Joule Thief

[dasimpson]

i would agree with you on this if the eb wasent putting out more voltage then the cap could hold it would discharge like a solar panel on a battery at night with the size of rods you have im sure this is what is going on

I agree about the diode suggestion as it would make sense that if the cap has 2.7 volts and the EB has less, you would think the energy would flow back from the cap into the EB.

I think what may have happened in my case is that even though I measure 1.9 vdc out from the EB, and it has all of those very large spikes, it was able to fully charge the b-cap to 2.7 volts pretty fast because maybe my DMM was NOT measuring the vdc output of the EB correctly because it is a pulsed output.

In other words, in reality, if my eb was putting out less than the 2.7 volts the energy would have flowed the other way, and it didn't and I did not use a diode.  This is the only explanation I can think of.  Does this make sense?

Bill

[MrMag]

I agree about the diode suggestion as it would make sense that if the cap has 2.7 volts and the EB has less, you would think the energy would flow back from the cap into the EB.

Yup. That's it. The diode would stop the reverse flow back into the EB.

[dasimpson]

Yup. That's it. The diode would stop the reverse flow back into the EB.

but in using a diode you also loose voltage to charge the cap with

[MrMag]

but in using a diode you also loose voltage to charge the cap with

How's that?

[dasimpson]

How's that?

because diodes have a forwed voltage drop