Joule Ringer!

[conradelektro]

Update on the xee2 Joule Ringer --> Darlington Pair, 0.5 mA at 12 Volt

I could bring down the power consumption at 12 Volt to 0.5 mA with a Darlington pair (2 x TIP31C). The blue cold cathode tube stays rather dim with this circuit and stays on about 1 minute with a 4700 μF cap in agreement with conventional theory. I think to see some flickering, so the frequency must be around 20 to 30 Hz.

C = 0.0047 Farat = 4700 μF, 12 Volt, 0.5 mA
12 V at 0.0005A --> 0.006 Watt
0.5 * 0.0047 * 12 * 12 = 0.3384 Joule (Wattseconds) in the cap
0.3384 / 0.006 = 56.4 seconds

@NickZ: For LEDs I would not use a fly back transformer. A hand wound coil looks more promising and a Darlington pair with two C547B transistors. I think about a coil in principle like a fly back transformer, but fewer turns, on a 25 mm plastic tube. The trick is to get the number of turns just right (may be 300 turns for the HV coil, 40 turns for the driver coil on the collector and 10 turns for the trigger coil on the base of the transistor, for 10 LEDs in a row on the HV coil). For LEDs I also would go down to a 1.2 Volt rechargeable AAA battery instead of a 12 Volt battery or power supply. The interesting part is to get the power consumption below 1 mW. I came up with a "night light" which needs about 2 mW for one white LED (you find it in my posts in the Joule Thief thread).

Greetings, Conrad

[hartiberlin]

Hi Lasersaber and all,
great circuit and replications.

Lasersaber,
what is your starting voltage at the 32.000 uF cap ?

About 20 Volts ?

As with the forumula:
E= 0.5 C V^2

this means about an  energy of just 6.4 Wattsseconds starting at the cap,
so lighting a 1 Watts load should only last about 6.4 seconds
until the cap is empty...
And in the last video it looks like Lasersaber is using much more than a 1 Watt load !

So running it a few minutes is REALLY SOMETHING !

Definately OverUnity !

Now what we have seen so far in all the
replications is, that the power seems to be
extracted in Burst pulses which are fast enough, so that the human eye
thinks it is a contineous light.

Lidmotor did show this very nicely on his scopeshote on youtube in one
of his videos.

Now, what I am really missing are the
most wanted scope shots, to see what is exactly going on
in the cap, if it will be recharged during these burst pulses
or not.

So really a scope shot with 2 traces is needed which will
show the voltage at the capacitor versus the current
out of the cap on a 1 or 10 ohm shunt.

So this would show us, how the capacitor voltage will
drop or rise and how the current is drawn or is recharging
the capacitor.

Maybe somebody please can post such a scopeshot ?

Also single trace scopehots of just the cap voltage
and just the cap current on a shunt would be okay to
see, what is going on.
Please show at least a few cycles on the scope, so one
can see the whole "picture".

Many thanks in advance.

Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

P.S: the question is also,
if the bifilar coil from Lasersaber is somehow inducing current
back into the cap, so replacing it with just a cap and a resistor
as Lidmotor and some others have done it
will not show the same recharging effects of the cap as in
Lasersaber´s videos.

So that is really also why we really need a few good scopeshots of the
supply capacitor voltage and also scopeshots of the
current of this cap at a shunt.

Only this way we will find out, if there is any additional recharge
induction is taking place, that will recharge the cap from
this bifilar coil system.

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[hartiberlin]

@conradelektro
can you please show scopeshots of your input current at a shunt and
also the cap voltage ?

Does the cap voltage rise and fall, or just fall ?

I wonder, why this circuit has such a low input current.

Does the cap get recharged during some burst spikes ?

We really have to know this.

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[conradelektro]

Scope shots over 10 Ohm shunt, collector-emitter and lamp of xee2 type circuit.

@ Stefan (hartiberlin) and all interested parties:

The scope shots show a frequency of about 160Hz and very short transistor on times in the order of 5 μsec.

This might explain the low power consumption of about 1 mA and less (the scope and a 10 Ohm shunt show about 1 mA, a good Multimeter and a 1 Ohm shunt show around 0.7 mA).

There are very short spikes in the order of 5 μsec at 160 Hz over the shunt and therefore also on the 4700 μF cap. To expect a real re-charging of the cap by these spikes seems to be a bit bold.

Draw your own conclusions, Conrad