Joule Thief

[Pirate88179]

@ Koen1:

Thanks for the additional info, I will check that out.  You can get a desoldering bulb just about anywhere that sells soldering stuff, for just a few bucks.  Or, you can buy one of the little squeeze bulbs that are made to suck "boogers" from a baby's nose.  To me, these are almost identical.  You squeeze the bulb and then heat the component, say one side of a cap, and then, as the solder melts, you place the nozzle of the bulb one the molten solder and let the bulb expand.....poof, the solder gets sucked into the bulb.  Then, do the other side of the component and it should come out.

Most of the time, I am too lazy to look for my bulb so I just remove as much solder as I can with my iron tip by cleaning the tip often and then, say with a large cap, get one side loose and pull it to one side, then heat the other side and rock that out as far as it will go, and repeat until it comes free.  Yes, a bit of a pain but I have now tupperware containers full of all types of components that I have removed from various boards.  you never know when you are going to need something.  Hope this helps.

@ Jim:

Man, it sounds like your country is under attack!  Did this guy set these fires on purpose?  Or were these accidents?  (well, one accident that got out of control)  We have people in this country that set large forest fires on purpose, mostly in California, but they are all over the US as well.  These folks should be shot!

Bill

[MrMag]

They have manual solder suckers at radio shack that are pretty cheap. This is what I usually use. Some people also swear by a product called solder wick. It's a woven copper mesh that absorbs the solder. Just place the wick between the solder and the iron.

If it's a smaller board that you are taking parts off of and your not worried about damage to the board, what I have found to be the quickest way of removing components is once you get the solder melted, just give the board a quick rap on the side of your desk and the solder will fly off.

[Koen1]

Hey thanks for the replies people
I heard about this "solder sucker" thing before but that was quite
some time ago and I recall at the time the things were quite expensive
so I forgot about it... Now I'm thinking it might be a handy tool...
But Bills suggestion sounds a lot cheaper
I'm not really familiar with a "baby booger collector" but I assume
you're talking about a sort of pipette -like thing?
I'll dig around in my boxes of collected junk to see if I have
one of those old pipettes consisting of a glass tube and a rubber
bulb on it... That should work to suck up liquid solder.

As for the Ozzie forest fires, it is indeed an inferno. I've watched the images on tv,
it's just horrid.
But I do wonder if it is really true that so much of these fires are intentionally set by people...
After all, there's been a dry spell and freakishly high temperatures for the past weeks now,
temp was well over 40 degrees C (104 degrees F) not long ago.
And on top of that the country is riddled with various Eucalypt species that are famous for
1) sucking up all the water 2) producing volitile oils that form highly combusable oil fumes
when it gets hot and 3) stimulating forest fires when they break out, while 4) not dying in a
forest fire like all other plants, thereby slowly but surely increasing both the concentration
of Eucalypt trees as well as increasing the chances of another forest fire. Or at least, I picked
that one up very quickly when I was there.
Are there really people that are stupid enough to actually go about starting fires in such an
environment? Well, I suppose there must be... There's two things that are infinite: the universe,
and human stupidity. And we're still not sure about the first.
Seems to me it's just a matter of time before the next bushfire breaks out so there's really no
need to light one...
And also seems to me that with a fairly extensive forestry program this risk could be reduced
drastically, by removing the gum trees and replacing them with other types of trees. Obviously
that would only work when a large percentage of the gum trees is removed entirely including
roots, or at least killed off incl roots, but that's doable.
Heh, methinks they should just hire me and I'll draw up a plan to give Oz a much less
fire hazardous foliage and use their heat surplus to get fresh water into the dry outback.
Easy peasy, all proven concepts, just needs a lot of manpower to build it all.

Koen

[slayer007]

Here's another joule thief in a 2" ferrite core.
The joule thief has 20 turns and the extra pickup coil it has 160 turns,its 3 layers thick.

When its ran off a 12v battery it can light a CFL off the extra pickup coil.

Here is a video of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8durcYVl_E

[innovation_station]

 i have worked out the curcuit for the ou cfl ..  stick..

i will build it...... i am no good at drawing curcuits ... i will build it tho and make it work ...  it has a jt in it ..  4 leds  a transistor to switch on 

and off the cam unit wich will light the cfl.......  and it used the original led feed ...wich is switched by the controller  by sunlight to power the

jt and switch on and off the cam unit

wich is powered dirrectly from the battery ... by passing the charge controller and original output for the led  to allow the cam tranny to pull a few more miliamps..

everything...   is used ... 

it is half built i have the small jt wound and powering 4 superbright leds  from the solar led feed ...  im wireing the switch now to turn on the cam unit from the sencer ..

ill post a pic soon   this bord is all in 1 and is designed to fit in the top globe on the cfl light stick ... 

ist!