Joule Thief

[dasimpson]

if the jt unit relates to tranformers the more voltage you get the less ampage they will be
i also had very good results with the ac filter from psu's also

you should give the circuit i posted a try for control the on and off of the lights it works very well i have noticed it dose work better on 2.4 volt think that is because of the voltage drop of the tranasistor

[Pirate88179]

NZ:

Yes, those yellow toroids are not ferrite but powdered iron...totally different properties.  I have seen some folks make them work but, my best results have been with the high perm. ferrites.
Bill

[NickZ]

     All:
    Thanks for the info, Bill.  I had not even checked as people had mentioned that they thought they were ferrite.
In any case they seam to work well for me, and were free and available. 
  I'm sure that to get the most out of these circuits the higher perm ferrite toroids work the best.  But for what I needed them for, these seam to worked just fine. Just using one AA can make my Jtc using the Yellow toroids last for a couple of days, but one nights worth of full on led light each day, is all I need from them.
   Bill, Question...  Does using a secondary on the Jt coil and adding more leds, also increase the total load on the circuit, thus reducing the time and duty cycle on the battery???
                                                                         

[Pirate88179]

Nick:

Using the MK1 style winding, like Jeanna, and many others have done, allows many, many additional leds added to the secondary without and noticeable power drain increase or shortening of the battery life.  That is what is so good about that type of winding.

The light I made for my Mom used a 1" toroid (Ferrite, it is on my youtube videos) would burn an ultra bright led 24/7 for about 30 days.  and this was just a basic JT bifilar winding, not the MK1 version or anything fancy.  I also used "dead" batteries from my digital camera when the light went out, and still it lit for about 30 days. (give or take)

We decided not to call that a secondary but...pick-up coil.  and, others have discovered (Jeanna mostly) that you can ad an almost infinite number of pick-up cols and run leds off of them and it does NOT increase the amp draw, or dim the leds. This is, to me, part of the magic of these circuits.  This should not happen, yet it does, and has been replicated by many folks on here.  We, of course, are limited by space on the number of pick-up coils that can be wound on a toroid so, this was probably the reason to go to the larger diameter toroids.  More space.

Bill

[Groundloop]

Nick:

Using the MK1 style winding, like Jeanna, and many others have done, allows many, many additional leds added to the secondary without and noticeable power drain increase or shortening of the battery life.  That is what is so good about that type of winding.

The light I made for my Mom used a 1" toroid (Ferrite, it is on my youtube videos) would burn an ultra bright led 24/7 for about 30 days.  and this was just a basic JT bifilar winding, not the MK1 version or anything fancy.  I also used "dead" batteries from my digital camera when the light went out, and still it lit for about 30 days. (give or take)

We decided not to call that a secondary but...pick-up coil.  and, others have discovered (Jeanna mostly) that you can ad an almost infinite number of pick-up cols and run leds off of them and it does NOT increase the amp draw, or dim the leds. This is, to me, part of the magic of these circuits.  This should not happen, yet it does, and has been replicated by many folks on here.  We, of course, are limited by space on the number of pick-up coils that can be wound on a toroid so, this was probably the reason to go to the larger diameter toroids.  More space.

Bill

Hi Bill,

Where do I find information about the "MK1 style winding"?

Regards,
Alex.