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Author Topic: Joule Lamp  (Read 344827 times)

NickZ

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #240 on: July 18, 2012, 12:35:52 AM »
  I've also been getting my Joule Lamp to light with no connection the the pnp3906 transistor base. The transistor still gets hot at 12 volts though, and is what I'm going to try different transistors to see if I can tame the heat issue. RS has no 2n3055 in stock here, or the TIP31 so I'm going to go through my junk parts to see what I've got.

  My last video:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnySZEno9W8&feature=youtu.be

Magluvin

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #241 on: July 18, 2012, 12:44:01 AM »
I found something interesting.  Playing with the larger aircore LJL I hooked up a 120 v LED bulb with no transistor.  No collector at , no base connection.  The bulb lights at .3 watt or .7 watt depending on the dim switch setting.  I will post a video later.  Off to go water skiing.  Its hot!

HOW CAN YOU GO WATER SKIING NOW!!!   LOL  just kidding  ;]

That is interesting.

Has anyone opened one of these led bulbs yet to see what the driver consists of?  I havnt gotten down to getting one yet.

Does the bulb have a dimming switch?  I just dont see one in the circuit you show.


And is that correct? A 12v batt as input? Or 120v ac?   I could see that if it were ac input that the open windings would act like a capacitor and pass current to light the bulb.

But if it is dc 12v and the coils are truly open ended and not conductive contact, then I would want to see the circuit in the led bulb for answers. ;]

Mags

Lynxsteam

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #242 on: July 18, 2012, 05:18:04 AM »
I found a slight short between the secondary and the primary.  It is  a 9 Ohm short.  When the circuit is truly open as drawn it doesn't work.  Its starting to look like a tank circuit, with LCR.  When I put a resistor between the normal base tie and collector tie the circuit oscillates.  Or if I just alligator clip across it works.  This 3 watt bulb was running nicely on .7 watts!  This same bulb draws 1.2 amps on the mains.
I didn't draw in the dimmer switch for simplicity.  I simply toggle between 2 or 3 secondary coils (3 for high).

Here's the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSICg7KHmBI

Magluvin

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #243 on: July 18, 2012, 06:01:07 AM »
Hmm, have you tried the battery directly to the bulb?

Yeah sorry bout the short. It just had to be.

Mags

Lynxsteam

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #244 on: July 18, 2012, 06:16:08 AM »
Yes, directly connected to 12 volts the bulb blinks dimly.  This is probably what starts the oscillation in the aircore transformer.  The pulsing gets magnified in the transformer to higher voltage and lower amps.  This is just one of those things you stumble onto.  May not be very useful considering a 2N3055 is about $2. 
These things spark ideas in other people who then go and build on an idea.
I am still impressed that the amp draw is so slight compared to this same bulb drawing high amps on the normal Joule Ringer type circuit.  I may get a couple more of these bulbs and see what kind of output vs input is possible on a simple 10:1 aircore winding.  Hey, at least it doesn't ring and buzz!

Nick,

If you are driving CFL tubes with the reverse bias circuit (ala super joule ringer) there is no protection for over driving the transistor.  You may be better off using a more standard approach with a resistor capacitor from the positive rail to the base, and a protection diode from negative rail to base (base emitter).  This will be more of a standard Joule Thief with the flyback coming off the collector.  If you reverse bias a npn transistor much over 4 volts it will over heat and probably burn up.  When driving LED bulbs with this circuit the voltage drop is right at 3.5-3.9 volts.  When driivng CFL tubes the voltage drop varies with voltage input. 
I think you would be very happy with a circuit suitable for CFL tubes.
Or you could modify your design to prevent the really high voltage spikes.  I was able to use the reverse bias circuit because I covered up more of the secondary with a 20:1 ratio in the original LJL posted in this thread.  OUBrad replicated this very well and showed high brightness and how many turns to use.  But to use a Tesla type exciter with its very high voltage spikes is asking for trouble with the reverse bias circuit.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2012, 04:27:18 PM by Lynxsteam »

NickZ

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #245 on: July 18, 2012, 06:44:48 PM »
    @ LynxSteam:
    I just watched your earlier videos on building and lighting the Joule Lamp with the gutted CFL on 12v 100- 200 mA, instead of using the 120v led bulbs, as in your later videos. As I had not seen them before, it was very informative, especially showing how the 2n3055 will take the 12v direct even without using a diode or resistor. That is just what I needed to see.
  My Joule Lamp is a bit different, in that it is a wireless Slayer type Exciter circuit,  that uses no direct connection to the Cfl bulb. The idea was to see how many CFLs it would light. But, I found that with each added bulb the Exciters output was shared between them, and so the light intensity was not really increased, as I was hoping.
 
  When watching your video today, I saw that you were lighting two CFLs, at around 200 mA, so considering that you are lighting two bulbs that total about 23 watts (at normal input), I was fairly impressed with only needing about 200 mA or so from a 12v source to get that intensity of useable light. Even though my circuit uses much less input than that. Your comments today which you just made, give me even more hope that an even lower consumption rate can be achieved without even needing the transistor.

  Radio Shack here does not have the 2n3055 in stock, so I'm limited to using what I can scrounge up. But, I'll see what I can find to replace the smaller type transistors, so I can use the 12v battery, or Ac to Dc wall adaptors, instead of being limited to 4 to 10 volt batteries, and their correspondingly lower light intensity from the CFL type bulbs. Which is probably only 1/4 of the CFLs normal brightness.
I was trying to use the smaller transistors, to try to obtain a smaller mA draw, but I see that it is not possible with my circuit, at least not yet.
 A cell phone charger with 6.4v, and 350 output is what is working best for me so far with my current setting, and which produces no heat. It is running my lamp all night long, but only as a nightlight. Still very nice to have even at that lower but still useful brightness.

Lynxsteam

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #246 on: July 19, 2012, 03:47:21 AM »
Nick,

You can parallel your transistors to spread the load between them.  Each transistor will be wired like twins.  Then run a 1 ohm resistor from base to base to make sure each transistor gets an equal voltage/amperage signal.

I am doing this with my large aircore and it works very well.  The transistors run cold.

By the way.... what qualifies as overunity when it comes to power in and light energy out with these devices?  This large aircore pulls very little power and yet the LED bulbs are like the sun - you can't look at them when on.  On the low setting the amp draw is .654 for two bulbs and they are intensely bright.  That's 4.25 watts each.  (These bulbs would run on 8 watts off mains power.)  Makes me think that scaling this concept up could do some startling things.

I also ran an experiment lighting the 120 vac bulbs with 2.7 vdc (2 AA batteries).  Lights brightly.  Proof that the high voltage spikes at high frequency are there as long as the transistor fires.

NickZ

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #247 on: July 19, 2012, 05:47:22 AM »
    LynxSteam:
   That all sounds great. The scaling of your coil's output over several additional bulbs may really pay off. 
The180mA you were consuming when lighting a single CFL when using 12v, and only 20 to 28mA higher when using two CFl  bulbs, would indicate that each additional bulb is using very little additional current. Worth looking into further. Dollar store sells CFLs at $2 each, or 5 for $10, instead on only ONE equivalent Lumens output Led bulb for the same price.

  Funny thing on my set up, when trying to read the voltage at the transistor the most it shows is about 20v output, when using 5 volt input, yet the neon bulb is lighting all over the place. So, I know there's some higher voltage spikes happening, even though I can't read them on my volt meter.  It's Ac, as both sides of the neon are lighting fairly bright.
 
 Where or how do you connect your meter to read the current been used by the device?

Lynxsteam

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #248 on: July 19, 2012, 02:02:34 PM »
Nick,

I use an amp meter between the battery and positive lead to the circuit.  You can also put a volt meter across the battery terminals.  These two readings multiplied give watts input.  It is very difficult to accurately measure output from a blocking oscillator.  That's why experimenters measure light output or the work done on output and then guess at volts x amps.  This guessing is what gives rise to theories about over unity, radiant energy, aether......

If you measure at the transistor you will see all sorts of readings.  The meter is trying to get a reading on a moving target.  It may average what is happening.  The one consistent reading I see is the DC bias voltage between base and emitter.  Its usually about 2.5-3.9 vdc for LED bulbs.  That makes sense because that is the voltage drop for LEDs.

You are doing what everyone else does.  If the Neon lights you know rms is at least 50-60 volts.

My experience with exciters was that the circuit would use the most power when it wasn't doing any apparent work.  Then adding florescent tubes, power would stabilize , then drop slightly, drop more and then the tubes would get dimmer as more were added.  There is an optimal power draw off an exciter.

I don't like the exciter circuit except for novelty and fun.  To practically light a room its too finnicky, bulbs are dim, positioning is sensitive, and transistors run hot because of really high frequency.  I also worry about that much rf.  I have been burned by the output off one wire and don't know what prolonged exposure might do.  The radar range (microwave oven) was discovered by radar operators who heated their lunches on the transmitter control circuits.

NickZ

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #249 on: July 19, 2012, 07:09:50 PM »
  LynxSteam:
  Thanks for the info.  The difference is that an Exciter circuit is an open circuit device, beside what you've mentioned, is the possibility of getting it to work on very little current. Dr. Stiffler has gotten them to draw practically nothing, but they are not as practical to operate as closed systems, for the reasons you've already mentioned. Once their spacial coherance resonant point is reached, they can out do most any other types of oscillators/coil device. But that is not an easy thing to achieve without thousands of dollar in test equipment. If done properly adding more bulbs means higher output, not lower shared output. But, there is a couple of  tricks involved in SERIES connected Leds.
 There is not much magic involved in connecting a regular transformer backwards, or winding an E-core,  to connect a battery or power supply to light bulbs, as efficient as they might be. As a closed system is limited, unless using solar, but still the solar system's batteries are the limiting factor. Once China catches on, we'll probably be buying them for a few bucks, or even cheaper than we can build them ourselves. Such as their Solar 100 Led Christmas lights strings for $10, plus shipping.
I do like the idea of not depending on transistors, as they are the bottle-neck due to the heat issue, in trying to obtain greater output, and adding more components only causes  more resistance. Tesla did not use them, to obtain his results.
  All in all your system is the most practical to use for now.

  NickZ
 
 

Lynxsteam

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #250 on: July 25, 2012, 06:34:37 PM »
Nick,

In another thread you asked if a primary/secondary coil could light simple LED strings with no transistor.  Probably not without something to setup the oscillation.  That particular Phillips 3 w 120 volt bulb I used evidently has some kind of circuit that includes a transistor.  Tesla was able to oscillate his coils without the benefit of solid state transistors, but I can think of no simpler way than to use a single transistor and the Joule Lamp circuit or Joule Ringer to oscillate.  Something has to switch the primary on and off rapidly.  A simple LED wont.
Tesla coils and SEC exciters are good for really high frequency, high voltage, wireless transmission, but not so good for amperage.  If you are trying to light gutted CFL bulbs, OUBrads earlier in this thread did a really good video replication of the small Joule Lamp showing how to place the primary along the secondary and light CFLs.

Keep asking questions and keep experimenting!

TinselKoala

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #251 on: July 25, 2012, 07:52:45 PM »
You don't need thousands of dollars worth of test equipment. You need a simple analog oscilloscope, 20 or 40 MHz bandwidth, that you can get used for 100-150 dollars, and you need a signal generator/frequency counter, that you can buy brand new, modern digital tech, for about 200, or get used analog for 50, or even build yourself. These two instruments are absolutely vital and form the basis for any electronic experimentation involving oscillators, resonance, or measurements of power in circuits.

The oscilloscope is truly the King of test equipment. Digital, high-bandwidth scopes are nice... but unnecessary for the kind of work that we do  here. Do yourself a giant favor: spend 150 dollars on a good used analog scope and a couple of probes, and spend some time learning just what the scope can do. You will not regret it.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Oscilloscopes-/104247/i.html?Channels=2&Bandwidth=Less%2520than%252060MHz&LH_ItemCondition=3000&Type=Analog&_pppn=r1&_dmpt=BI_Oscilloscopes&_mPrRngCbx=1&_udlo&_udhi=200

NickZ

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #252 on: August 19, 2012, 08:06:29 AM »
   LynxSteam and All:
   I'm still working on the Exciter Joule lamps. These circuits still have me captivated.
   Here is a video that I just made tonight showing a one inch Exciter coil circuit, using a ferrite core, with a comparable output to much bigger Exciters L3 coils.
  Bigger is better, but smaller is better yet, as it's much easier to wind, and costs almost nothing.

   Video:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GUS_P5aejI&feature=youtu.be

Pirate88179

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #253 on: August 19, 2012, 08:29:11 AM »
Nick::

I really like those smaller coils.  Great video.

Bill

NickZ

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Re: Joule Lamp
« Reply #254 on: August 26, 2012, 01:52:54 AM »
  I just bought a new 24watt CFL bulb for about $3.50, which is equivalent of a 100 watt incandescent bulb. It works great on my Exciter Joule Lamp and puts out more light than  the 13 watt ones I been using. The input power draw does go up a bit, and the transistor also gets hotter when using it, but other than that, it works fine. I hope to find an even bigger bulb to try, as soon as I can find them.
  Soon there will be a 100 watt led bulb out on the market, here is the link to that:
http://www.gizmag.com/worlds-first-100-watt-equivalent-led-replacement-bulb/18659/

  Here's a picture of the 24watt CFL, it is probably 10 times cheaper than the 100 led bulb above.