Is joule thief circuit gets overunity?

[TinselKoala]

@tk well if you touch one prickprong lead of your microampmeter to the black half(+) and the other to the grey area(-) you should register a continuous non-stop current.i did this years ago but didnt think anything of it then but now i want to try it again but ive got no tantalums at hand.i just want to know if you get same result and it wasnt an error on my part.the current was much larger with the sliced cap than the closed cap(which just showed capacitance current as opposed to continuous current)

OK, I'll try it, although I really don't have what I would consider the appropriate meter here for this test, but I do have a 100 uA moving-coil meter I could try. To avoid me chopping up too many of my expensive tantalum caps, do you have a suggestion as to the capacitance and voltage ratings of the cap I should destroy for you? I have a fair assortment of values, and I have some of each type: radial-lead "droplets" and also some axial-lead cylinders.

[profitis]

@tk it was one of those square ones that one finds en mass on the power circuitboards of pc harddrives.they are each about the size of a pinkie-fingernail.those are the ones i tried but if you have larger ones at your disposal it would be better i assume.your analog microampmeter is perfect for the job.tell me what you see on your meter pls tk.

[bryanwizard]

i replicate JT several times and found out that Eff is less 80%.
similar topology like the boost converter.

[TinselKoala]

@tk it was one of those square ones that one finds en mass on the power circuitboards of pc harddrives.they are each about the size of a pinkie-fingernail.those are the ones i tried but if you have larger ones at your disposal it would be better i assume.your analog microampmeter is perfect for the job.tell me what you see on your meter pls tk.

Hmmm. I'm not familiar with that type, and I'm not going to tear apart a hard drive looking for one. A SMD, I suppose from your description. All the tants I have are the droplet or tubular types, but I have a wide range of capacitances, from 0.1 uF to 33 uF or so. Presumably higher capacitance would be better for this experiment.

[TinselKoala]

i replicate JT several times and found out that Eff is less 80%.
similar topology like the boost converter.

Yep. But if your input power is free, and would be wasted if you didn't harvest it somehow.... that's good, right? And even 80 percent is pretty good if your input power is free, because...well... your input power was free. If it really is, that is. Maybe a "forever light" needs a chemical bias source that remains at 0.45 volts in order to be able to continue to harvest electrosmog for long periods of time or something, and the chemical source's voltage need not be depleted, as long as the power through the system is coming from the electrosmog.
Like the spring on a screen door. You only have to do work against it once, to open the door and prop it open with a rock. Then the flies can come and go as they please through the open door.
Experiments can be done to rule out all of these hypotheses, and finally the real explanation for Lawrence's "forever light" will emerge.