Joule Thief

[dasimpson]

all i know is i had a battery that read 0.00 on my meter i tried loads of time with charger to charge it nothing put it on the joule thief reciving end for an hour it read 1.31 volts but but very mah put it in the charger for the 15 hours at 200mah and is now holding full charge better then any of the others

[resonanceman]

all i know is i had a battery that read 0.00 on my meter i tried loads of time with charger to charge it nothing put it on the joule thief reciving end for an hour it read 1.31 volts but but very mah put it in the charger for the 15 hours at 200mah and is now holding full charge better then any of the others

Dasimpson

That is a great example  of a joule thief reconditioning  a battery.

That is  just a start though.

To get the most from your battery  use it  and  recharge it  with a JT .......it might not seem like  the JT is charging it very well at first...... after a few cycles  the JT should  charge it  better........I understand it takes  about  20 cycles to get  the  most  out of it.

gary

[dasimpson]

ill give it ago

i might just take the 2 small solar panels i have run them to a aa battery then run that to the joule thief hopefully i will be able to charge other batterys also

[Poit]

Thanks for all the replies.......... I guess I have a lot of reading to do

[crowclaw]

Hi All,
I have done quite a lot of experimenting over the last few months with radiant charging using the back EMF from various circuits including JT's. As Gary mentioned you do have to keep cycling the cells (charge/discharge) over many times. Both pulse frequency and mark/space ratio plays a crucial part in how successful this technique is. You are correct that a dead cell can be brought back to life and show a potential voltage, but no real useful current. You need to study the works of John Bedini and others to get a grasp of using these charge methods successfully. I have achieved mixed results with both nicad and lead acid cells... the methods tend to be rather critical, and I'm still working on these projects.