Joule Thief

[Mk1]

@all

Any of you know what rochelle salt is ?

http://rimstar.org/materials/piezo/rochelle1.htm

It was the crystal used in the head of those old record player , on the net you will easily find that they generate energy when under pressure , i wonder if we could just pulse them !

[jeanna]

...but i see a future where some more steps will be needed going beyond cfl and leds.

You know Mark,

In a world where there are no lightbulbs, the night time light is the most important thing by far.

Gadget must live for small periods without electricity and I used to live in an area so rural that when 100 trees fell in a big storm it might take over a week for the lines to be cleared. It is really important to be able to see at night. And without the air pollution of the candles or oil burning for light. Both are hydrocarbons and both are in the enclosed space of your house.

The fridge and the toaster and dvd player are all important to a degree, but the lighting really IS the most important.

Now, the teleportation machine is high on my list of up and coming, so don't get me wrong here, I just want to add this perspective of the ultimate importance of having the lights on at night..

jeanna

edit

Any of you know what rochelle salt is ?

http://rimstar.org/materials/piezo/rochelle1.htm

It was the crystal used in the head of those old record player , on the net you will easily find that they generate energy when under pressure , i wonder if we could just pulse them !

All sorts of info is on the Hutchison crystal battery thread in the "other batteries section" right next to Stubblefield battery.

[gadgetmall]

OK gadget,
I was about to post to xee that there is one cap he has missed in his drawing. I was trying to redraw it for myself and I saw this, and I cannot finish until it is clarified either.

Now your hand drawn has only 2 caps in the output part also?? ??

Plus I can't follow what that means, "separated and joined in the middle".
I can't do that one at all! 

please help!

thanks,
jeanna

Ok i have two caps in parallel on My cucirt atthe end/ I noticed a bit more output with two on top of each other . As far as that goldmine inductor coil . think of it as one coil and just spread the middle a bit.Thats all . a little space in the middle . Its really two small coils joined in the middle and  now we have one coil

[gadgetmall]

@all

Any of you know what rochelle salt is ?

http://rimstar.org/materials/piezo/rochelle1.htm

It was the crystal used in the head of those old record player , on the net you will easily find that they generate energy when under pressure , i wonder if we could just pulse them !

Mk1 Hey . I still need what you offered . Non of my Mk design work because none of My good torroids will work with three and 4 turns .  or 3 and 7  . they work fine at 11  and 11 up but i get no volts except the way i did it on this last one . With out the darlington 104 cap at the base  and output circuit i get 60-80 volts with a diode and cap and 2n3904 . so those parts make all the difference . good thing is the low input so far on the darlington to make it amplify !
Gadget .

[Pirate88179]

Rochelle salt is a pizo electric, just like tourmaline and a few others.  I believe it is the cheapest and easiest to come by.  Pizo material is very weird.  We used to machined large disks of the stuff for a military application.  To hold it on our magnetic chucks on the surface grinders we would wax it to precision ground steel plates.  Well, to wax it you have to heat it.  Evidently, when you heat this stuff, it builds up a charge.  We found out the hard way.  Then, we discovered that, if you discharge it when it is hot, when it cools, it builds up another like charge.  We learned the hard way once again.  the material supplier warned us about this later (too late) and said these were capable of putting out over 3,000 volts in a single discharge.  No wonder it hurt.  Yes, I was the one that learned these lessons the hard way.  I don't recall the name of the composition but we just called it pizo material.

Bill