Joule Thief

[Billxx]

Just an observation, but, I think the use of a magnet in the circuit near the transformer offers an opportunity to harvest energy. Gadgetmall's discovery of being able to self charge his battery may be because of the position of his washer magnet in relation to his transformer. The runaway condition he experienced may be because once you start the "generator" effect, it could be causing a compounding effect, and really no way to stop it without complete disconnection. He might or might not be able to replicate that condition again because he may not be able to position his magnet-transformer relation exactly. It's really a cool discovery he made, though. 

[gadgetmall]

Hi guys . I have no idea why some work one day and not the next . Very strange circuit . I read about the results from temperature . Than don't make any sense to me as they are inside and the same temperature day or night.One thing i know that changes at night verse the day besides outdoor temperature in the ionosphere and it's ability to carry radio waves better at night due to no noise from the suns electrons. I have noticed just the oppisite from Tsby3 .

Also i am wondering if solar flares were acting up as several nights ago i saw some auroras in a bluish color . We rarely get them in the east but i have caught them lighting the skys here now and then.. Has anyone seen the new 3D images of the sun from the Nasa Stereo satellites . Simply Fantastic on my 3D tv . They show exact images in depth and even the rays and particles penetrating our atmosphere and hitting objects and b ringing down Grids and stuff . Unreal power lately as our sun spits at us.

I could be that i have fine tuned to a stations frequency that blasts at night time but still remains in the day. the only other explanation is there is some kind of energy that can be tapped with the proper coil and frequency .

I hate it when i see something that is so fantastic and i can;t do it again. Yes i have tried rewinding that little ferrite rod with the same wire and used one of the same germaniums in the same spot on that board  and the best i can do is hold a steady voltage for a few days then that ones slowly fades .

i do have two there still running thought but not a wire melting led blowing transistor frying circuit . So i have build another board to test different coils and transistors more easily and can post on those.
In the meantime guys there is still lots to learn from just this one little circuit . I am also tinkering with several transistors in a push pull for the secondary stages that will feed that base of the Q1 primary ..



I am heading to the surplus yard tomorrow looking for that unusually military piece of something  i can use do looking forward to that . Also almost finished with Soln1+  and need to sell it so i probably will make a short demo of it . 


BTW , forgot to mention that this got dang circuit took out the sensor circuit in me Weller soldering station(24v) .the pencil looks like a piece of hot iron a blacksmith could pound into a horseshoe now.  So WARNING . don't use your good temperature controlled soldering station on the crossover circuit when it's live . The stray emf creeps right thru to your mains and takes out anything between it .

[TinselKoala]

Hmmm.... that last bit is kind of scary, I use my Solomon temperature-controlled iron on it live sometimes..... have to be more careful I guess, I can't afford to blow that iron for sure.

Am I reading right, gadgetmall, that you've not been able to recapture that great supercharging effect yet? That's a bummer... I really want mine to do that for a while, too!
I switched to a NiMH AA cell and it started at 1.320 volts and went down in an hour to about 1.295 and now has seemed stable there for some hours.... I hope you saw the video where I use a variable cap for the 100pF and show its effect on the waveform... .got any ideas which way I should tune, I mean what kind of waveshape I might want? I think by adding another 200 or 300 pF I can even extend the effect I showed on the waveform further, bringing up the voltage (less negative) of the "level" portion after the spike and before the little ringdown, and making the frequency lower. But is this the direction I want to go? By using the minimum capacitance of my trimmer, about 10 pF, that "table" gets lower in voltage (more negative) and the frequency increases. But the current trace hump seems to remain pretty much the same, although the average current will go down as the frequency decreases. I dunno, still running it on the NiMh.

[Pirate88179]

OK, this might be stupid and not relevant but, have you guys considered using a super cap in place of the source battery?  The reason I ask is because of what I learned a while back while working on projects here on OU.

Most, if not all, JT type circuits output some really nice spikes, some of which are hard to see on a scope unless you really play around with it.  These little flashes are, I believe, a good source of energy that a battery just seems to ignore but a supercap captures and stores it for later use as real energy.

It is hard for me to explain but, this is the simple reason that my earth battery, which on the meter or scope, puts out just under 2 volts can charge a 2.7 volt boostcap fully.  It is all of those nice high spikes that get saved by the cap. 

Anyway, this is my explanation for it and possibly, getting rid of the batteries all together might just make the difference in these circuits. If I am way off base here then just carry on and keep up the great work being done here.

Bill

[xee2]

I hate it when i see something that is so fantastic and i can;t do it again.

When working with RF frequecy circuits it is necessary to remember that the leads are also components. The capacitance between a few inches of two wires can look like a short at RF. So the connection wires need to be duplicated as well as the components in order to get the same results.