Joule Thief

[TinselKoala]

Is that actually a 12 volt battery you have there, or am I missing a decimal point somewhere?

I am amazed and curious both at once, that you need a 12 volt battery to light up an LED, when most of us are doing it with well under one volt, and only slightly more current than your diagram indicates.

Still, it's interesting and I'm sure some folks will build it.

[petersone]

Hi TK
I sent you a private message, did you receive it ok?
peter

[callanan]

Is that actually a 12 volt battery you have there, or am I missing a decimal point somewhere?

I am amazed and curious both at once, that you need a 12 volt battery to light up an LED, when most of us are doing it with well under one volt, and only slightly more current than your diagram indicates.

Still, it's interesting and I'm sure some folks will build it.

Sorry to jump in here. I will leave you kind folk to do as you have been doing. Watts the point...

[hoptoad]

Hi All, I am curious at the various levels of amazement that is shown by many at being able to light LEDs with very low power levels.
Please see the following circuit, which may amaze some of you. Transistor can be 2N2222 or any similar equivalent.
Regards,
Ossie

Hi Callanan, forgive me if I'm wrong but I believe I built one of your circuits posted on the stiffler thread about 2 years ago.
It worked great. My slightly different circuit (I used a standard am radio ferrite core with coils) only consumed around 3 u/Amps
at 9 Volts, powering 5 very brightly lit pairs of leds. (10 leds) I'm still quite astounded when I think about it!
I will try to find the circuit and post it here.

However, I'm also very cautious of trying to use the current (and voltage) measurements to accurately determine power delivered (consumed). That's because the circuit was oscillating in the MHz range, and was in effect, a low powered near field radio transmitter.

The problem with that is, much of the batteries potential energy which in most circuits is normally consumed kinetically in the form of current, is lost instead through radio frequency photon emission throughout the whole circuit. Below infra red, the term photon isn't generally used, but the dual particle / wave theorem still applies, as it does to the whole electromagnetic spectrum.

The electromagnetic (photonic) emission is diffused throughout the entire circuit, including from the battery itself, so measuring current only shows a small proportion of the kinetic power consumption through a cross section of the conductor, and not the kinetic energy emitted radially from the conductor at 90 degrees to the current.

Still, it was a fun, easy to build circuit. I linked up 20 pairs of leds (40 leds), each pair of leds connected as avremenko plugs, in a series daisy chain arrangement, and the current remained around the 20 - 25 uA range, depending on where I touched the circuit while it was on.

Cheers

[totoalas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR7dEJtP79A