Acme Fixer's highly efficient Joule Thief help needed.

[TinselKoala]

OK, I just looked at your video again, and based on my findings and your toroid, I think you have _way_ too much inductance, just like I had at first. 

[Pirate88179]

TK:

I am pretty sure you know this already but, those toroids from CFL's are powdered iron and not ferrite hence the low permeability.  They still work as you have seen but, you have to play around with them. (I don't like them at all)  Of course, they did do the job they were engineered to do in the first place but hey, can't these people design electronics with better components that we can salvage?  I mean, come on, we need good stuff, ha ha.

Bill

[Legalizeshemp420]

TK:

I am pretty sure you know this already but, those toroids from CFL's are powdered iron and not ferrite hence the low permeability.  They still work as you have seen but, you have to play around with them. (I don't like them at all)  Of course, they did do the job they were engineered to do in the first place but hey, can't these people design electronics with better components that we can salvage?  I mean, come on, we need good stuff, ha ha.

Bill

Yes, my magnet sucks right to them and they are pretty heavy for their sizes.  Since the shipping on toroids is more than the price of the toroid I use what I can salvage.  I bought the one in the video as well as a surprise pack (both from Elec. Goldmine) and they are all iron which is a bummer.

btw, when I just used my toroid I wound with 28ga 2 turns on a toroid from a CFL my frequency went way up.  It was up so much I could no longer zoom in to see what frequency it went to.

[TinselKoala]

Heh.... Well, I left mine running on the tiny AG1 cell, from the time I took that picture above until a few minutes ago, and the light was out. I took off the toroid and took some wire off it. With 5 turns remaining on the toroid I get about 45 microHenry on the meter. If I go to 4 turns I get less than the spec of 38 uH, so I went with the 5 turns.

Now... I put the same AG1 cell back in... and it lights up, but doesn't run very long. Then it shuts off.... and in a few seconds, lights up again, dims, shuts off... and repeats. IOW it seems to be doing the same thing that the DALM thing is doing (yes it's still doing it, but much longer between osc bursts, still on same battery) but with light in the LED. I made a little video showing the cycling, it will be processed and up for viewing shortly. I haven't scoped this version yet to see if the spikes are narrower than they were before when I had too much inductance.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTOuUMsivWA

[Legalizeshemp420]

For my purposes this will not work since it will not even operate much above 20-30ma whereas the DALM will.

How 'Super Efficient' is this?