....  but the discussion here suggests that the cap/time method for measuring Pinput is easy to do and worthwhile.  We'll see about calorimetric methods as we get more actual data on these...)

Thankyou for the welcome,
I see a bird thermal milliwattmeter, I think this would have the right scale.
http://www.bird-technologies.com/resources/discontinued/bec_manuals/6300-368.pdf

I have seen RF mW meters not too difficult to build.
If it could be modified and shown that it works alright.
I have seen that amatuer radio qrp contest clubs
have come up with a meter. they seem to be
measuring OU also.

   @ Xee2:
   You know what comes to mind is that the meters and scopes are not giving us an accurate reading on this type of recycling circuits.  They are being fooled by these circuits. Otherwise you would get the 22 years run time, but you don't, nor does anyone else that has these super low draw readings.
 So, again I don't think we are really getting accurate readings on these device's true consumption. 
The best test is the run time on a single AA, in my opinion.  A 1000 micro farad cap will not stay on the sweet spot long enough to notice any real gain and the circuits will just discharge the cap, as you will notice with the tests.
This will also happen when using an AA, but to a lesser degree, and so it should be a slightly more accurate way to see the anomalies.
   Now, if the circuit running on a cap lasts a month, or several months,  then we could say that the circuit is running on well, nothing,  or something,  but what.  To me there is only one answer, that at the right frequency they become an Aether conversion device.