Joule Lamp

[PhiChaser]

Last night a thunderstorm ripped through and knocked out the power for a little over three hours in my neighborhood.  My first true test of several of the lighting systems I have built.  Master bedroom and bath lit by the small 12v 5AH and 4 of the SMD modules.  Family room lit with the LJL and 4 - 7.5 watt LED bulbs.  Kitchen and dining room used various mini joule ringers and joule thief lights.  12 Volt battery with 200 watt inverter powered box fan and laptop.  After much lighthearted teasing from the missus, I was a hero for about three hours last night.  What a wonderful feeling to know I have choices in a situation like that.

Great story B_rads! It made me smile. Good stuff...
Happy experimenting,
PC

[JouleSeeker]

I completed the calibration runs, for one, 2,3,4,5 and 6 bulbs in the light-box.   These were the Ultra-tech LED bulbs used by Lynxsteam, so that the tests followed what he used.   The calibration factor varies somewhat with the number of bulbs.   No surprises there.

Running on the grid, these Ultra-tech bulbs put out about 450 Lumens at 60 Lm/W (when running at 7.5 W each, at about 110 VAC).

Lynxsteam sent me a new "Lynx Lamp" for testing, about 2" in outside diameter and 17" long, wound on PVC pipe as he has mentioned earlier.

At 12V, here are results I obtained:

# bulbs   Amps     Power In    Lumens  Lumens/Watt
1             0.53          6.4 W         134          21
2             1.03        12.4             392          32
3             1.13        13.6             455          33
4             1.21        14.5             487          34   
5             1.26        15.1             539          36      --at 25.8 KHz
6             1.38        16.6             580          35

  We see that the amp-draw nearly doubles going from 1 to 2 bulbs, but then decreases more slowly as one adds more bulbs -- as noted by Lynxsteam.  The Lumens/Watt efficacy peaks at approximately 5 bulbs for this "Lynx Lamp" (he wound it!).

I also inserted a 20cm long x 0.9mm diam ferrite rod into the PVC and found and found:
5             0.92         11.0            574          52  -- at 12.1 KHz

So the efficacy went up from 36 to 52 Lumens/W, while the frequency dropped.
(I have done better in terms of Lm/W before this.)

I inserted a second ferrite rod, and the efficacy went down to about 25 Lm/W -- that surprised me.

So the results are interesting, but nothing spectacular yet.  Lots of fun, though!
My especial thanks to Lynxsteam for sending the "cranberry" version of his Lynx-Lamp for testing! 

I also tried lighting two CFL's with this, and they lit up, one more brightly than the other.  Total light output was around 300 Lumens once warmed up a bit, but drew 1.76A for the two @12 V.  This translates to 21 W and about 14 Lm/W.

[Lynxsteam]

Thank you Joule Seeker for conducting this testing.

I am disappointed, I really thought I had managed to decrease power draw and increase brightness.  Joule Seeker's testing shows that it is easy to get fooled judging by eye.  And my imprecise PV lightbox method was erroneous.
We know that induction in Aircore transformers is much less than in a ferrite core.  His experiment with adding a ferrite core boosting output to 52 lm/watt is a clue as to the direction to go in.

The advantage to the Aircore is only in its simplicity of parts, scalability and its reliable startup. 
If I can find some silicon steel tubing with a thin wall similar to a cheap mop handle I may give that a try.  Otherwise using a ferrite core or being stuck with efficient lighting of a couple bulbs is where I am at.
I am not so interested in a couple bulbs.  That has been done quite well.

Other areas to explore would be:
Looking for the best places to tap the primary for maximum efficiency.
finding some readily available core material that can be used to increase the Aircore's induction.
Or using iron floral wire simulating the E-Core by looping through the Aircore tube.  Or by using enameled floral wire as part of the secondary.
I have also wondered if common hardware magnets could be heated slowly in an oven to 850 F and thus could render them as nice core material.

All this said, it is still possible to use the Aircore and just settle for an acceptable amp draw and brightness.  As is, the LJL Aircore works as if the bulbs are on a dimmer drawing 1/3 the power of mains 120 vac.

Other thoughts on areas to explore, or what your goal is?

[PhiChaser]

I am going to build a couple aircores in the coming week or two and wanted to try an idea. I'm not sure it has been done, or if it has been tried I haven't found it yet...
Has anyone tried filling up one of those aircores with stacked power toroids? The ones I have will fit nicely in 1" CPVC pipe. That pipe will be wrapped with the secondary and some sort of 'adjustable' primary most likely.
Any thoughts on what types of results to expect? Is this likely to work better than just a plain aircore?
Thanks for the great thread and all the 'research' guys.
Happy experimenting,
PC

[NickZ]

   Guys:
   Thank you for taking the time and effort to do these tests, and report them.
   What the above test shows me is that by using two small and fairly cheap 10watt solar panel ($40 each), or a single 20 watt solar panel, one can light a small house, shed, mobil home, etz... For Free.  So, not bad at all.
   I think what this will all boil down to is using ferrite, as we had thought. But, PVC and insulated house wire is available anywhere, sometimes even for free, or nearly so.

   Phi:  Toroid cores are not all the same, and the cheap iron powder toroids that are commonly used as chokes, don't work very well. Maybe try to find a ferrite transformer, or some real ferrite toroid cores, or beads. But, the Lynx system will work even without the ferrite rod, or toroids, in anycase, but,  even the yellow iron powder toroid cores may help some.

   I'm now using the tiny 1/2" toroids that come in the CFLs, as those do work very well, and can even light a gutted CFL bulb, as well as leds.  They will work fine on Jt circuits, Exciter circuits, etz... Drawing almost nothing, especially when connected to the garden lights solar panels.
HitmanMob1 has shown on his videos, how he was able to light 8 led bulbs, plus charge his laptop, using just 6 tiny solar panels from the garden lights, and a small transformer, and 6 volt battery. There is more to all this than voltage and current, as also the "frequency" used must be making this all possible.

   NickZ