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Author Topic: Joule Thief  (Read 6276500 times)

TinselKoala

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15900 on: December 05, 2012, 03:29:35 PM »
@Bill: my build of this circuit uses 2 each 1 F, 5.5 V caps in parallel with the battery, which can be switched out so that the circuit runs on the caps alone. I just installed another one for a test, so that's 3 Farads of capacity.

@xee2: It's the clipleads, then ... I knew it all along.

lasersaber

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15901 on: December 05, 2012, 03:55:25 PM »
Three Farads!  Wow that should give you some very long run times.  Did you see this video? : http://youtu.be/SdXAjT2QPiQ   That light ran all day long and was still going after I got home from work. That was on a 1 F capacitor.  Notice that at the start of the video the voltage is at 11.02v and later at 11.03v.

TinselKoala

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15902 on: December 06, 2012, 12:07:12 AM »
Three Farads!  Wow that should give you some very long run times.  Did you see this video? : http://youtu.be/SdXAjT2QPiQ   That light ran all day long and was still going after I got home from work. That was on a 1 F capacitor.  Notice that at the start of the video the voltage is at 11.02v and later at 11.03v.
Not so long... I am only charging them to 1.3 volts, and they are old technology caps, not like the small 10F supercaps that LTseung is using.

Energy on a cap is proportional to the square of the voltage. So you are charging your 1 F cap to 11 volts or so.... your stored energy is then
E = (1F)(11V)2/2 = a bit over 60 Joules.
In my case,
E = (3F)(1.3V)2/2 = about 2.5 Joules.

I am not working with input voltages above that supplied by a single AA or AAA alkaline battery, sometimes two depleted ones in series, and lately I am using NiMH batteries that are about 1.3 V when fully charged.

Your results are remarkable. Unfortunately I just don't have the funds to reproduce them at the scale you are doing. Keep up the good work and thanks for the ideas!

onthecuttingedge2005

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15903 on: December 06, 2012, 08:16:27 AM »
TK, do you think a 100F double cap like this one would help with your experiments?

http://www.hifisoundconnection.com/Lanzar-VCAP10000-Vector-100-Farad-16-Volt-Hybrid-Double-Capacitor-VCAP10000

I get my main job back at the courthouse on July 1st and get a rather handsome paycheck, I can try and get one for your lab if you need it?

Jerry

tak22

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15904 on: December 06, 2012, 09:02:02 PM »
Robin Hood and the Joule Thief, Raiding the Rubbish to Help the Poor

http://zabaleen.blogspot.de/2012/12/robin-hood-and-joule-thief-raiding.html

Quote
I was experimenting with aluminum garbage  and a solution of lye made from wood ash from the Sherpa's fire (Potassium Hydroxide, used to make soap in the old days)  to create hydrogen (a chemical reaction I knew  about and used to show my students dating from when I taught Chemistry at Marlborough High School in 1989!).  Hooking a voltmeter up to the reactants to see what was going on I observed a voltage during the reaction of between 0.5 V and 0.9 volt.  So I lowered my concentration of lye to keep the hydrogen bubbling to a minimum and hooked everything up to a Joule Thief.

 The reaction was astonishing -- I was able to light the LED to full brightness, just from one coke can tab and a piece of stainless steel.  I had, in fact, created an aluminum oxide battery. And I found that I could light not just one LED from this simple procedure, but 5, all super bright!

 This meant that no matter I went in the world, as long as I had some aluminum can tabs in my pocket and could gather some hardwood or fruitwood ash from a fire and had my joule thief, I could run a flashlight indefinitely, never needing to worry about batteries again!  Each aluminum can tab lasted me up to 6 or 8 hours before needing to be replaced.

tak


NickZ

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15905 on: December 06, 2012, 09:40:00 PM »
   My cross over circuit is now on the 6 day, perpetual light. Voltage on the D cell battery is 0 to .025 volts, led indicator is bright.
  NickZ

gadgetmall

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15906 on: December 07, 2012, 01:32:31 AM »
Hi Guys . There you go nickZ nice report .

I have two still running for what now ,mm almost 2 weeks or so .
I have rebuilt the monster circuit using the darlington germanium and the coil but the turns  must not be the same for some reason it simple won't go up in voltage . I think the coil has everything to do with  this circuit .i should count windings more often and when i don't count them is when i get Crazy wild circuits that are amazing but without counting it is like playing the lottery.

I made a test bed because the other factor here is amplification and frequency of our transistors . I am going with the best power transistor i have right now but i have thousands of smaller transistors and fets so i am looking for that perfect input transistor we use on the secondary . Thus this test bed to test various things for the crossover .

nice results lynx and tk and all the others playing with these circuits .

If you love  electricity amplification in it's strangest form this is the circuit to be on .

Almost time for some Christmas Tree Jt pics . I will post some and I bet bill will also .

gadget 

SkyWatcher123

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15907 on: December 07, 2012, 01:39:05 AM »
Hi folks, Hi nick, sounds like your getting good results with that crossover, nice, will have to try that circuit soon.
Not sure if you saw the post at other forum in simple inverter thread, though it seems by adding a 4.7 nanofarad 1200 volt capacitor from a gutted cfl across 2kohm base resistor, like lasers super joule ringer, has placed the circuit in a highly efficient oscillation mode or close to resonance.
It is the simple joule thief circuit with that capacitor added.
A 3.3 nanofarad capacitor does not oscillate like the 4.7 nanofarad and up to a certain capacitance, the great light output falls off again and current draw goes up.
Also of high value, is the fact that the transistor is ambient to slightly warm, whereas, if the capacitor is removed and the base resistor adjusted to replicate the same brightness, the amp draw goes up and the transistor/heat sink gets hot.
Hope this may be of value to others.
Here is link to forum thread and a youtube video link.
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/12438-simple-inverter-3.html#post217535
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmAaHBO05AE&feature=youtu.be
peace love light
tyson ;)

Pirate88179

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15908 on: December 07, 2012, 04:06:50 AM »
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G19221


Antique Sylvania Crystal Diode

Germanium 
 Sylvania crystal diode germanium type 1N450 in an antique glass case. New very old stock. 
 
$1 US for 2 diodes.

Bill


 

TinselKoala

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15909 on: December 07, 2012, 06:23:08 AM »
TK, do you think a 100F double cap like this one would help with your experiments?

http://www.hifisoundconnection.com/Lanzar-VCAP10000-Vector-100-Farad-16-Volt-Hybrid-Double-Capacitor-VCAP10000

I get my main job back at the courthouse on July 1st and get a rather handsome paycheck, I can try and get one for your lab if you need it?

Jerry

OMG that is some piece of kit! No... thanks for offering but I wouldn't be able to use that much.... I think it's more for super bass in car stereos or something, coilguns or tazers.....
But thanks so much anyway, I appreciate the offer .... or are you just pulling my leg.... :D

(I might accept a donation of a couple of those 10F caps that Lawrence is using, they are much cheaper and would be much more useful to me...)
 :P

onthecuttingedge2005

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15910 on: December 07, 2012, 06:41:58 AM »
No, not pulling any legs, I'll try to remember to get you some in July.

just log the exact specifications of the capacitor you need so I can keep track of what I need to get.

Pirate88179

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15911 on: December 07, 2012, 07:46:46 AM »
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ESHSR-0010C0-002R7/589-1002-ND/946802

TK:

These are the ones that I use.  I can send you some if you would like.

Bill

bs2012

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15912 on: December 07, 2012, 10:49:27 AM »
Recently I am playing around with joule thief and found some interesting behaviour with jt.

Referring to the attach basic jt circuit, most people said that the base coil (green wire) turn on the transistor to allow current flow in the collector coil (red wire).  Yet I found a way to start jt with base coil open.  The led would be very deem and the drain from battery is very low, around 1 - 2 mA.  To do this, you need to have 13 times more turns in base coil than the collector coil.  I have some toroids even need 20 times to have this work.  Fewer turns in collector coil can sometimes work but you need to kick start the jt first.  While the led is on, disconnect the base coil from the battery and the led still light deemly.

Don't be disappointed with the deem light with this setup.  Just disconnect the led with the emitter leg of the transistor and then jam this open leg with the open wire of the base coil.  The led would be super bright.  Even brighter than with any of the jt I have!  However the battery drain is about 30% higher than the jt, measured at about 120 mA.  With some tuning, it could be reduced to around 70mA.

I am not sure if this hack is better than original jt.  Please replicate and tell me.

>>Moderator: Did fix the scaling of the images.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2012, 05:58:03 PM by Groundloop »

TinselKoala

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15913 on: December 07, 2012, 03:44:10 PM »
@bs2012: there seems to be something wrong with your image files. They don't display inline, and they don't open as JPGs when I download them, not even as .bmps ......
Did you make the images in some program as some other file format, then just change the extension to .jpg so they would upload? That doesn't work.

bs2012

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Re: Jule Thief
« Reply #15914 on: December 07, 2012, 05:25:33 PM »
@bs2012: there seems to be something wrong with your image files. They don't display inline, and they don't open as JPGs when I download them, not even as .bmps ......
Did you make the images in some program as some other file format, then just change the extension to .jpg so they would upload? That doesn't work.

Finally the pictures could be displayed, though the sizing seems terrible. :P

Please help to verify my findings...