Joule Thief

[Bizzy]

I will be soon posting photo's of my first  Homemade Solar Charging Joulethief powersupply Box, which will eventually have all the house lighted up with 240v LED (bulbs), but at the momement I will have our
main bedroom with 1x 240V LED (bulb) connected to the main indoor Box, which is charged by 10 wafer cells.

Will post photo's soon !


It sounds like this is finally beging to fit into practical uses.Nice work.

[dasimpson]

it was befor if you could get the camera flash units and the 240volt led lights.
supercap tho not sure they hold enogth power

[freepow]

@ All,  I'll post photos in a couple of days - of  my Solar charged  Joulethief Power box, that is lighting our main bedroom, so there is only one large JT in the box at the momement, but I will be adding more as soon as I can afford the Supercaps.

My  400F 2.7v Supercap takes around  5 min to charge up with solar panel outside, the outside panel puts out 4-5 Amps at around 2-2.4v

after charging cap full in  5 min, It will light our 240v(20xLED) bulb nicely for about   1.5-2 hours...
Not bad for a 5 min charge from the sun !
I can have 2x 400F caps which would give me around 4 hours of light.
Considering if you put the lights on at sunset 7:30 pm and run light till 9:30 pm then go to bed, then 400F cap will be enough for us. (Summer time here at the moment)

[NickZ]

     Freepow and All:
     I'm running 4 Jtc as night lights all night long. Each one has a single AA battery running a 7 leds light bulb,  that I charged each day, on a regular 4 AA charger, and run lit all night long. 
  Once I get a solar panel I can charge a 12v car battery and run as many Jtc as needed to light my whole house. 
  I also have two 13 led back-up lights, that use capacitors instead of batteries.  Unfortunately they don't last more than a couple of hours, even though they are supposed to last 6 hours, they do put out some usable light though, and are self charging off the grid during the day. The best part is that you don't have to do anything with them, and they can be used nightly.   The problem with capacitors is that they don't last very long, unless you spend big bucks for the good ones. Capacitors are not very cost effective for use on a JT circuits, but small solar panels and 12 volt batteries are. 
  I was so glad to see the Warm White leds, as I don't like the light given off by the regular super bright white Leds, or from the CFLs.  Now the CFLs are also coming out with a warm white color, that are much better, but still not the same as the incandescent bulbs,  that I've grown up with and still prefer.
                                                           NZ

[freepow]

Hi  NickZ,  can you tell me what your JT's are using in mA's from your AA's  ,also can you post some pictures of your lights and JT's.

I have a great small box that has a 240v wall socket in it that I can plug a nice 240v(20xLED) bulb lamp with cord into it, and the jt is powered by 2xAA.

A question for you...  if I was to charge 2xAA's  how many volts would I need from a solar panel
What would be the fastest I can charge 2xAA's ?? (the max current I can charge with) ??