Joule Thief 101

[MileHigh]

Brad:

It works exactly like that MH,and i have explained to you before that a JT circuit is !not! MHs choice of circuit,but is a circuit that can extract the remaining energy from an otherwise dead battery-->did you not read the wikipedia link i provided ?.

No it really doesn't work like that were you arbitrarily attach the same label to different circuits with different architectures to suit your fancy.  The Wikipedia link is wrong and was corrupted by somebody.  Just like the time I looked up a magnet on Wikipedia and to my shock read that there was a "Bloch wall" at the center of a bar magnet.

Please define !performance! MH. Lots of light output with a heavy drain on the battery-short run time--or, less light output,lighter drain on the battery,but longer run time?

Here is what I wrote:  "they will not have the same performance as a Joule Thief when it comes to extracting energy from a nearly dead battery."

But one more time for you MH-->it works due to the miller capacitance effect

You are not explaining how it works at all.  You are just referencing an effect.  You still have no clue what is inside the "black box."

Yes,the C in LRC MH.

Yes the "Cool Joule" is some form of oscillator most likely based on capacitance and inductance but right now you have no clue how it actually works and cannot produce a timing diagram and explain it.  That's in contrast to a Joule Thief that has nothing to do with an RLC-based oscillator.

Well thats incorrect MH,as i have stated many times how the circuit operates-and again just above.

You did not explain how it works just above.  I already told you just saying "Miller effect" is a total fail.  You actually don't know how it works.  If you were determined you would try to figure it out but I don't see that happening.

When the correct coils are used,the cool joule can keep running with battery voltages as low as 200mV. It dose this in the very same way !your! JT circuit dose. Look again at the two circuits below MH--are the circuit's any different ?-other than the absence of the 1k resistor and core ?

It's a subtlety that escapes you but it is what it is.  The feedback can sustain your oscillator circuit and drain the battery but the circuit operates as an oscillator.  A Joule Thief is a pulse circuit and not an oscillator circuit, and it is purposefully designed to drain a battery.

So you see MH,you are wrong when you say that the JT is not an LRC circuit,as every circuit has some C value. We do not operate within perfect conditions here MH,we operate in reality-as do our circuit's. This small C value starts to play a big part when in higher frequency ranges such as Mags is at now. Your ideal conditions do not exist in these circuit's MH-->and you know this.

That's a very good quote that you posted about parasitic capacitance but it seems you are now suffering from a capacitance fetish.  I will just repeat to you that the Joule Thief is not designed with a capacitor, it does not resonate like some kind of RLC circuit, and it is in fact a pulse circuit that is governed in it's operation by the properties of inductance and resistance.  If you can't understand that or are just sticking to your original statement and refusing because you will turn blue and nearly faint if you acknowledge the truth, that's your problem.  We have all seen this before.

It's amazing how even something as simple and straightforward as Joule Thief can be willfully misrepresented by people on the forums with willful ignorance.  You have one guy that has a resonance fetish and wears resonance-glazed glasses and can only see resonance when when it is not even there.  And now you have drunk the Kool-Aid yourself and see stray capacitance in a circuit that has no capacitors in it and are now wearing capacitor-glazed glasses with a minor in resonance.  You both walk up to what is clearly a pulse circuit sitting on a bench and look up and say it is an RLC resonant circuit.  It's insane and this pattern is going to repeat itself forever on the free energy forums.  The people on the EEVblog forum would slice both of you to pieces.  That's my little rant.

It is funny to watch you pick and choose,as we go along in these threads. One time you insist that the extremely small inductance found within an incandescent bulb running on 60hZ AC can have an effect on the operation of a circuit,and yet here you dismiss the small C value that exist in your JT circuit (http://overunity.com/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif).  You cant have it both way's MH,and pick and choose what values you wish to include-when you want to include them. You either have to be accurate all the time,or dismiss these small values all the time-->you just cant pick and choose as it suit's you-as you seem to do many times.

I would never say that the inductance in a light bulb filament would affect a light bulb powered by mains AC.  If you are going to pluck a quote of mine and not ignore the context I will deal with it because I would not be surprised if it is coming.  You absolutely can pick and choose because that is how electronics works.  That is clearly a weakness on your side and you are seemingly going to ignore all advice given to you about this critical issue.

MileHigh

[MileHigh]

Brad:

It is also funny how you constantly insist that the experimenters here test and understand what they are seeing with there circuits operation. What i have seen in this thread alone,is Smokey and Mag's doing all the research,building,testing,and presenting there findings from years of this,while you sit in your armchair,rocking back and forth,and deciding whether or not they are correct. It's almost like you are flipping a penny-heads there right,tails there wrong. Your beloved electrical theory itself tells you that there is a C value in all these circuit's,and still the coin falls tail up for you. (http://overunity.com/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif). Even whan i present !your! JT circuit functioning from the C value of the transistor alone,you still insist that the JT circuit is not an RLC circuit.

Well it's really funny how you sleepwalk seemingly in a daze and state that you have explained how the "Cool Joule" works when you apparently haven't even lifted a finger to try to understand it and explain it.  You learned a new term "Miller Effect" and threw it at the "Cool Joule" and are now satisfied that you have "explained" it.  Or you are in a daze about the Joule Thief.  Like I said, if you tried to pull off that stunt on the EEVblog forum, chances are you would end up feeling like you just passed though a Veg-O-Matic.

I don't know if you would know the big old American General Motors sedans from the early 1970s.  They were huge with big V8s and they had power steering with no road feedback, you could control the steering with your pinky.  You are like a happy big ole' Southern "bubba" type of guy in his big Chevy out on a Sunday drive in the country with a beer in his hand.  You are just chilling and driving the car with your knees on the steering wheel, and if you need to make a turn, then you can do it as easy as pie with your pinky.  Just cruising along blissfully and barely aware of the road.

The problem is that you can't make a quick turn if you have to.  Another problem is that your 1973 Impala is so poorly manufactured that it probably left the production line with 150+ defects.  It's gas hungry too.  But you can blissfully cruise along in a daze just as happy as can be.

Then in a few short years the Japanese are going to make smaller more fuel efficient cars that have super stringent quality control.  Before you know it people in fast nimble cars are whipping by you and leaving you in the dust.  The smart agile high-tech high-quality Japanese manufactures are going to bring the big ole' Chevys to their knees and almost make them go extinct.

So it's not me that's sitting back in my armchair.  It's you that is cruising along down the road in your big fat car with a beer and steering with your knees in willful ignorance and blissful daydreaming.  The only thing that takes you out of your stupor is when you have a close call and nearly have an accident.  Then you wake up.

I would be interested in seeing what capacitance Mags measures between his two windings on his JT,and then set it into operation,and place a cap of that value across the two windings,and see how much it effects the operation of the circuit.

My guess is that it would affect the timing by less than 1%.

MileHigh

[Pirate88179]

MH:

Big Clive, the man who coined the term Joule Thief, describes the circuit thus:

"A typical transformer feedback single transistor invertor"

http://www.bigclive.com/joule.htm


The Make video that got me started on the JT circuit:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAqGKt64WM

Video on How to make a Joule Thief circuit by Big Clive:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K53beWYdIpc

Quote from Clive in above video info: "There are a few variants on the design which add extra components to improve efficiency, but a true Joule Thief uses a single transistor, 1K resistor, hand wound ferrite bead transformer and the LED you want to light."

Bill

[MileHigh]

"A typical transformer feedback single transistor invertor"

Bill

Yes, the "transformer feedback" is the winding that drives the base resistor.  The "invertor" is because when the transistor input is "high" the transistor output is "low."

I will see if I can find any links that describe a Joule Thief as a pulse circuit.

[Pirate88179]

Yes, the "transformer feedback" is the winding that drives the base resistor.  The "invertor" is because when the transistor input is "high" the transistor output is "low."

I will see if I can find any links that describe a Joule Thief as a pulse circuit.

Check my above post again as I modded it with links to Big Clive who invented the term JT for this circuit.  He has a very narrow definition of what a real JT is.  Since he invented the term, I guess I have to go with his definition.  That means, that many of my "so-called" JT circuits are not really JT circuits.  I am going to have to think about this.

Bill