Joule Thief

[NickZ]

  Now anyone can just order  60 leds with a solar panel and battery, that last 12 hours each night. $10 on ebay. I know I can't beat that by making it myself.  It can also be modified to suit your needs.  China does it again.

[dasimpson]

they is always room for improvement you will find that after a week of running that unit off ebay in real world conditions aka england that it wont last very long

[Pirate88179]

I agree but, 60 leds and a solar cell and probably some sort of charging circuit for $10.00 is a good starting point.  We can make it better with what we know but we could not even buy the parts for that kind of money...especially at radio shack, ha ha.

Bill

[NickZ]

 This video shows the cheapest way of building your own solar panel, by using the broken cells, that can be bought for much less cost, especially compared to buying an equivalent ready made panel.  This is for guys like me, cheap and practical with some time to tinker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR4phYUiGQs&feature=grec_index

  A lot of Jtc or leds can be light off of one of those panels.  Enough to light your house, to a low light level, like I like.

[dasimpson]

very true.
shops just have way to many overheads to cover why ebay will always be so cheap.
the unit on ebay looks like the solar panel might give out about 150 -250mah into a 1.2volt battery so we know they is a jt circuit in there someware.
but units like this or not made to last long so they make them cheap so we dont think twice about baying another set.
the bit id like to know is are the leds in parallel or in series.
from what we know on here just that little bit of info will ltell us how good the jt part is made and how the hole unit will perform