Joule Thief

[protonmom]

Why is ONE person allowed to hijack this thread, when others have been told to stay on topic many times over?  I do not come here to OU to learn about Obama or Anti Obama.  We all have our opinions about the guy but this is NOT the place to air them.
A new thread should be started for those interested in "discussing" the issue of Obama.
I thought this thread was supposed to be about the joule thief only.  Was I mistaken?

[Pirate88179]

Why is ONE person allowed to hijack this thread, when others have been told to stay on topic many times over?  I do not come here to OU to learn about Obama or Anti Obama.  We all have our opinions about the guy but this is NOT the place to air them.
A new thread should be started for those interested in "discussing" the issue of Obama.
I thought this thread was supposed to be about the joule thief only.  Was I mistaken?

Hey, its no big deal.  But yes, you are mistaken as there were at least 4 of us discussing this topic, not one person as you said.  Throughout this entire topic we have, from time to time, strayed to a topic that was of some importance to several of the members.  I see no problem with that.

I agree that this should not be turned into a political discussion topic, but I have no fears of that happening.  As you said, anyone can open a new topic for that.  This was just a few of the longtime members of this group exchanging some information and opinions.  I think you will see that we will now be back on topic so, no worries.

Bill

[protonmom]

@Bill
I meant ONE person who OPENED the Obama topic.  I realize there were several who were in the discussion.  Glad to hear the thread will now be back to the joule thief.

[crowclaw]

Hi All
Not meaning to get back on topic..oh yeah I am.

I have a AA Kodak board and have a 240v 7w CFL unmodified running from it sorta, it is bright and has a high flicker rate sort of strobe like.
any of you experienced guys know why this is happening and is there a way to correct this, I have a feeling it may be due to the transformer being a little under powered,or the cfl may need modding, but thats just an uneducated guess, when I connect a  flicker flame globe to the same board it works very well, but cfl's I have problems getting a steady light, any one had this problem or know why this is occuring.

Wayne.

Hi Wayne

These boards operate at a far higher frequency than the 50Hz/60Hz that the CFL's are designed to work at... Bill was correct in suggesting a frequency problem. Depending on the circuit differences of these designs differing results and effects occur when attempting to operate an unmodified CFL.  Results will vary from either not working at all... to attempting to strike up (rapid flickering effect) You can get a reasonable light from them though by dismantling and removing the circuit board completely and drive the tube directly!!  In one of my earlier posts you can see how I held a CFL lit up by a camera flash board and  AA cell all built into the base.  Makes for a brilliant party trick...the amazing hand held lamp without wires!! 

[electricme]

Hi All,

Hmmmm OK, if everyone agrees there has been a good number of opinions expressed in the above posts, and perhaps we can all take a quiet time out (me to) and put this "topic" to bed.

It was me, electricme who started the thing about the obama certificate and I can see I opened a can of worms, so I apologise for side tracking the forum, and I would now like to suggest it be closed and we can all get back into making the Joule Thief again and it's associated circuits.

jim
***************

@ Wayne,

The flicker flame bulb works on the same principle as the neon bulb, it takes at least 90 volts to light the electrode, your electronics is now putting out enough elect to do this. The flickering tells me the voltage builds up then strikes the neon (turns it on), then the voltage is used up and it turns off, the charge rebuilds, the neon lights and this continues adinfinatum. To get the neon to stay on, you need to switch it faster or put more juice into the circuit.
If you have an adjustable power supply there, try increasing the input battery voltage to 2 volts, or reducing the cap to a very low value one.

Use a ceramic pF cap, see if that works

jim