Joule Thief

[jeanna]

@Stprue, first, I will ask a few questions.

You have 4 separate pickup wires made for each pickup. I mean instead of wrapping tha red pickup with 4 turns you wound it separately 4 times?
I am not sure why there are so many except they might go in opposite directions?

Also, you are not using the transistor base as a switch but instead you are using the emitter. Is that right?
I mean there is no resistor on the base of the transistor so there is no switch control at the base.
Instead you are controlling the switching at the emitter. I guess this will shut down the transistor in a similar way.

I will need to make and tune a big toroid for this.
Making it in the MK2x way.
I do not have one like that at the moment.

I also do not have those caps or that bridge.
I suspect you are getting a lot of your effect from this part of your circuit.

It is strange that it can light a neon but doesnot immediately blow a led.

jeanna

[Mk1]

@all

I have conducted two test on the quad leaf.

The jt coils are each 4 turns one coil on top of the other , works with out caps 1k resistor .

First , i wound two of the toroid with 20 turns of 22 gauge bell wire.

I have selected two touching toroid , lets say north and east .


Test 1: voltage one 20 turns 50 volts .

Test 2 : check voltage under load , to see if the toroid would behave in the same way.

To do this i have on pickup coil connected to the voltmeter (with bridge) and the other pickup coil located on the second toroid charging a cap , and lighting a led.

Result , and important the led works fine on one pickup coil and the second pickup coil still shows 50 volts .

This is great !

Next step , will be to get a better voltage from tuning of the jt coils.

Also testing a coil web going form one toroid to the other making it a 3d ball , this will need a picture .

Mark

[kamax]

@jeanna
When i talk about opposite side(wire) from the input of a coil i mean on a normal joule thief toroide, if you have a red and black wire around the toroide, you must take the black on one side and the red but on the other end of the winding.
And the same side is red and black wire from the beginning of the winding.

Sorry if i don't explain very well, english is not my main language.

The crystal coil was in parallel to the toroide output but as say previously you can just put a led between the toroide output. with + side on transistor/collector and - side before the resistor and toroide.

I'm curious if someone notice the same current drop.

[freepow]

  Hello Jeanna, I am knew to this site, please could you send me a simple joule thief diagram powered by 1-aa  that can light a fluoro, i have 2n3904 or 2n2222 transistors, I want to make AC to power fluoro's, please send to my e-mail treefern1@bigpond.com.au, thanks

[jeanna]

@Kamax,
Thank you for your explanation.
I think you are using the joule thief in the normal way from this last description.
Many of us have noticed that we use fewer amps with more leds on a joule thief. I believe we only noticed it when we used a secondary/ or/ pickup as we decided to call it.

And, as you described, it ets lower to a certain spot then goes no lower after that.

If you read this thread...(I know. It is long) you will see the numbers. We did talk about this a bit.

Hi freepow.
Welcome to this thread.
I made my first joule thief from the makezine video. I watched it a few times and downloaded the pdf which has pictures, then made one, then made another...

I have used the fuji circuit to light 1 or 2 fluoro tubes with 1-AA.
Also, I have used a big toroid and very large pickup to light a fluoro tube.

I did not use either of those transistors, however to light the fluoro tube.
I am sure it is possible, but I used the 2N3055 for my transistor on that one.

I recently bought a small toroid but this is bigger than my other small toroids. I am going to see if I can make a jt circuit using this and a 2N3904 or 2N2222 and light a fluoro.
The fuji circuit uses a small low voltage transistor, so I do not see why it won't work. But I need to do it to know.

So,
Try the makezine video and use the pdf.
Bill recommends the instructables instructions. I should check that out to see if I can recommend it myself.

anyway,
welcome to the joule thief fun.
It is best if you post all your trials etc right here in the open. This way other people still lurking can learn from you. Also, there are many others that can help... not just me!    (thanks for the compliment, just the same. )

@All,
I tried 2 toroids wound with a jt type wind on separate toroids and I was only able to light a basic led when I touched the battery on or off, so my conclusion is that the base is not turning on and off.
The transistor got hot too, so it wasn't turning off, I guess. Kind of strange.
I may try it one more time today... just in case something was loose yesterday.

jeanna