Joule Thief

[xee2]

@ ist

@ xee2

i do have a question bout your neon with 20 turns

and that would be why are you only lighting HALF OF IT ?   

I do not think only half of it is being lit. But, it is whatever it is. I have no explaination, these are the results.

[innovation_station]

ok lets take a closer look at the picture somthing can be learned here ..

look at the prongs on the neon ...  only 1 side glows real brightly

ist

im gonna re post your picture 

this means your missing the other half    please play with some diodes aswell to trap the other half or consider a mk2 winding ...   

both prongs can glow the same bright as the 1 i have done this in the past but i cant remember when or where i have done toooo many things to remember all of them ..

[xee2]

@ ist

You have good eyes. I set this up and looked at the neon, and you are correct. Only one electrode is lit. This seems reasonable since the current from the pickup coil only has a high voltage in one direction.

[jeanna]

@ist,
Didn't Artic Knight tell us that neons are often used to determine when the full AC is in a line? And that was because only one side glows at a time.

I have seen a neon get so bright I thought it was lit on both sides, but on closer inspection (carefully) it was not so, in fact only one side was lit, but it seemed to spread over to the other side.

But it is very clear on the scope that the circuit xee2 posted which was able to light a neon, was only making verrry skinny occasional spikes in one direction.

I propose asking if it actually matters.

Since the spike is measured over time, and 1 thousand pulses is  lot of pulses... in one second of time, maybe we do not need to care.

Who knows it may even make it more efficient.
Maybe those occasional high and fast pulses are enough to do the work, and the rest of the time the battery is not being used.(?) except, unfortunately for the transistor.

Anyway, I think these are useful things to ponder. I like that you brought it up.


@xee2
BTW, I did put the other wire of the secondary into the neg side of the battery when starting the fluorescent tube.
I measured the amps draw, and it went down at the times I had the connection to secondary made.
The difference was small, like 1mA or 0.1mA but it was consistent.
The same thing happened when I touched the secondary to the pos side but about half as much.

@jesus,
What do you think about making your self charging arrangements connect to the negative side of the battery, rather than the positive? (I mean between the Emitter and the battery?)

thank you,

jeanna

[xee2]

@ ist

Putting a diode in series with the neon produces the same results with the diode in either direction. So it seems that the pickup coil voltage can go either way, but not both ways at once. Very strange.

EDIT: measusements with diode and capacitor show voltage is much higher for current in one direction than the other.

EDIT 2: the negative electrode glows