Joule Thief

[electricme]

@all
RESULTS ARE IN for my 21 Gell Cell Battery JOULE THIEF Charge Experiment.

For 1 week I have had my Hazens Joule Thief setup trying to recondition 21 x 12v Gell cells.
Only a few of the cells were the same capacity, some were very flatt, some had a charge in them.


At start of test
Total Battery Series Voltage, all 21 Batteries = 177.0  volts
                           After 1 day on Joule thief = 189.29 volts 
                         After 1 week on Joule Thief = 188.27volts

Off JT charger for 1 hour, voltage dropped to = 182.40 volts
It lost 5.87 volts and I would expect it to be still falling.


                                   2N3055
BATT   Orig V       1week   Temp          Result          Remarks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   1      4.91v        6.27v    30.0         gain 1.37v
   2      2.88v        3.47v    35.6         gain   .59v
   3     11.80v      11.88v    37.2         gain   .08v
   4       2.00v       1.99v    38.8         loss    .01v
   5       8.48v       5.03v    40.5         loss   3.45v
   6       5.20v       9.82v    41.4         gain   4.62v
   7     11.20v       1.06v    42.3         loss  10.14v
   8     10.86v      10.77v    31.8         loss   0.09v
   9     12.73v      12.73v    32.6         ----   0.00v
10       6.00v        8.97v    36.4        gain    2.97v
11       6.87v        5.81v    40.0         loss   1.06v
12      12.79v      10.66v    41.4         loss   2.13v Temp meter batt died
13       8.12v       11.63v                  gain   3.51v
14     11.41v       12.83v                   gain   1.41v
15       9.05v        9.78v                   gain   0.73v
16       7.48v        5.14v                   loss   2.31v
17       9.74v       11.10v                  gain   1.36v
18     12.93v       11.65v                   loss   1.28v
19      12.72v      12.89v                   gain   0.17v
20      11.68v      13.02v                   gain   1.34v
21      10.48v      11.78v                   gain   1.30v
-----------------------------------------------------------

During the week the charge current to 21 Batt Bank altered from 27Ma to 39Ma

I was charging the 1.2v Nicad D cell from my adjustable power supply
from anywhere between .48amp and .70amp
It appears it took 21ma to 31ma to run the JT under this load.
 
It appears some batteries gained a charge, some clearly did not, while others lost charge.

This could be because a higher rateing battery will poor some charge back into a smaller capacity battery.
But I saw smaller batteries keep or gain charge.

Anyway this was a very interresting experiment.

The question which has been asked for awhile is, will a Joule Thief be able to chearg a battery?
I think the answer is "YES", but, more work will be needed to be done.

One "key" to doing this successfully is to get the ration output correct between the Joule Thief and the "load"
A single neon lamp will crowbar the JT output so much, it creates heat in the 2N3055 transistor.
The same effect occurs if you don't have enough batteries in series with the JT output.

The answer to using a JT as a battery charger would be ,
Wind fewer secondary turns of thin wire, but wind a number of parallel wires of a shorter length as the secondary.

My Joule Thief output Open Circuit V  =  630volts.
So secondary 80Turns + 80turns        = 160turns
Output when loaded with 21 Gell Cells = 212v
So divided 630v by 21 batts = 30turns of parallel wire or to charge 1 single battery wind just 1 really thick secondary.


jim

[Pirate88179]

Jim:

Thanks for posting your results.  That is great!

Also, thanks for the magazines and the transistors and the diodes.  I will try to put them to good use.

Bill

[jeanna]

@jim,
Thanks for this thorough report.

I have been reading a fairly long thread at the energetic forum about the bedini sg which like this one has extra sub threads within it.

Many times in the first 8 pages (as far as I have read) there is the reference to john's telling everybody that batteries must be cycled around 20 -30 times by this method,  to be able to use this method, but when this long period is over the battery is better than it was ever designed to be.
I guess the process he called "reconditioning" must mean "rebuilding from the chemistry into charge carriers".

So, I bet if you were to discharge this bank of the good ones and recharge them 12 hours each recharge time for 20 times you will be in the ball park to compare with bedini.
I am so glad you had these positive results.

I am thrilled about this even though I am very discouraged by my one Nicad.
After 6 cycles it goes down to 1.03v which is good because it must be breaking the crystals that were holding it at 1.23v
But it is not holding the 1.36v charge it appears to have after 12 hours for any time at all.
It goes down each day.
It is even less than ever, My hope is that this is exactly what needs to happen before it gets recharging the bedini way ie not through battery chemistry.

Your information is excellent.

thank you.

jeanna

[electricme]

@ Bill,

Thank you, this is the longest test I have ever done with a Joule thief, I'm pleased I did it.

Nice to know your package arrived safe and sound too.

jim

Attatchment Help needed, I'm stumped.

I tried sending the 1st NS jpg series as attatchment from mysef to myself, it worked.
But I still cannot attatch jpgs and post here on the forums, has anyone got any ideas please?

jim 

[electricme]

@ Jeanna,

Thank you for those kind remarks about my JT charging experiment.
I will get back into it directly after the weekend.

@jim,
Thanks for this thorough report.

I have been reading a fairly long thread at the energetic forum about the bedini sg which like this one has extra sub threads within it.

Many times in the first 8 pages (as far as I have read) there is the reference to john's telling everybody that batteries must be cycled around 20 -30 times by this method,  to be able to use this method, but when this long period is over the battery is better than it was ever designed to be.
I guess the process he called "reconditioning" must mean "rebuilding from the chemistry into charge carriers".

So, I bet if you were to discharge this bank of the good ones and recharge them 12 hours each recharge time for 20 times you will be in the ball park to compare with bedini.
I am so glad you had these positive results.

I am thrilled about this even though I am very discouraged by my one Nicad.
After 6 cycles it goes down to 1.03v which is good because it must be breaking the crystals that were holding it at 1.23v
But it is not holding the 1.36v charge it appears to have after 12 hours for any time at all.
It goes down each day.
It is even less than ever, My hope is that this is exactly what needs to happen before it gets recharging the bedini way ie not through battery chemistry.

Your information is excellent.

thank you.

jeanna

Thanks for the Bedini info, I will check that out also later on.

I will make a special discharge 240v lamp setup and do the whole lot in one go.

Right oh, throw a complete short accross that Nicad cell for 1 second, if it gets hot, its working ok.
Then do it again for 5 seconds, then do it again for 10 seconds.
If it gets toooo hot to hold, put it aside a while and let it cool down.

You got to break it's memory effect.

If it looses its charge over 24 hours, you still got dendrites inside it.

Have you got the http address for the above Bedini report please.

jim