Joule Thief 101

[MileHigh]

Brad:

Your purely anecdotal scope captures for the two circuits and your claim that you can draw a conclusion from that shows both how far you have to go technically, and how far you have to go psychologically.

Look at the bloody red dots.  They are an embarrassment for someone with your experience, and yet you don't have the guts or character or integrity to just admit you made a big fat mistake.  Why should anybody listen to you or take you seriously when you act like that?

You talk about the Joule Thief and this quest for a bright LED for as long as possible.  So why not run with that idea and open it up, and forget about the bloody Joule Thief?  You have already agreed with me that it was never designed to keep the LED at a constant brightness anyway.

Give yourself a design challenge:  Design a circuit that keeps an LED brightly and evenly lit off of an AA cell for as long as possible, and a brightness control is permitted.  Say the clock stops when the brightness of the LED drops by 10%.  Anybody can take up the challenge and all that they need is a smartphone running a light meter app.  Standardize on the battery and standardize on the light meter app and take it from there.  I already know one way to do it in the sense that I can architect out the solution paper-napkin style.

The stupid Joule Thief is pretty boring at this point.  Beyond that, you have to stop bullshitting yourself and others.  Your bit about your conclusions from your two scope captures is pure bullshit.  It's ridiculous that you can't cope with dealing with the red dots.

I predict that nothing is going to come of the "resonant Joule Thief" and I don't believe with your current attitude you would be capable of presenting convincing data about that issue anyway.  You need to get it together.  Why not give yourself the design challenge that I suggested and give yourself something new and different to do, but it is still in a way related to the saga of the Joule Thief.  Perhaps other people will have fun with it too.

MileHigh

[sm0ky2]

Brad:

If I did experiments I would spin circles around you.

MileHigh

If you did experiments, half of the statements you make about a JT,
would never have happened.....

[MileHigh]

If you did experiments, half of the statements you make about a JT,
would never have happened.....

Kiss my butt Smoky2 because the vast majority of my statements about the Joule Thief are right because we are talking about basic electronics.  It would seem that you have been batting pretty much full goose eggs on the esoteric and metaphysical side of things with respect to the Joule Thief.  Most of your "profound" statements about the Joule Thief are silly, and you seem to be in the same boat as me, not showing any current Joule Thief experiments.  Nada on the resonance also, I thought that you were here to lead the boys into resonance Nirvana.  I also can tell that you have enough knowledge such that when you read Brad that many times you are just a bound bobbing duckie yourself.  And you ran away from Picowatt because he is the Real Thing.

Finally, besides static of the Battle Royale, I am quite sure that there are many silent Joule Thief keeners out there that are taking notes and have learnt more about the Joule Thief on this thread than they ever knew before.

[massive]

I have no experience with JT circuit ..

can some one run the test with the LED replaced by a 4148 diode so light out put is eliminated

what I see the basic circuit is similar to a HV flyback trans minus air gap . the diode opens the secondary which is wound out of phase to primary

[sm0ky2]

Kiss my butt Smoky2 because the vast majority of my statements about the Joule Thief are right because we are talking about basic electronics.  It would seem that you have been batting pretty much full goose eggs on the esoteric and metaphysical side of things with respect to the Joule Thief.  Most of your "profound" statements about the Joule Thief are silly, and you seem to be in the same boat as me, not showing any current Joule Thief experiments.  Nada on the resonance also, I thought that you were here to lead the boys into resonance Nirvana.  I also can tell that you have enough knowledge such that when you read Brad that many times you are just a bound bobbing duckie yourself.  And you ran away from Picowatt because he is the Real Thing.

Finally, besides static of the Battle Royale, I am quite sure that there are many silent Joule Thief keeners out there that are taking notes and have learnt more about the Joule Thief on this thread than they ever knew before.

That is why this discussion is great. We get to see a lot of different perspectives,
analyze different parts of the circuit, under different conditions.

I don't need to "run from" Picowatt. I let what he said stand for what it is.
Because he was absolutely correct, in what he was presenting.

Just as, you are (sometimes) correct with what you say, although it be from a completely different perspective
than that of the person you are saying it to.

there is no "resonance nirvana". No "magic", no disenchanted electromagnetic fumblegarble...

What I have been saying this whole time,
now here again in 'plain english'
is this-
When you are using ferrite torroids, that "resonate":
  You should take into consideration the SRF of the ferrite,
  and how it affects your circuit.
THAT, my friend, is basic electronics.

To understand what that is or means, you can go back... I don't know,.. 40 pages?
all of the math is there, links to relevant information,
as well as the input of several people other then myself
that are educated in this area.

This shouldn't be a "battle". fighting over this stuff is actually quite senseless.
Almost all of this knowledge, has been known for over 200 years.
To the point where we custom design the constituent parts of our ferrite materials.
Entire fields of industry are devoted to engineering special ceramics for ferrite cores.
There is a reason they give us this special number (SRF), when they sell us the ferrite.
Look at how this is used (or sometimes intentionally NOT used) in the circuitry of any/every device that uses them,
and you will already know more about the Joule Thief than most others.

An argument that "resonance" does not affect your circuit,
is like saying the baking pan isn't hot, because you are wearing mittens.

I'm not here to pad anyone's cushion, or to promote some obscure grandiose concept
about "resonance", like its a magical event.

It is something that occurs, naturally, everywhere, and in everything around us.
All I am trying to do is make people aware of it, and how it applies to this particular circuit.


When you finally see this for what it is, you will know that the LED has had you jerking yourself off the whole time...
talks of "brightness" are pointless (human perception aside), that is a work function of the diode junction,
which by self-definition consumes power along a curve.
This can be examined all day and give us all sorts of useless "data".
It is better to simply observe the diode as a "load" function, added to the circuit.
Replace this with any other type of load.
Or better yet, remove it completely, and drive the load from a secondary coil on the core. (transformer)
Then you can remove electrical impedance effects of the load on the primary (driver) circuit.
Now, you can measure your load directly, be it a diode, a resistor, a capacitor charging, an inductive/reactive load, etc.

Now your "data" contains vector and amplitude, quality to go with your quantities.
You can give meaning to what the load is doing to the primary circuit.
Armstrong was not the only one to build oscillators. He was just the one who designed THIS one.
Many other oscillators work in similar manners to this one.
Resonant frequencies are self-defined in all of them. As a manner of design.

The joule Thief should also be built in this manner.
All else, is less efficient.