Joule Thief 101

[resonanceman]

Hi to all people who are having a hard time finding good toroids.

I want to offer a ray of hope.

I just made a really great jtc today and with it I will be able to light up a small room with many leds in both series and parallel.

So, first the toroid came from the circuit board that was part of a 13w cfl.
(I think 13 watt. It could be 10w or 20w,) but you can see in the picture that the toroid was next to the can type capacitor which is bent over.
You can see the space where it was.

Jeanna

Thanks for posting this

I got some CFLs  to try a Jeanna light  last week

I pulled the  toroids out of them and  tried making a candy cane coil with them......
I had hoped  to light up my 90 LED array  with  4 or 5 little toroids 

I didn't get anything out of them.

Now  I will try again..........maybe I will pull some windings  off of them.

gary

[jeanna]

Hi Gary,
I do not think this will work with 90 unless you resolder the leds in your bulb..

I would solder 7- 8 leds in series and 4-10 in parallel. This will give you one light that is as bright as a 28-80 watt light bulb which will run off one AA or AAA for a very long time.

I will be doing something like this today, and if I learn anything new I will post it.

jeanna

[resonanceman]

Hi Gary,
I do not think this will work with 90 unless you resolder the leds in your bulb..

Jeanna

I am not  going to re arrange the  LEDs in my  array...... I like them the way they are.

I do understand  that it might not be possible  to lite  my array with  the little  CFL toroids ........that is why I am trying it

I need  about 100V  to light  the  array to full  brightenss.........
I can  get that kind of  voltage  from a 5 for $1 toroid in  at least  half a dozen ways......

I think  we will  be much  better off if we find ways to use smaller toroids  for larger power  applications.

My theory is....... wind  a  toroid to get the voltage you need........then make   more  just like it ......... keep adding  more toroids in series until you have enough power.

To clarify.......  the primary  of the  original  toroid should  be removed...... and  a primary through the centers of ALL the  toroids should  be added.


gary

[resonanceman]

I added  2  5 for $1 toroids  to the  unknown  coil by putting candy cane  windings over the  empty spots on the coil.

I  used 3 wraps each toroid  with brown wire and  2 wraps each toroid with blue  wire.

The intention is to couple  the 3 toroids  to catch more magnetic flux from the  primary

gary


Edit

it turns  out that this  did  not work out...... I am pretty sure it can be done.......but  havn't got it to work yet

I finally got back to the unknown  coil
Adding  a cancy cane  winding  did not  do the trick.
I  still think it should  have so I will try again later.
It does work  with  a few simple wraps  of wire  around each extra core.
You can't  tell by  this picture  but the 2 outside cores are there to " collect " more flux for the unknown coil .
The mumber of wraps does not seem  critical.
I used 5 for one  and 10 for the other.
I get 127 V with both  connected ...... that is powering  my LED array.
The  start  of the  wire connecting  the toroids  must be connected to the end ...... if I disconnect either  wire from its other end  the voltage drops to 10 V

gary

[jeanna]

...

I do understand  that it might not be possible  to lite  my array with  the little  CFL toroids ........that is why I am trying it

yeay!!   

I need  about 100V  to light  the  array to full  brightness.........

100 spiky volts?
That is nice to know.
I think I will pick up one of those next time I am in wallmart. I need another plaque, so that might be soon.

I can  get that kind of  voltage  from a 5 for $1 toroid in  at least  half a dozen ways......

I might try to get that much from the little one.
I just made a bunch of turns and it seemed good at 50-60v at 470r, but with less resistance or more turns or both 100v is probably possible.
I was addressing the cfl. I do not think that is possible with the tiny toroid.
I made one at the end of the summer from my 3/4 inch toroid that lit a 4 inch 4watt tube, but it fizzled. I think there were so many turns, that they must have shifyed and choked it.

I notice xee2 has re-wound his that got choked and he is getting good HV from it.

I think  we will  be much  better off if we find ways to use smaller toroids  for larger power  applications.

I completely agree.

To clarify.......  the primary  of the  original  toroid should  be removed...... and  a primary through the centers of ALL the  toroids should  be added.

This is something like the russian pictures from the other day.

I also had good results by winding the base coil around one toroid, and the collector coil around both. This gave me 2 toroids with similar voltage output, but if I remember, different shape.

I find it interesting to light a cfl, but it is not necessary nor very bright. Certainly using a bunch of leds is the brightest way.


jeanna