Joule Thief 101

[resonanceman]

This is  what  I call a long wire JT

The  JT coil is nothing more than  about 6 Ft of  twisted pair wire .
The  first  picture is   just  the  longwire JT  lighting  a single LED

The second picture is   the same  wire with few  wraps  of it around  a toroid .  The  secondary of  the  toroid is powering the LED array .

The 3rd picture  is  of the same  setup  with  2 more  toroids  with both of these the   secondarys   are being used for   feedback .

The  toroids I used for this were  not wrapped  just for this  test.
I removed the primary windings   and  wrapped  a few turns   of  the longwire JT  where their  primarys  had been.

[resonanceman]

About   using heavy  or light  wire.

I find that with my JTs  wire guage  is not  very important on the primmarys.
I  do not  push the limits of the primarys
I intentionally   keep my  transistor biased at  well under  half power  so that it runs  cool.


If    you think you might  need  heavier  wire for your secondary ........ I suggest   you use several  smaller  wires  wrapped  as one .   It gives you many more options   
The  windings can then  be used all in parallel  series parallel or  in series .........or separately

gary

[innovation_station]

g


i just love the jt longwire...   

thats the koolest 1 i have seen yet ...

great work!   

w

[resonanceman]

g


i just love the jt longwire...   

thats the koolest 1 i have seen yet ...

great work!   

w

IST

It took me a while to  understand   how to use it ...........but   now that I have thought about it a while .......there  is a bunch of  ways   you can use  a wire once you get it pulsing .

gary

[jeanna]

Is this really 101?
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I have made a picture of 4 toroids wound in various ways.
This is just to share the size and variety possible.
I did not include the enormous 3 1/2 inch one.
On the top left is one wound in the "normal" fashion. The black and white are the primary bifilar.

On the upper right is an example of one that is hard to use experimentally because it is all the same color. I cannot tell the primary bifilar from the secondary without a magnifying lens.

On the lower left is my favorite.
This is 0.5 inch and the other day I was able to wind it to produce enough to light a neon or a string of 32 christmas lights. 172 volts.

The lower right shows the medium 5/$1. I found the best tuning for it is 5T to the base and 6T to the collector.

Both the toroids on the right show a little trick that helps when the secondary wire is so thin it doesn't want to stay in a breadboard, or it breaks. Solder a short piece of 24awg telephone wire to it and it works... until it breaks off. 

j