Joule Thief

[Pirate88179]

Here is a video of my latest efforts with the MiniFuji circuit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA9CY_d6CwI

This time, I am driving two of the Lights Of America led bulbs (each designed to operate on 120 volt grid power) which have 27 chip leds in each bulb.  I am working on a smaller circuit to drive the second light but I just wanted to see how bright 2 bulbs would be when driven by one circuit.  The light is very bright and this may be the most light I have obtained thus far from a single AA battery.  This is way more light than a cfl (at least the way I did it) or any of my tube lamps.

The bulbs were not modified in any way.

Bill

[WayneJT]

That is awesome, Well done Bill.

I am currently collecting a heap of used disposable camera's from my local photo shop, and hope some day they will give me a Fuji AA so that I can put together something similar, they would be great as a camping light.

Wayne.

[electricme]

@Jesus,

If you look at the originall circuit of yours you posted a couple of pages back, I think I worked out why it stops working.

When you touch the top of the battery with the wire coming from the diode, the voltage is swamping the circuit, in other words there is just too much voltage. As you said, the battery is instantly recharged.

I suggest you measure the voltage from the negative of the battery, and the output of the diode, and also the point between the neon and the resistor, I bet it is much higher, is this pulsed DC or is it AC? anyway, feed the voltage through a small iron transformer in reverse, take the output from the secondaries, and feed it into a bridge diode, feed the DC into a electrolytic then feed the positive through the diode you have on the circuit, the negative output goes to the battery negative rail. It's a tiny but very basic battery charger.
The transformer drops the high voltage to a lower voltage with a bit of grunt.
It may then work for you, charging the battery and making the circuit work.

To raise the output volts, see what happens if you put 2 neon's in series.
They would then need 180 volts to strike.

jim

[nievesoliveras]

Here is a video of my latest efforts with the MiniFuji circuit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA9CY_d6CwI

This time, I am driving two of the Lights Of America led bulbs (each designed to operate on 120 volt grid power) which have 27 chip leds in each bulb.  I am working on a smaller circuit to drive the second light but I just wanted to see how bright 2 bulbs would be when driven by one circuit.  The light is very bright and this may be the most light I have obtained thus far from a single AA battery.  This is way more light than a cfl (at least the way I did it) or any of my tube lamps.

The bulbs were not modified in any way.

Bill

That looks great! The light is brilliant even with the normal lights on!

Jesus

[nievesoliveras]

@Jesus,

If you look at the originall circuit of yours you posted a couple of pages back, I think I worked out why it stops working.

When you touch the top of the battery with the wire coming from the diode, the voltage is swamping the circuit, in other words there is just too much voltage. As you said, the battery is instantly recharged.

I suggest you measure the voltage from the negative of the battery, and the output of the diode, and also the point between the neon and the resistor, I bet it is much higher, is this pulsed DC or is it AC? anyway, feed the voltage through a small iron transformer in reverse, take the output from the secondaries, and feed it into a bridge diode, feed the DC into a electrolytic then feed the positive through the diode you have on the circuit, the negative output goes to the battery negative rail. It's a tiny but very basic battery charger.
The transformer drops the high voltage to a lower voltage with a bit of grunt.
It may then work for you, charging the battery and making the circuit work.

To raise the output volts, see what happens if you put 2 neon's in series.
They would then need 180 volts to strike.

jim

I tried a full rectifier and the battery is consumed anyway. But if we use the fact that just by touching it charges the battery and create a circuit that do that for us it will be runing and doing some work and keeping itself charged with the automatic touch the circuit provides.

The circuit that mimics the wire touching to the positive AA pole is what we need.
On my case I need to send for the LT ic again because when I left the wire connected accidentally, the coil began to give a high pitch sound and the neon was very bright for fractions of a second and the LT ic was gone.

Jesus