jenna and all

if i implied that this jule thief would not work then i apologize because it will work. how well is the question, and jenna you are right pulsing is part of the way it conserves energy and lights a bulb. 

what this device does is raise the energy available to a usable voltage (doesnt matter how many amps you have if the voltage isnt high enough. to do the work) now we pulse it and it turns on and off. but if it does it fast enough it will save power because its not a constant draw and give us the current needed to create a percieved constant light. what the amps is good for i dont know i really cant explain it. in fact with my current knowledge i cant explain why anything draws the amps it does. seems like you could drop the amps to me and it would still work. but then im not a electritian either. my grand father is and he cant really explain it either 

what im saying is if you want a jule thief take an iron nail and with some math you can up the voltage to what ever you want, but its going to lower your amps.  this is a induction coil or transformer of sorts. i will be making one to attempt to light my led later.

bill since you have achieved 1.8 volt at several miliamp i would suggest trying to run several led's in parallel.

if you want to "double" your watt output you can pulse the current, if its off for a second then on for a second you will have stored X amount of power in a cap so when its on you can draw XX amount of current to power your device. however this means the light will flicker, if its fast enough you can "double" the usable power and make it look like the light never turns off.  they really should use this curcuit in light bulbs    its a gimic but for certain apps like Lights it works considerably well.

@ Artic Knight:

Great information.  This reminds me of a device marketed in the 70's which was a simple disc that you put in the base of an incandecent light bulb fixture.  They "claimed" that a 100 watt bulb would still be just as bright (to the eye?) and use 50% less power.  Looking back I now believe that possibly this device pulsed the light, on and off like you are saying, and it "appeared" to be just as bright.  I am now messing with leds that flash.  If I could get them in sync then I could have two lit, for the power of one.  One off, and one on...etc.  Look at Tesla's 60 cycle ac that we still use in our homes today.  Any incandecent bulb in our houses turns off and on 60 times per second, right?  We don't see that do we?  And to me, with my limited but growing knowledge of things electrical, if I have a light and it is off just as much as it is on, would that not mean a 50% power savings?  My plan was to sync several flashing leds so some were on while the others were off.  Possibly double the light output with the same power.  What do you folks think?

Bill

Quote from: Pirate88179 on January 03, 2008, 10:05:04 PM
@ Artic Knight:

Great information.  This reminds me of a device marketed in the 70's which was a simple disc that you put in the base of an incandecent light bulb fixture.  They "claimed" that a 100 watt bulb would still be just as bright (to the eye?) and use 50% less power.  Looking back I now believe that possibly this device pulsed the light, on and off like you are saying, and it "appeared" to be just as bright.  I am now messing with leds that flash.  If I could get them in sync then I could have two lit, for the power of one.  One off, and one on...etc.  Look at Tesla's 60 cycle ac that we still use in our homes today.  Any incandecent bulb in our houses turns off and on 60 times per second, right?  We don't see that do we?  And to me, with my limited but growing knowledge of things electrical, if I have a light and it is off just as much as it is on, would that not mean a 50% power savings?  My plan was to sync several flashing leds so some were on while the others were off.  Possibly double the light output with the same power.  What do you folks think?

Bill

http://www.techass.com/el/docs/m4zman.pdf

The flashlights these guys sell run on the same principle of using a circuit to adjust the pulse frequency of the leds.  It can last a lot longer and appear to have similar brightness, but as you pulse slower it lowers in intensity.  Its actually a pretty interesting light, as its fully adjustable.  I think if we made some really simple circuit which limits power, and lowers the pulse but not to much, and that would atleast conserve power.  I think the goal would be figuring out how to amplify, and if there's some way to speed up the flow by way of pulsing at certain ranges.

bill

to start lets discuss ac. ac is a constant current or constant voltage similiar to dc only that it changes the positive and negative poles 60 times a second. the incandecent light is a wire that gets white hot basically melting but 60 times a second the current reverses in this bulb, it never stops sucking juice and never turns off.

now as far as saving electricity with pulsing that depends on how you work it. if you need XX current then you will turn off the light for X current then turn on for XX  so that it can be powered. and this will not save any power but mearly double the workload for the available power.  if however you have a light that takes X current and you turn it off as much as it is on or pulse it then when its off it saves X current. in the case of the incandecent bulb if you pulsed it assuming it worked for those bulbs (dont see why not) then you would essentially get a 50 watt bulb for 100 watt brightness. however im fairly sure in the incandecent case it would just become dim. maybe not if its pulsed fast enough.

my goal here is to light the smallest halogen light i can buy, if thats a 5 watt halogen then i want it lit! if i can find a trick to help me like the jule thief transformer then why not?  it might not power a house but i get free outside lighting!

maybe this explenation is better:

i have .52 volt at 2 miliamp if i make a step up transformer (the wound wire) i would need 4 windings on the battery side and 14 windings on the led side that would give me 1.82 volt at .75 miliamp (the ratio is 3.5 which adds to voltage and takes from amps) now if i pulse it equal on and equal off it can draw 1.82 volt at 1.5 miliamp when on without draining the cap or exceeding the input. that is what the jule thief does. if you use a variant of this on the batteries (more inportantly the pulsing) you can double the run time.  the rate at which you pulse does not affect it as long as it has equal off and equal on.