Joule Thief

[Hoppy]

Hi all,

I have built lasersaber's circuit and am having good results. My coil is wound on a ferrite 'E'-core from an old PC PSU and I have 20 turns 0.5mm ECW on primary and 250 turns of 0.3mm ECW on secondary. Transistors are TIP3055 and MPSA06. A little help is needed to start a 3W LED lamp by touching the base of the MPSA06. However, a 7W lamp starts without help. Connecting the rectifier as shown on the schematic stops the oscillations and the lamp extinguishes. It may be that lasersaber has drawn the connections incorrectly. Surprisingly, the transistors run very cool with a good light output. I have not been able to connect a scope as connecting the ground lead will stop the circuit oscillating. Even touching my DMM probes to the 12V / 7A/hr SLAB supplying the circuit will cause the lamp to flicker. Connecting an earth ground does not appear to affect brightness of the lamp but it does make the circuit run without any high frequency noise. Disconnecting the battery does not allow my circuit to continue running for more than a few seconds with a 10,000uF cap connected. I can get the lamp to pulse at very low brightness for a longer period if I touch the positive battery lead when its been removed.

The battery has been rising in voltage for the last hour and is now running steady at 12.76V. This is a characteristic I have seen with other JT type circuits running at HF. I expect it to start dropping at some stage once it adjusts fully to the load. If not then I'll be back to report the good news! 

This generous helping from lasersaber appears to be running very efficiently as is well worth building and experimenting with.

Hoppy

[gadgetmall]

I am glad i am not the only one seeing this . I got real tired of getting shocked even with 1.2 volt battey so i decided to try another transformer . He did say it would work with any transformer . so i went to my junk pile outside and grabbed a rusty transformer . it looks like a 110 to 24 vac .. I hooked it up and wala . it works but is very dim on 5 volts . If i touch the laminations it gets brighter . Also it flickers . AND the battery volts moves up even with an analog meter while it runs . So it will work with a normal transformer and you do still see the effects. I see no high voltage BUT i still do see one wire type lighting .Without the Magic variable, his transformer , i think we won't see any cap runner  this time either. But as with the original joule ringer i spent months trying to get it to work and could not, i am not that disappointed and will keep trying . Laser has more info coming and maybe some tips on that transformer . I guess i need to ask Santa if he can spare some alligator clips and another lot of 2n3055's. I have blown 15 playing with his circuits and i have two on some good ls3's i will not mess with .If anyone care to see that rusty transformer run a light it is uploading on my slow 512k internet.

[Hoppy]

I am glad i am not the only one seeing this . I got real tired of getting shocked even with 1.2 volt battery so i decided to try another transformer . He did say it would work with any transformer . so i went to my junk pile outside and grabbed a rusty transformer . it looks like a 110 to 24 vac .. I hooked it up and wala . it works but is very dim on 5 volts . If i touch the laminations it gets brighter . Also it flickers . AND the battery volts moves up even with an analog meter while it runs . So it will work with a normal transformer and you do still see the effects. I see no high voltage BUT i still do see one wire type lighting .Without the Magic variable, his transformer , i think we won't see any cap runner  this time either. But as with the original joule ringer i spent months trying to get it to work and could not, i am not that disappointed and will keep trying . Laser has more info coming and maybe some tips on that transformer . I guess i need to ask Santa if he can spare some alligator clips and another lot of 2n3055's. I have blown 15 playing with his circuits and i have two on some good ls3's i will not mess with .If anyone care to see that rusty transformer run a light it is uploading on my slow 512k internet.

We need efficient ferrite core transformers to get good efficiency from this circuit. My measured voltage across the lamp is 120V and current drawn from the 12V battery as measured across a 0.1R shunt resistor in series with the battery is 0.46A. The only thing getting very warm is the LED lamp ali shroud, so this tells me that the circuit is working at very good efficiency. Ideally, I need more turns to increase the output voltage on load using a 7W lamp, as I'm on 240V over here in the UK.

I can't see any free energy here yet but lasersabre has certainly come up trumps with this design for efficient lighting.

Hoppy

[hartiberlin]

 Sorry, could not sleep last night , nor did I know that Lasersaber celibrated Thanksgiving holiday.

I just saw that I made an error.
I thought the 2 transistors were just wired as a darlington, so I connected both collectors together in my circuit ..

No wonder it did not really work for me...

Well,
My circuit just blinks for about 2 second while discharging the cap from 12 to 5 Volts
but then stops at around 4.5 Volts.

Have to get the 3055 transistor and 2N2222 to continue...
My darlington MJE1100 seems not to work with this circuit.....

I also think we have to wait for Lasersaber confirming the circuit diagram first and
also tell us more about his transformer.

Otherwise it is hard to replicate.

I also have to get first the right parts as with my parts it does not work the same way...

Have to do some family related stuff over the weekend, so not much time to tinker, too bad, sorry...

Regards, Stefan.
 

[NickZ]

  I'm using a ferrite bead rod core (4 beads) as the transformer, and connecting  the secondary HV output side to a previously made smaller 3 inch ferrite rod core secondary coil, to increase the HV output. This will light any neon or Cfl, florescent tube, etz.  But, If the bulb is disconnected, the whole secondary part of the circuit is acting as an Exciter, with wireless up to 15 inches away from the coils. Even wireless on the neon av plug up to two inches away.
  I really think that all that Lasersaber is seeing in the cross over circuit, is the capacitive link from the AC wiring side from his solar system's panels, leaching through to the cross-over circuit..  If the solar panels are disconnected the light bulb will also go out.  As this is then just acting as an Exciter, working off of the stray capacitive link from his solar system.
His transformer is using that small leached power source and amplifying the voltage, to light an led bulb.  But, if the solar system is turned off or disconnected, the cross-over circuit will stop working, at least that is what I think. Easy enough to prove, also. just turn off the solar arrays at the shed.

  Here is video I made a few months ago, showing my Exciter running off of NO battery.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xur_VChGdzE
                                                                        Turn your volume up, as this camara's sound is low.