Joule Thief

[Pirate88179]

@ Bob:

Welcome!  My main goal is efficiency and more efficiency when it comes to electronics.  (I am just learning for about a few years now and have a lot more to learn)  So, given this, I have never even considered the incandescent bulb as it wastes way too much energy on heat.  Heck, the Easy Bake Ovens that girls played with in the 60's baked real cakes (just like it said in the ads on TV) and it used a single Edison based light bulb to do this.  Cold electricity is a great thing, don't get me wrong.  I have been following Dr. Stiffler's work from a long time ago.

I just like leds because these ARE the lights of the future.  They have come a long way since the late 60's.  I can take one of my megabright (256,000 MCD ) leds and fire it up to full brightness, and even with the 5 chips inside you can touch the case and.....no real heat there.  So, that tells me all, or most all of our spent energy is going to produce light, which is the thing I am after.

Others on here may have different goals and thoughts, but those were mine.  Now if cold electricity can light an incandescent bulb...and it stays cool to the touch....then I will be very interested except, they are outlawing those style bulbs here in the US anyway. (sigh)  Soon, they will be collector's items.  There are great folks here doing great things.  Whatever you try, just post it so others will know what you are doing and what worked and did not work.  Thanks.

Bill

[Mk1]

@Bob

I am thinking about it all the time, even if its not the light of the future but a 100 watt , could power great deal of thing around the house.
Your input are well noted , thanks for the support.

Mark

[Pirate88179]

Just a quick video of the modified Fuji circuit illuminating two 48" 40 watts tubes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BgPTVkZsxw

Bill

[jeanna]

Hi everyone,
I will get to the direct questions in a bit, but first, I want to give the results of today's experiment.

I decided to apply the same test to the 'mk1' (that is the name of my jt that is fashioned as mark has been describing). This is the one pictured shining the 30 led array last night.

Once I got it to work, I first wanted to know if it is sapping any more or less energy from the battery than the 'standard' little toroid joule thief which I tested last week with 20 turns of a secondary.

So, I set it up just like the test from last week. I recharged the battery to full. Then, I lit the array and checked the battery hourly for 10 hours.

The starting voltage on the battery was 1.450 V
After the first hour the voltage had dropped by .08V
(Over the course of the first 3 hours the voltage had dropped a total of 0.132V )

but after that 3rd hour the hourly reduction went to less than 0.004V per hour and by the last couple of hours the voltage reduced no more than 0.001 per hour.

This is amazing.

There is no real way to talk about the light except in general terms, but I can say that the brightness went down from 'blazing' to 'bright' during the time the battery voltage was dropping first 80mV then 45mV per hour. It seemed to stabilize and is still putting out very bright level of light even though it is draining only 0.004mV from the battery in any of the last 6 hours.

The battery after 10 hours of lighting the array of 30 leds has a voltage of 1.291Vdc

To compare it properly the voltage used in the last 9 hours was 0.08V. (dis-counting the first hour)

Many things about this mk1 are different from the little toroid joule thief, and the results show this to be a more effective capturer of excess- or something - energy.

Specifically,
The toroid is at least 2x as big in diameter.

The jt part is in 2 separate parts.

There are 52 turns in the secondary with a 19 gauge wire not a 30 gauge wire.

The material of the toroid is a different make up.

I want to compare this more difficult way with the little one.

Since the little one is too little to fit 52 turns of 19 gauge mag wire through its center, I will quickly make a jt like the little one and use first 20 turns on this bigger toroid made of different material, then I will add to the turns to make it 52.  I want to see.

The little jt is easier to describe to someone and if it ends up the same, this info will help.

@xee,
I am aware of the type of winding you describe. I tried it last year with a stubblefield coil and it gave different and less good results. Therefore, I will pass. esp. since mk1 has been working hard on this bizarre little toroid.

Thank you just the same.

@AbbaRue.
I don't have all  these in series. Only 10 are in series and there are 3 in each series that are parallel totalling 30.

I did check the voltage across the array. I never go near 100 volts, but that may only be because there are only 20 turns in the secondary.

As I mentioned above, I will make another using this bigger toroid material, and put on 52 turns of 30 gauge wire Once I've done that, if it looks promising, I will change the secondary to 19 gauge wire and more turns to see if I can see 100v.

BTW, when you are checking the voltage, are you using the rectifier? or are you just looking at the ac voltage. (you probably have an oscilloscope , don't you?)

Thank you all,

jeanna

[jeanna]

@Bill and Timmy and all,

I did some traveling in Europe in the 80's and 90's. In every hotel or B & B a very power saving system was used. I have wanted to implement it in my own home for a long time.

Just outside each door was a switch to the hall lights. This switch was timed. You could get to the toilet down the hall and if you were not quick enough to get back before the lights went out, there was another timed switch to push by any door so you could get back to your room.

I know that ultimately you probably want more from your capacitors, but...

You could make a light such that you could push the button and get the light to turn on for 3 or 5 or maybe 10 minutes.

There are many applications I can think of like the hallway lights in Europe, to apply the capacitor switch to.

A light at the door of the garage or shed to give you just enough time to put out the trash  etc...

Also, Implementing something helps work out the bugs and make you see where improvements are needed.

For what it is worth,

jeanna