Joule Thief

[kooler]

sorry to post this here but i tried to make a new topic and it wouldn't let in the ciol setup section

but i made something i thought i'd share a little till i finish the rest of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSOcuQfzq4I

powering the car coil with a single AA battery
you guys may need something like this if you need HV...

sorry for the crappy video
i took it with my camera instead of my camcorder

later

[xee2]

@ kooler

sorry to post this here but i tried to make a new topic and it wouldn't let in the ciol setup section

but i made something i thought i'd share a little till i finish the rest of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSOcuQfzq4I

powering the car coil with a single AA battery
you guys may need something like this if you need HV...

sorry for the crappy video
i took it with my camera instead of my camcorder

later

Don't be sorry. Thanks for posting your results. I am actually amazed you were able to get that big of a spark out of the coil with only 1.5 volts. Can you provide more information about what you are doing?

[kooler]

@ xee2

alot can be improved... but here is the start

[Pirate88179]

@ kooler:

Great video man, 5 stars.  I too would like to know more about what you are doing here.  Please feel free to continue to post about this here as, as you said, this is something we can use for our other research.  It is related so, carry on and continue to post here.  I will go back later and read over your diagram but for now, I think this is incredible results from an AA battery.  Nice going.

Bill

[xee2]

@ kooler

@ xee2

alot can be improved... but here is the start

Ah! Very, very clever. So you are actually driving the car coil with about 200 volt pulses. Much easier to get big sparks that way. Great idea. Thanks for sharing. How fool proof is the pulse generator part? I would guess that you need to have at least 300 volts coming out of the Joule Thief pickup coil.


EDIT: I notice that you have changed from a 2N3055 transistor to a 2N3904. What kind of difference in performance are you seeing between the two transistors? Are the neons regular NE2 type bulbs or are they gas discharge tubes that short out quickly at 120 volts?

EDIT 2: You might want to put a 1K resistor in series with the neons to prevent them from triggering the SCR before they turn on. Although I think you know more about SCRs than I do so that may not be a good suggestion.

EDIT 3: This circuit could also be useful for generating very bright LED pulses or could be used to convert low current input from an earth battery into very high current pulses to make LEDs look very bright. LEDs would need to be put in series with enough bulbs to be able to withstand the pulse voltage (which could be reduced by only using one neon).