Joule Thief

[jeanna]

...
in the whole building this circuit.. i had in my mind that i would be able to recover the bemf back to the cap.. but i have yet to find any
this being weird for me cause i have built a bunch of 12v ign coil pulser... with bemf enough to pop a 200v 12a mosfet....?
well now i am pulsing a coil with 300+ volts with no bemf??

I think you are seeing the bemf. The proof is in the lights.
Neons need over 120v pulsed to light and I think I see a lot of neons!!

You have considerable output in your circuit.
Once you use the output it is no longer available for use.
I believe if you could get the frequency up a bit, the lights would appear to be staying on. (Bill said this, I agree.)

many of thanks to jeanna and mk1 cause i wouldn't be able to charge this cap
w/o the toroid setup

Thanks kooler, I am really glad to hear this has helped someone.

so what you think of the emf thing
i know the scr opens and closes much sharper than a transistor
but wouldn't that cause more bemf

What if you remove one or 2 of those lights? do the others get brighter?
I think you need to find the bemf. You are certainly producing it every time the pulse goes through any inductor in your series of inductors; and if you do not find it and capture it, it will radiate and dissipate.

I was too close to it when I was working with my circuit for a long time. Now, I am thinking that my process was exactly what I just described.
I had the advantage of the scope and I could see what area was showing me volts enough to light another led.

The wonderful part is that most of the time when I focused on that spot, I not only found the bemf and put it to use, I often found more than I expected.
I only need about 5 volts to light up a led, so if I have 30v and cannot light an led, I know it is going where I am not looking.

In limiting the amounts of voltage in my circuit, I am able to observe small but meaningful changes.
So, if I observe as little as 5 more volts, I know I have done something.
If, like you, I needed to add 120v before I knew I had something, then I might have missed some clues.
But then YOU have managed to light a STRING of neons! this is astonishing.

And since you have found a way to get the filament lights, this means you have also found a way to get heaters to turn on.
If it can pulse at a frequency to warm up a filament of a heater from a 1.2v battery, you have done something great...wow!

So,
Please continue.
Find another space that doesn't bother people's ears, and carry on.

I will be doing some more at the lower voltages because that is what works for me.

jeanna

[jeanna]

I have used frosting aerosal spray, it's ideal for diffusing Led's... just spray it on and let it dry.

I am not a shopper and I have no idea what this is!

Is it a christmas thing?

thank you,

jeanna

edit
@IST found the motherload! 
good job.
recover recycle!
j

[innovation_station]

well

i atacked 4 rf amps i have now over 1 ounce of gold ..  and there is still a few ounces left in just those 4 amps who would a thought ...... 

ist!


i have 15 more to dissassemble ..

those are only the male ends i have still all the female ends in the amps 4 per amp .. wow!

btw there is no way in heck i can get it to stick to a magnet .. aside crazy glue ..

even 15 bucks a gram .. well worth my time ..

[crowclaw]

I think it will work with high current pulses . . Maybe not But i could try to do your first stage and check it out . I need more than 5 ma i get now . It charges it but takes a day . If i had 20 ma it would cut the time considerable . I need to play with My Hv flyback and see if the cap will convert it first i guess . if it does then a spark gap charger with high current pulses might work , i think  ? no ? HAve any of yu tried to charge a 10f to 30 supercap up ? or just a plain electrolytic  ?

Hi Gadgett,
The problem with charging caps is their capacitance value! basically the lower value caps will charge up very quickly but are useless to power anything as they discharge very quickly. Super caps/ultra caps will charge over time but need some current restriction otherwise their initial current demand is far to high for your present design to deliver. Think along the lines of a power transformer  e.g.110v input/ 12volts output, primary will have more turns, secondary winding will have less with far heavier gauge copper wire to deliver high current at low voltage. You may be able to produce a high voltage spark with a fair crack but you haven't got enough current to do anything really usefull with as the impedance or DC resistance due to the windings is to high. The thing to remember here is that LED's are basically high impedance and will give a good light output for only a few milliamps of input current. Again a CFL (tube only) requires a high voltage to light the tube, but the current is negligible. So to charge cells and caps quickly you need low volts and high Ma/amps. Otherwise it can take hours and hours, you also need to monitor your source currents while experimenting. You can quickly discharge AA's etc. which can diffeat the object of your projects.   

[xee2]

@ kooler

Some spark photos. Video attached. These are with a 2 uF capacitor and 4 neons.