Joule Thief

[gadgetmall]

@all

Ok I am Still Here for you guys and have been up for days and night experimenting . I got another camera with macro and i am waiting for some parts and breadboard to come in . Great Job Collecting those schematics Jesus . They are helpful .In between Jule  Thief thread and feedback to Source this one is taking all the time on line to read if you know what i mean . Plus daily Life as a Dad /mom is killing me . that is why i stay up until 3 in the morn at the kitchen table experimenting . I figured id try this as i have not seen any try yet so I'll be the first being a already have a Bedini running itself , the circuit is posted at the thread feedback to Source.I made a Sloppy Joule thief with  2-40  windings number 22 then on top of that i put 100 windings number 32 and on the other side 20 turns number 16 . I hooked the 32 up to a diode and cap and fed back to the battery . Guess what ? It is slowing down the discharge rate id say a factor of 75 % . i actually see the voltage from a partially dead battery ie 1.100 volts go to 1.115 when i feedback the voltage . . Ok so i put a pot on the base to further reduce the transistor base voltage(germanium) and put a pot on the output to battery so i could regulate the feedback to source and keep the leds lit . i also have another led lit on the number 16 wire . I will probably rectify it's output  and feed it back as well .. they have been running for two days now with just a minimal drop in primary aaa battery as it was partially dead anyways ...I appreciate all your post and kind response to my no so technician blab lings even though i dont say it too often(Mk1)(electricme)(all)..thats all for now . Kirk out !  ****edit**** I just checked the battery voltage and it 1.255 !!! What is going on ? Im not jumping for joy yet because i do have the led brightness turned down so they will light up but not full bright .. i will let it run for another day and check it again ..It appears the voltage has gained on the aaa battery from 1.115 two days ago to 1.255 just now ..I aint' kidding . Here is apic . i forgot i changed things around yesterday movin the two green leds to an out of circuit stop between the 32 output and a leg off the transistor  place .they are not in the same place as the original Jt . i will draw a schematic tonight .

[electricme]

@ gadgetmall
Wow, it seems every post for the last 2 days has brought in a new improvement.
Nice to hear you are ducking in here in the background.
(theres lots of other phantom viewers also judging by how many times certain jpgs have been looked at)

Getting a battery recharged whilst still powering the circuit in my book has achieved something very big, but as you said, check it again in a couple of days, mabe over a month or three as something might go wonky.
You could also try a single wet cell, see if that holds its charge.

Im lookin forward to the circuit.

Better yet, if you have enough components, make a mirror copy of your setup, then set them both off together, monitoring  one result against the other, that will tell you if one is "slopped together" or not lol.

Thanks for posting photos of your JT Gadgetmall
Looks good.

@ bill,
noooooo my friend, I not ducking out or retiring from this forum, I having fun fun fun.
This is better than a birthday party at McDonalds or Kentuck duck, at least I can have fried pinkies if I get hungry.

Update ao the WAR at home
Mouses deathtole now 9
Me thrivin with glee.
Im running outa cheese bait, (Im eating it too, got competition)
De cobwebbed side verrandah this morning by vaccuum cleaner, got 2 redbacks spiders also.ukky

jim

[jeanna]

@Mk1

Further to the above, I have been wondering what the effect would be if a j/t was made using a ring magnet instead of ferrite...

Regards...

Hi cap-z-ro,

My first 2 joule thieves were made from ceramic magnets. I misunderstood the meaning of ferrite. bill explained- this was last year-

What happened is the transistor stopped working. It got I spose the word would be saturated? It wasn't hurt. I was able to take it apart and re-use it, but the magnetism seems to have stopped the working. It sort of worked for about 3 days, then stopped.

@ All,

I have been making a standardization / calibration study today.

I am running the jt with 29 leds in array on a freshly recharged AAA to see how much it looses. It will be done at 10:30 tonight.

To compare these results to some kind of standard, I will use another freshly recharged AAA from the same batch to light a plain joule thief in the same breadboard but without the secondary windings or the 29 leds. Also for 10 hours. That will be done at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

I can tell you it is dropping at a rate of 9 mV per hour. This statement is really only a teaser. I think it has no real meaning by itself.

I will let you know tomorrow.

jeanna

[gadgetmall]

ok heres the circuit . I don't know if i am losing it from lack of sleep but as of this writing its at 1.256 . i ditched the second led on the no 16 wire and let it hang tonight .I'm using Green LEDs it was drawing some current . i have it just barley giving light to tell its oscillating . Nite.

[jeanna]

..it will save you a lot of trouble from buying "iron" wire that has little to no iron in it.

The florist's wire, painted, is one way to do this.

... if we just wrap iron wire on a toroid, I believe it will short to itself


Bill

Perhaps take a compass in the other pocket because you want soft iron, and soft iron loses its magnetisation after the magnet moves away. So make sure the magnet sticks then when the magnet is moved away, make sure there is no pull on the compass.

I'd say if there is something that is cheap and soft iron and comes insulated go for it.

Also, Jim has mentioned nail polish several times. I think that would work too. I read in one wire brochure that there were many layers to the varnish on the mag wire.


jeanna