Joule Thief

[electricme]

@ MrMag
Thanks for the input, but I gess I really need a circuit of the actual CFL that Bill had troubles with, so Bill have you got the circuit or do you know if there is a http address where I could get hold of it?

@bill (and others)
BTW many years ago I did a TV course on Studio lighting, and one of the things I learnt was D65 which is the frequency of light we get from the sun. A mixture of all colours that make up white light as we see without effort.

The fluros and white LEDs don't put out this frequency, so our eyes struggle to adjust to the "white" light.
The older 40W fluros had a different phosphor formula to glow at this frequency, but because the "white" was "deemed" to be not so brighter, it went to brighter than white. A bit like marketing for washing the clothes, one brand makes the wash brighter.
So since marketing came on the bandwagon, (more dollars and profit) the output was altered to reflect that.

You can see what I mean by comparing the output of a tungston globe to the CFL light.
I see certain brands have cottoned onto this and are making efforts to produce CFL at "daylight" outputs.
If someone has a bunch of yellow LEDs and a mechanics LED torch light, try swapping 1/3rd of the ultra bright white LEDs for the yellow ones. When you use it, whatever you look at seems to be easier on the eyes. Its a light spectrum thing.

If you go to a butcher shop and look in the meat display cabinet, the meat looks red, if there is fish in the same cabinet, the fish dosent look so good, If you look under the top of the display cabinet, the fluro tubes look "different". These are specially designed to "enhance" the look of the red meat, tricking you that the meat product is better than excellent, ha, lots of light frequencies to trick us up.

If you take a ordinary garden LED solar light, a high white LED and a orange LED one and compair them at night, you can bet london to a brick that you will be able to see further with the yellow/orange unit than the Ultra White ones.

Street lights, the Mercury Vapor light puts out bright white light.
The Lo/Hi pressure sodium lamp puts out a yellow orange light which "seems" to go further.
Its a frequency thing our eyes work best below the ultra white light, better towards the yellow end of the light spectrim.

With that merry xmas all, I will sign off for a few days.
jim
electricme
   

[Freezer]

If you take a ordinary garden LED solar light, a high white LED and a orange LED one and compair them at night, you can bet london to a brick that you will be able to see further with the yellow/orange unit than the Ultra White ones.

I have to kindly disagree.   If this was true they would construct led flashlights using yellow/orange leds rather than white.  No disrespect, it's just that I've been a long time flashlight freak, and actually have tried many spectrums of leds in flashlights and the warmer spectrum doesn't do so good. I agree it might be harsher than the warm spectrum, but as far as illumination distance and viewing the whites win.  The colored leds will most of the time not appear as bright, simply because of the surrounding pigments, although the human eye responds to green the best.  It might work well in a foggy atmosphere though, due to the longer wavelength.  Objects under my led lamp do look very different from traditional lights as you stated, I've looked at some foods with it, and I was shocked at how different it looked. Avocados look weird..

I will buy some of the other style but I am still going to make a few on my own if I can.  I can see it now...."Fire Marshall traces origin of fire to strange contraption stuck in light socket."  Hopefully not.
Bill

Might want to take a look at this site.  They have great stuff.  They have a big variety of led parts, including 10,20 and even 50w leds.  They also have the smaller cree emitters which are some of the best leds at that power range.  This is the only store I've found that actually sells tritium vials to the us.  There is a work around as you can get larger tritium vials through exit signs.    Imagine a huge wall of tritium paired with a 100% efficient printable solar panel. I've been wondering if that would actually work?
http://www.dealextreme.com/products.dx/category.917

You might want to shop around a bit, as I haven't checked if that's the cheapest place to buy them.  I know luxeon is kind of expensive all around.

[Pirate88179]

Hey:

I just lit up 2 40 watt tubes end to end here!!!!  I have more pics and will post.  all still from the single AA battery!!!

Bill  ***EDIT***  I forgot to add this.  I could not get the second tube (the one on the left) to light completely.  If you look close, there is a very strong neo magnet on the right end of the left tube.  I started out on the left end of the left tube and moved the magnet along the length and the light followed it.  So, for the pictures, I left the magnet sitting on the right end of the left tube on top.

[Pirate88179]

More pics.....

I still think these get brighter the more I add. Is this a new record?  I can't believe this.

Bill

[Cap-Z-ro]

Thats really impressive Bill...have you tried connecting the end terminal of the second tube back around to the first tube...mabye using a diode ?

Regards...