Joule Thief

[protonmom]

Short the cap with a screwdriver before you go near it and once for good luck after . It isn't going to really hurt you but I do have a charred spot in my grandmother's tablecloth! (oops!).
( It is enough voltage to hurt you but you must touch each end with a different hand, and that is pretty hard to do when the leads are 3/8 inch apart.)

jeanna

Thanks Jeanna.  Did you mean that I need to use two hands to short out the cap, or did you mean in order for it to hurt me I would have to  use two hands?  That was not quite clear to me.  I thought shorting out a cap just meant to put a screwdriver across both terminals at the same time and if there is juice it will arc.  Was that wrong?
It is not like I need a different camera to work on since I have a ton of the instant ones, but since I had these I-zones, too, I felt I should also use them in some way, even if it means along with an instant cam.  Or, maybe they are just junk.

BTW, Welcome Back!!!!!

(If anyone comes up with an idea for the I-zone, please let me know and give me a schematic, too....  Thanks)  I am learning as I go.

[Mk1]

@all

Hello everyone !

The basic rodin jt and the second one is 12/12 jt and 48 pickup , i get anything between 25 and 189 volts . It light a neon nicely , i wish had a scope there ...

the second one has the 2 jt coil going in the opposite direction one ever the other.

i can't really test it .

Marc

[jeanna]

..  Did you mean that I need to use two hands to short out the cap, or did you mean in order for it to hurt me I would have to  use two hands?  ...

BTW, Welcome Back!!!!!

Thanks,

I meant to hurt you, you would have to use 2 hands.

The high voltage must cross your chest for the impulse to confuse your heart pulsing mechanism.
Otherwise it might burn or sting your fingertip  but that would be all. (except for the odd tablecloth.  )

jeanna

[jeanna]

Mark,
I would like to make one of each of those.
Would you be willing to describe how you made them in detail?

-----
@All,
So, when does a transformer not act like a transformer?

Gary alluded to this once and I have been finding it a lot on my last circuit.
I wound a 200T on the other side of a 20T and wanted to have it act like a step up transformer, but it went way down instead of up...

Any ideas on what gives with this?

The frequency stayed the same,  and the voltage went from 5v to 1.3v

jeanna

[IotaYodi]

Did you mean that I need to use two hands to short out the cap, or did you mean in order for it to hurt me I would have to  use two hands?

You should use your right hand when dealing with "hot" high voltages because of the heart. It can take as little as .005 amp to set the heart into fibrillation. Thats not to say a normal healthy heart will do it even at higher amperes ,but better safe than sorry. Insulated handles should be used with high voltages. 50 volts itself is considered dangerous because of the amount of current it can produce. A 9 volt battery on an open cut can kill you also. A volt meter is a wonderful thing.
I have been hung up with 120 volts with a short to conduit that was pressed up against a cast iron sprinkler pipe for about 10 to 20 seconds. My insulated linemans pliers welded itself to the junction box that I was working on hot, thus creating the circuit. My left arm was wrapped around the cast iron and I couldn't let go. I was lucky the pliers finally fell off. Whoever ran the conduit never put an insulator between the cast iron and the conduit. My helper never touched me or even knew I was hung up. I climbed off the ladder and proceeded to chew a pipers butt out. I have also been hit with a 277 volt circuit that the foreman said was off. I never tested it but I should have. My hand and arm felt like a mule kicked it. Really fun stuff.