Joule Thief

[jeanna]

Gary,
Yes, it could be the inductors that are smoothing the spikes, but I have seen that caps and LEDs will do this too, so I am hoping that the inductors will keep doing the good spikes.
I probably doesn't matter what is doing it, unless by recognizing the culprit, it could be avoided.

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I went to walmart camping dept today.

the local substation was hit and the power was out all day. I needed some more propane, and while I was there I noticed quite a few led camping lights.

I wonder if the 6 volt fluorotube has a toroid or radioactive ballast in it?

I brought home a tent lamp which is a ring of 24 leds.
I think one or 2 people here have shown this.

It was easy to get apart but to my great dismay I found that all the leds are in parallel and the 4 AA powersource delivers 200mA.
Now, at first I thought no wonder these things stop working within 6 weeks.

I noticed a very tiny black thing soldered in line on the pos rail-ring. I believe it is a diode.

I wonder about this diode thing. In those 70 leds I bought last spring, the lights work fine with the ac wall line, but they are very dim with the secondary.
This ring light showed the same behavior.
It was terribly bright with 4 batteries, I shorted across various batteries and 3 AA's dropped the amps to 108mA which is still much too high for a led, but when I dropped it to 2 AA's it only drew 3.8mA which is very dim. It is OK, for area lighting, and more than a nightlight because there are 24 of them, but how did the amps draw diminish so much?

It was when I looked really close because of this question and I saw the very tiny black item with 270 printed on it, that I connected the dots to the string of leds.

These must also be diodes and their purpose must be to limit the amps somewhere, although this does not seem to be what it is doing.

I would love some help with this.
Is there any one who has any idea what is going on here?

The 2 circuits have in common that when a secondary with high voltage high frequency low amperage is connected, the lights are very dim.
I needed more than 250volts to light up the string and even then only half of it lit up.
In this ring, the secondary just makes a very dim light of all these leds.

The other thing is that the switch seems to make a stronger diminishing of the light.
I don't really want to destroy the switch until the last choice, if possible, but maybe it is the switch that drops the amperage from 108 to 3.8 with 1/3 the power.
I would have to think that 1/3 of the amps draw which would be 30mA would be perfect, so what gives here?

Any ideas?

thank you,

jeanna

[freepow]

  Thanks, I just lit my first ever small 240 VAC fluoro with 1-AA battery and a 3055 and two other small parts and a 1.5 inch toroid wound with 2,10 turn bif and (80-turn secondary actually connected to circuit), also I used a 1k pot to fine tune.

I have measured 315-316 Volts on this circuit, now my next experiment is to light a larger fluoro...say a
20 watter, but I will try and try to go to the upper limits of my 2n2222 to try to light small fluoro.

[resonanceman]

Thanks, I just lit my first ever small 240 VAC fluoro with 1-AA battery and a 3055 and two other small parts and a 1.5 inch toroid wound with 2,10 turn bif and (80-turn secondary actually connected to circuit), also I used a 1k pot to fine tune.

I have measured 315-316 Volts on this circuit, now my next experiment is to light a larger fluoro...say a
20 watter, but I will try and try to go to the upper limits of my 2n2222 to try to light small fluoro.

Great work Freepow


You might try  the  core from a flyback  transformer

The  pictures  are of   a JT  I made  with  a flyback transformer  core .
I  used 2  spools of the  green  radio  shack wire and   one  spool of  the copper colored wire .
For these pictures  the  green wires are  in parallel .
The  primary  is MK2  1 and 3 wraps per  side .



The  extra  coils  are  for  flyback and   feedback .
The  difference  between the pictures is   one  coil  wired differently .
The  CFL   is 25 Watt   
The  transistor  is  a 3055
Maybe   you can get it  to work  with  a  smaller  transistor .


gary

[resonanceman]

Freepow

You might  try  making  a Jesus Charger

I keep  mine hooked  up to my 3055 board all the time.

One of the things  that i really like about the Jesus Charger is that it  is a great way to  connect feedback .   I just  connect all my  feedback  across the cap  in the Jesus  Charger .

The  charger I use is  Improvment 1

gary

Edit

I  do not  connect  my Jesus  Charger   like in the  diagram
I connect it  directly  across the  battery .

[xee2]

my next experiment is to light a larger fluoro...say a
20 watter, but I will try and try to go to the upper limits of my 2n2222 to try to light small fluoro.

Most people have found that if the circuit will light the 4W tube it will also light a 20W tube.