Joule Thief

[electricme]

@Bill,
Thats good news Bill, hope Stefan has a better run with this new server.
Now I'm back to unsoldering some dumped crt boards, but some news from me here.

@all,
I went to the local dump yesterday an picked up a solar pannel, a big one.
Its got a hole in it, about 1" by 2", anyway, I took it home, cleaned it up, the glass panel is broken, like a cars windscreen, tiny bits of broken glass everywhere, the solar cells are even bulging at the ground level, I'm not even going to entertain the thought of strightening it, as they will snap for sure.

Its got a proper voltage blocking system consisting of 6 heavy duty diodes, I hooked this panel up to a flatt car battery and it charged this battery up with about 8 hours of sunlight.

0631 = full solar pannel
0632 = hole in pannel, sorry about the quality of the pics, low sunlight.

jim

[dog812]

Well I tested a bunch of resistors last night..
from 2.2k down to 47 Ohm.
The JT would not work from 2.2 K - 100 ohm.. but would work with 68 ohm and under. sadly i dont have any resistors between 100 - 68..
But still is wierd why it would only work with such a small resistor..
I am glad it works though.. makes it so much easier to wind with such a small torrid.


How come i cant get any readings from the secondary? Is this normal?

So all i have been doing is testing my battery, to see how fast it drains.
Testing the over / under JT.:
68 ohm w/ 3 LED's

5:38 pm Monday.
battery at 1.37V

10:24pm
battery at 1.25v

7:00 a.m Tuesday.
battery at 0.85V

Not very efficient. But the LED's are super bright !!!!
http://i40.tinypic.com/10clq1k.jpg

[electricme]

@Dog812,
Nice big pic of your torid coil setup.

Don't worry too much about the resister being so low, my setup will light with a 50 ohm resistor, then it stops working.
I can also get the JT working all the way up to a 2,000 ohm resistor, and it stops there also, so there is this intermediate range where it will operate.

We have the lower and the upper limites, but as every torid and windings are different, there is no actual set in stone measurement.
You will have to find out what is best for your particular setup.

hooroo

jim

[Mk1]

@dog812

Did you test your secondary with a led or a diode bridge, because sometime it the only way to see it.

[Pirate88179]

Jim:

Man that panel is a great find!!!!  There is not telling what people will toss out these days.  That panel is made up of many cells (as I know you know) and it looks to me like 90% are just fine.  Heck, if it is charging your battery as it is I would just leave it that way.  That is a good sized panel.  A few more like that and it's off the grid for you mate.  My question is....what will someone down there throw out next?

Today, I am picking up a magnesium block I ordered from a local company yesterday.  It is 5 pounds!!!  I will use that with my carbon rods in the earth battery to see what I can light up using the JT technology.  The mA's output should be decent if I have it figured correctly.  We will see what happens.

Bill