Joule Thief

[Pirate88179]

@ Wilby:

Thanks, that is good information.

@ All:

In case any one else want to get some super caps: http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/90424-capacitor-ultra-400f-2-7v-radial-eshsr-0400c0-002r7.html

The above link takes you to digi-key and a 400 F Cap.  At the bottom of that page are links to many other sizes and values.

It is interesting to note that you can buy a 5,000 F super cap on their site.  I believe it costs a little over $4,000.00 but, I didn't even know you could get one this large.  They have a good assortment of 1,5,10, 50, Farad caps at decent prices.  I plan on buying some larger ones later when I can afford to.  (Not the 5,000 F cap, too rich for me)

These caps seem to work like batteries.  They do not just "dump" everything all at once.  I have a small supercap I have used for over a year.  I can instantly charge it up and it will light an led for over 2 hours on that one "flash" charge.

I feel like we can incorporate these into our JT circuits in some way.  I have already used the supercaps by charging them with my earth battery.

Bill

[WilbyInebriated]

your feeling is correct bill, although i think if you want to stick with the boost circuitry you have been using, you need to mod it a bit to lower (buck) the supply (5v supercap) by placing it in series with the load and feed the 'extra' back to a smoothing cap

[timmy1729]

HOW THE CIRCUIT WORKS

...
that's how it works, as simple as that. no puzzle at all.

It's no puzzle at all unless you are electrically challenged, like myself 
Thanks for the explanation. Now I have to find an electrical engineering dictionary so I can understand it LOL 

[timmy1729]

@All

I went shopping this afternoon and got some silicon and zener diodes to experiment with some more JT improvements from http://wiki.waggy.org/dokuwiki/electronics/joulethief .

I also got a Darlington transistor to try out that idea posted earlier. I don't know what was planned for the darlington setup, but if someone wants to tell me what to do with it, I will test it out for them.

[Mk1]

@Timmy

Connect the transistor the same way you usually do , assuming that regularly you are using a 2n3904 npn if its a pnp transistor just reverse the battery that should do the trick , you may need to play with the resistance to make sure there is enough to make it switch, if at first nothing happen try a 9 volt battery to see what its doing .