Joule Thief

[electricme]

@Jeanna,
Back on P524 you mentioned something about a pure sine wave.

I'm not sure if you know this but to get a pure sine wave out of a single 1.5v DC battery, using a single transistor is a very big achievement, so you have my congradulations.
See if the same waveform exists on your scope by changing the transistor to a different one of the same value and type.

If we can now take a look at the UPS power supply, the first ones were square waves which were inverted, then the waveforms started looking like a staircase, then as progress was made they eventually became heeps of tiny squarewaves to look like a sine wave.

Well done Jeanna.

jim
   

[hazens1]

Wow Hazens1, this is great. It is so bright!
Have you tried these non rectified?
I think they should work without the rectifier. I am curious.

Yes, I've tried without the rectifier and it still works. Slightly less bright though.

Here is an update with 96 LEDs in series. I switched out my rechargeable for an almost dead alkaline at 1.15 volts. Now, I'm really out of breadboard realestate    but I know it will do more 

I have a toast 12v Lead Acid motorcycle battery from my 1985 Honda Shadow 500 VTC. I believe it won't take a charge anymore because of sulfation buildup. I'm going to try hooking this circuit up to it to see if I can fix it.

Edit:
Added some more pics with the room lights dimmed. First 2 lights on, second 2 lights dimmed. Last one is a bonus pic 

[resonanceman]

@all,
You are all doing excellent work here, puts me to shame with my lack of posting, but I just did something which took over a week to do.

This is not related to the actual Joule Thief itself but it could be.


My Accedential Experimental Battery Recovery Experiment.

I got myself 2 x 12v 12AH Gell cells from my local scrap place, it turned out 1 was OK, but the other Gell cell batt just wouldn't take a charge, no matter how much I abused it. Read trying to pump in a 12v batt a charge of up to 28volts.

So I took off (prized) all the access covers, and put in 20mm of water in each cell.
Still no go, it wouldnt charge.
Then I added about 60mm of hot water to each cell from the tap, now it began to recharge, but only to about 5volts.

Then I boiled the billy, got the water stinking hot, filled the syerange and put some more "HOT HOT water" in each cell.
Well well well, the battery recovered, it came right up to full voltage, at a charge rate of 13.1 volts at half an amp.

I can only assume, the hot water was the key to break down the sulfation on the plates.
BOILING WATER, be careful with it.

jim

Jim


There is another way to   recondition  old batterys

Here  is  a link for  the booklet that I  learned  it from .
http://www.eagle-research.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=35
It  has been years  sense I bought  the  booklet ........I can't find it any more.  ....... I think  this  site is  worth supporting .
This  site was  the  first  place  I   learned  about open  source .





I  have  made   several  recoditioners  and   used them for   years .
I  recondition the battery in my var a couple times  a year . .. 

Basicly    the  reconditioner  is   just  a  capacitor  and bridge
The  idea  is to  provide  a  low power  pulsing  DC  current   
The size of the  cap is  important ....  it must be small enough  to  avoid  creating bubles  as it charges . ....... 

I  reconditioned   a  sealed lead acid battery from a UPS that had  been  sitting in storage for  years .
It  was down to .4 V 
It  took  several  weeks  with a .1uF  cap to  get it   up to normal  voltage ......it has  been OK  for  over  a year now .
I am currently  testing  the  charger on NiCads  ...... one  of my 18 V Dewalt   batterys   is  shot ..........It had only used them  a couple times in the last few years ........... one  is holding  a charge pretty good .........the other   will not longer  take a charge from  its charger .........it tries  a couple of minutes then   flashes  an error signal ..... 

I will let you k know if  the battery  recovers . .... it is making  very slow progress  so far .


gary

[Artic_Knight]

@ Jenna,

Great work on those super brights!

@ All

i think i have a different Ocilating curcuit to try, ill give it a go sometime and report news if any is worth reporting. basically the transistor is leaky and wastes current, what i would like to see is all the current 100% ocilated (no steady current mixed with variable current) i have had no luck eleminating the steady currents that leave the transistor to the battery. this curcuit might do it since it should eliminate the transister all together. the rig is basically the same that we have been using however one of the 2 orig coils will be tied to a cap only, when the battery is turned on the magnetism produced will charge the cap and when able to do so will create a reverse burst of magnetism stopping the flow.  hopfully it works as well as i want .

the trouble with this curcuit is we will need to add a step up transformer after getting the current to oscilate.

[resonanceman]

Great work  hazens1





gary