Joule Thief

[jeanna]

I got it to work with 3 led banks plus a second battery that's being charged at the same time!

Well, all right!!

The lights are really weak now and the main battery is down to .317v under load.

I think the FEQ has something major to play here I am just not sure what?

Now that you can look at it with the scope, have a peek. You can see what the frequency is doing as well as the voltage when you connect a new pickup

Here, try this.

Clip the scope to the ends of a pickup.
Now, put the wires of the other pickup on those leds and watch what happens to the volts and to the frequency. (and the shape of the wave too.)

Since you have another pickup, do it again. and again.

Please report the results.

I wonder if I hooked a second ...

Oh how I love this thread! Try it and please report!

thank you,

jeanna

[Pirate88179]

@ Jeanna:

We all love you too.  We are very, very glad you are here.

Bill

[TheNOP]

i was thinking about what i said earlier about a cap being use as a current limiter device.
that made me remember that that behavior is frequency related and also dependent of it.

the higher the frequency, the more energy the capacitor will deal with.
at each cycle, the energy of the cap is changing, twice for ac, once for pulsed DC.
if the cap value is 10uF, the cap is letting 20uA per cycle for AC and 10uA for pulsed DC.

ex: for 60Hz AC, a cap of 10uF will allow 10 * 120 = 1200uA per second
for 60Hz pulsed DC, same cap value, 10 *60 = 600uA
you can calculate for a frequency of 10k 
note that the actual current circulating in your circuit might, or will, be limited by what your source can provide.

where i am going with this ?
first lets talk about parasitic effects.

everythings that let electricity through it have what is call parasitic capacitance and parasitic inductance to some degre.
wires, coils, antennas, neons, cfls, conducting surfaces, etc...

they are called parasitic because they are unwanted effects in most applications.
also because normaly those effect are very very very small.

some of you might have already guessed, those effects are frequency related.
the higher the frequency, the higher those parasitic effects are getting bigger.

some might remember what i have said about capacitive coupling. when powering leds, neon and cfls with only one wire.
my above explanation of parasitic capacitance apply to that phenomena of single wire power.

that parasitic capacitance and capacitive coupling can even be pushed further and power things without any wire being used.
it is as simple as having the proper potential difference between 2 points in space at the right frequency.

[altrez]

@all

So far I have been running two JT's and recharging the main battery for about 1 hour. It has some very odd results. Battery's drain faster then charge faster about the same rate. Lights dim quickly then get bright again.

I am running a neon on one and 10 leds plus a battery charge on the other JT.

I also have a set of rails + - running from one JT to the other. Its a mess but It seems to be doing something.

-Altrez

[jeanna]

Thanks Bill.

Interesting thoughts theNOP. I gather one implication from this is that these parasytic devices CAN operate at very small currents, so let's push this a bit more...

So, Altrez
How are these 2 jts connected. I assume you are running them both from 1 battery and they are using the same pos and neg battery to start?

2 jt's means 2 transistors as well as 2 toroids, I guess.

Please explain how they are connected. (I know it is hard, the 2 tier is a bear to describe.)
Is it this?

I wonder if I hooked a second JT to the battery that is being charged and then ran its secondary coils into another bank of leds would it work?

And if so would it run for the time of 1 battery or two? Or could you keep flopping the battery's around for the time < total power of two charged batters or would it run longer?

thank you,

jeanna