Smoothest, and best, store purchased Joule Thief I have seen yet.

[e2matrix]

Are solar charging lights really a Joule thief?   Or are they just good efficient solar battery chargers and LED circuit?   I guess you could call them a JT if you want but I always thought of a JT as having a bifilar wound toroid or at least a bifilar coil and I doubt these have bifilar coils in them.   Just a regular inductor.    But it's nice that they are getting so cheap thanks to mass production (and of course China).   

[Legalizeshemp420]

Are solar charging lights really a Joule thief?   Or are they just good efficient solar battery chargers and LED circuit?   I guess you could call them a JT if you want but I always thought of a JT as having a bifilar wound toroid or at least a bifilar coil and I doubt these have bifilar coils in them.   Just a regular inductor.    But it's nice that they are getting so cheap thanks to mass production (and of course China).

A Joule Thief is just a cutesy name for a blocking oscillator circuit anyway and if you look up some schematics for blocking oscillators most hardly use a bifilar coil if at all.  JT (Blocking Oscillators) have been around for longer than you are old but only in 1999 did some fool call one a Joule Thief.  I hate the term but it is what the modern people know it as so stuck using it.

[Pirate88179]

A Joule Thief is just a cutesy name for a blocking oscillator circuit anyway and if you look up some schematics for blocking oscillators most hardly use a bifilar coil if at all.  JT (Blocking Oscillators) have been around for longer than you are old but only in 1999 did some fool call one a Joule Thief.  I hate the term but it is what the modern people know it as so stuck using it.

That's my understanding as well.  A fellow in England named Big Clive coined this term and it has been used on youtube and elsewhere online ever since.  A little further research shows the circuit was developed by a Russian in the 60's.  (I forget his name)

I "thought" I knew a lot about these circuits and then I come to this topic and learn of the existence of radial inductors and a tiny blob covered chip.  This means that I can take one of those chips, a resistor and one of those inductors and have a JT circuit that will have a footprint the size of a dime.  Now I am wondering why I wound all of those 1" toroids all those years ago!!!!  Of course, this is for a low voltage JT.  I am still working on my circuit board high voltage JT.  (Similar to the modified flash circuits)

Can you put enough of those radial inductors in series (or parallel?) to output 400 volts from 1.5 volts in a blocking oscillator step up transformer (JT) type device?  That would be really cool.

Bill

[Legalizeshemp420]

You can easily step up the voltage but the current is another story.

[Pirate88179]

All of the led bulbs and modules that I use in my lights respond very well to high freq./high voltage and very low current.  That is why I stick to 1.5 volts or "dead" batteries for the input.  I light my apartment for free using the dead batteries given to me by my friends.  350-600 volts seems to work well.  About 200 mA draw usually.

I feel so stupid.  I had no idea those type of chips were available.  Oh well, I love to learn.

Bill