Joule Thief

[jeanna]

you can take a toroid and apply ac voltage to the primary coil and then wind a secondary on the toroid to power something else. And that if it worked the device would have no effect on the main device or draw anymore power then what is being used to power the main AC device.

The joule thief creates ac. So, by wrapping a secondary around the toroid of the first joule thief you have an ac wire.

What I assume you have there is a really powerful one, because although I can't see the string of leds lit I assume they are??

I can not get 110 volts from my secondary yet, but MK1 can.

I am glad you brought this up.

Please show with a drawing what you are doing here? Is that plug on the table a free standing unit?or is it attached to the wall power.

Is that big toroid one that you paid $30 for? I guess if it is high flux and can do everything, it might be a good buy???
Thanks for sharing this with us.

Keep it coming,,, please.
thanks for doing this.

@All,
Last night, I was restoring my youtube lists from when I lost them earlier this year, and I came across a scopeshot from lidmotor where he adds a magnet to the toroid. The frequency immediately doubled.
That was very interesting. and
At the same time the volts dropped in half.
Hmm.
that was very very interesting, don't you think?

jeanna

the ou site seems to have caught on fire!
I kind of like the red.
I really like the pale grey background for the posts.

[altrez]

@jeanna

Here is a very crude drawing of the setup. So far I have only wound 30 turns on the pick up coil. And its hitting 7 volts when I rectify the DC! The primary is simply wrapped around with the wire from the lamp.

There is absolutely no effect on the amp draw of the lamp I have tested this 10 times with different configurations. The lamp is plugged into my test inverter. However it could run off mains just as well.

So far I have tested and noticed that as I add turns to the pickup coil I get more and more voltage that is to be expected. However it never adds any more draw to the  current that is already powering the lamp.

I think with enough turns this could produce some real power!

Neat stuff!

-Altrez

[altrez]

@jeanna

The string is Christmas lights that are being used to test the draw on the toroid when it is passing AC to see if there is any effect on them.

I am testing with the LED bank in the picture. I am sure I can hit way over 100 volts as soon as I wind the coil. And also it will not effect the primary circuit at all.

-Altrez

[xee2]

@ jeanna

These are the results I get by changing the capacitor across the base resistor. Notice that the capacitor produces an increase in output voltage from about 5 volts up to about 17 volts and also reduces the battery drain from about 10 ma to only about 0.2 ma. The LEDs were put in place of the voltmeter for the photos.


EDIT: I tried 9 LEDs in parallel and the results were not as expected. When voltmeter is replaced by LEDs in parallel the current drain on battery is increased. With one LED in place of the voltmeter, the battery drain is 1.4 mA. With nine LEDs in parallel in place of the voltmeter, the battery drain is 1.5 mA. These results are when using 106K base capacitor. The increase in battery drain seems to be a result of the LEDs limiting the voltage produced at the collector. When the voltmeter is replaced with seven LEDs in series, the battery drain is still about 0.21 mA. The seven LEDs in series are not very bright. But this is only about 0.21 mA / 7 = 0.03 mA per LED.

[Artic_Knight]

@ jeanna

These are the results I get by changing the capacitor across the base resistor. Notice that the capacitor produces an increase in output voltage from about 5 volts up to about 17 volts and also reduces the battery drain from about 10 ma to only about 0.2 ma. I took a photo with the 106K capacitor to show that even at 0.2 ma battery drain it lights an LED very bright. This photo was taken with the lights on and is dark because the camera tried to correct the exposure for the bright light coming from the LED. I am sure it will light many LEDs but I am not very motivated to spend any time proving it. I do not understand why you are getting different results. The LED was put in place of the voltmeter for the photo.

in this image the cap on the base will discharge through the resistor back to the cap thus wasting the current stored in the cap.

additionally i found that adding a 10uf cap in parellel with the battery had no affect on the draw. this doesnt make sense as there should be additional draw from the supply unless the joule theif has become saturated to the max. 

i have yet to figure out how to get the cap to aid this however imagine charging the cap while triggering the base from the current leaving the other end, then when it discharges have that filtered through the coils to increase the magnetic flux. 

i do not know how much work i will do on this particular project as the joule thief is a simple way to make hf pulse dc for me and nothing more.

this circuit is maddning with its complex behaviors and simple design.

@NOP i noticed a similiar behavior as to what you described with the cap. when i had it in parellel with a coil it smothed out the current however when i had it linking the 2 coils together it decreased current draw in the curcuit? how is that explained.

perhaps with the cap bridging the coils as defined prior by me falls under the allowing ac only? and if that is the case this is what we want and with a increase in frequency through a increase in the resistance on the base that should get the light output back up. perhaps adding a cap in parellel to the battery would help as well.

it would appear part of the current is becoming magnetic field, and then this magnetic field gets obsorbed by the coil and added to the dc current allready available thus creating the increase to 3v  essentially making the magnetic portion of this curcuit a capacitor of sorts