Joule Thief

[Cap-Z-ro]

Thalen mentioned scraping the enamel off his wire on the sharp edges of the torroid.

A dremmel tool with a rubber cone bit should round off the sharp edges nicely.

Great work by you peeps BTW...the spirit of cooperation makes opening this thread an anticipated pleasure.

Regards...

[Pirate88179]

@ Cap:

Good idea but, it won't work.  Ferrite is like 9 on the Mohs scale of relative hardness, with diamond being 10.  For comparison, glass is 5.5.  Now, if you put diamond paste on that rubber, it would do it but it would take a long time because that is a lapping procedure.  The toroids I got from electronics goldmine all had their edges broken at a 45 degree angle. (Nice machining job)  One could get some diamond plated files and use a little water and break the edges if they are sharp.  Trust me, this stuff is hard.

Bill

[Cap-Z-ro]

Mornin' Bill,

This is obviously a problem for many people...you would think they would smooth the edges on their moulds...thereby producing smooth toroids.

Regards...

[Pirate88179]

Cap:

The ones I have were machined on the edges, and very nicely too.  I think it is the ones folks salvage out of power supplies that might not have had the finish treatment.  But, in reality, most of these probably come from China, and we already know of their lack of quality control.

Good morning to you as well.  Good to see you.

Bill

[hazens1]

Edit: Added output volts measured using a Radio Shack Blue 561-1kv (560pf, 1000v, Ceramic) capacitor on the Pickup coil.


@All

Sorry that some have had trouble replicating my setup. I did a little expirimenting to try to find the best setup. I'm still working, but I thought I would share some preliminary results with you.

I took some of my Goldmine 5/$1 toroids and wound a 7t Base, 7t Collector the way I usually do. (Wind the Base CCW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up. Then the Collector Starting at the End of the Base CCW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up.)

Then I wound a 21t Pickup various ways. All using a 1k ohm Base Resistor on a 2n2222 Transistor. All starting at the End of the Collector.

1. CCW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up for 11 turns then 180° back Up through the Hole, Over then Down CW 10 turns back to start of Pickup. This gave 5 measly volts at 1.2v, 70ma input. (Is this how some of you were winding the 2nd layer?)

2. CCW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up for 11 turns then CW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up 10 turns back to start of Pickup. This gave 70v at 1.2v, 70ma input. (This is how I wound the 3t-7t-150t, 400v Floro circuit.)

3. CCW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up for 21 turns single layer. This gave 70v at 1.2v, 66ma input. 1 layer seems more efficient then 2 layers, no suprise there

For try #4, see the quote below..

    Just curious, but has anyone tried to wind the first layer of the pickup coil and then just jump over the two small coils and wind the second layer?

thaelin

4. CCW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up for 11 turns then JUMP back to the start of the Pickup and CCW Over, Thru the Hole, Under then Back Up for 10 turns. This gave 82v at 1.2v, 70ma input. Wow 15% better output voltage from this setup    Thanks Thaelin 

I've got more testing to do. Now I'm going to try varying the way I wind the Base and Collector coils and see how this affects things, but I know how I'm going to wind my next Major Pickup Coil 


Re-measured all setups using a 560pf, 1000v, Ceramic capacitor on the Pickup coil to get peak spike voltage.

1. Capacitor measured volts = 7v
2. Capacitor measured volts = 118v
3. Capacitor measured volts = 122v
4. Capacitor measured volts = 134v


hazens1