Big Joule Theif

[Lidmotor]

The last Joule Thief----"Lewey"

I finish the last Joule Thief--"Lewey" in my boxed series of three. Now there is a Hewey, Dewey, and Lewey. This one is smaller than the first two and has some different features. This third one completes the set and I'm finished with this project.
I am moving onto the SEC project from here. Slayer has replicated Dr. Stiffler's circuit and it looks very promising as an efficient way to make light.
Here is the video of "Lewey"
YouTube - Solar Joule Thief ---LEWEY

Cheers,
Lidmotor

[Watson]

[QUOTE=Lidmotor;50165]Hi all,
"
Here is a video of the thing with a supercapacitor setup. It was just for demostration. Normally you use NiMh rechargable batteries or even just alkaline.

YouTube - Solar Joule Thief Runs A Fan

Cheers,
Lidmotor
"

I ordered some parts from Mouser, and also some super capacitors. But when I checked out, the super caps were back ordered. These were the cheaper Cornell Dubilier ones, 50 F for 6 bucks. I ordered 5 but from my past experiences, it may take months for them to fill the order.

I was wondering where you all get your super caps, and where's a reasonably priced source. A few years ago I ordered some 1 F caps from All Electroincs, but they had short leds and were snipped out of equipment.

What I found odd was that at Mouser, a 50F or 33 F is not much more than a 10 F, so why not buy the bigger ones?

[Lidmotor]

Mouser super caps

[QUOTE=Watson;50724]

Hi all,
"
Here is a video of the thing with a supercapacitor setup. It was just for demostration. Normally you use NiMh rechargable batteries or even just alkaline.

YouTube - Solar Joule Thief Runs A Fan

Cheers,
Lidmotor
"

I ordered some parts from Mouser, and also some super capacitors. But when I checked out, the super caps were back ordered. These were the cheaper Cornell Dubilier ones, 50 F for 6 bucks. I ordered 5 but from my past experiences, it may take months for them to fill the order.

I was wondering where you all get your super caps, and where's a reasonably priced source. A few years ago I ordered some 1 F caps from All Electroincs, but they had short leds and were snipped out of equipment.

What I found odd was that at Mouser, a 50F or 33 F is not much more than a 10 F, so why not buy the bigger ones?

Mouser is where I have been getting my super caps. I just ordered a couple more. They only had one of the $6 50F left in stock so I ordered that and one smaller one. I think it was a 20 or 30 for about the same price. So far I have had good luck with them getting the stuff to me here in California in one week or less. No problems with the caps so far. One of my Youtube viewers turned me onto the source.

Lidmotor

[Watson]

Luck ran out

[QUOTE=Lidmotor;50753]

Mouser is where I have been getting my super caps. I just ordered a couple more. They only had one of the $6 50F left in stock so I ordered that and one smaller one. I think it was a 20 or 30 for about the same price. So far I have had good luck with them getting the stuff to me here in California in one week or less. No problems with the caps so far. One of my Youtube viewers turned me onto the source.

Lidmotor

My luck seems to be running out. I checked Digi-Key and supercaps are non-stocked items. Other brands at other suppliers seem to cost twice as much.

When it comes to parts, I've been having bad luck lately. I bought 50 blue LEDs from a guy in Canada, and every one of them had a bubble. I'd never seen one with a bubble before; theyr'e normally rejected at the factory. He sent another bag, without the bubbles.

Then I got some parts from Goldmine Elect. I ordered 100 pF, they sent 270 pF instead. They made good by crediting my visa card.

Then yesterday I pulled a new solar cell out of the bag, and it was dead when illuminated. I'll have to email the supplier and see what happens.

Oh, well... Here's a pic of a recent experiment.
BTW, I'm from the south..
(So. Cal, a few miles down the road from Disneyland ).

[Watson]

Oops, forgot the pic.

[Watson]

Luck Ran Out

Oops, forgot the pic.

Looks like my luck ran out. I got an email from Mouser telling me that the super capacitors I ordered won't be in stock until middle to late June. Now ain't that pathetic?

In the meantime, I'm just sticking with a bunch of 1F aerogel caps in parallel, as seen in the pic. The 20 Farads of caps charge up to 2 volts and run the JT Flasher for more than 2 hours.

I've been looking at these Solar JT circuits and frankly, they are a bit scary. What will happen if you leave one in the window, and it overcharges the 10F supercap? You might be cleaning electrolyte and capacitor guts off the walls!

The 10F capacitor should have something in parallel that will limit the voltage to 2.5V maximum. or whatever its max rating is. One simple solution is a LED, maybe a green one that starts to conduct between 2 and 2.5 volts. When the cap gets up to its max, the LED will shunt the current through to common, and make a pretty light.

[Guruji]

Big Joule thief

Hi guys about the capacitor I am using 10uf 16v electrolyte cap. Is this limiting my voltage down?. I have to increase this in slayer circuit to acquire more voltage in circuit?.
Any help please?
Thanks

[slayer007]

@ Guruji

Really you don't need the capacitor in there at all.
Xee2 at OU redrew the circuit for me and he put the capacitor in there.

I didn't have it in there in my origonal circuit I posted at OU.
It's there for a filter but it's really not needed at all.

[Guruji]

Bjt

Thanks Slayer for your help to me and to all
Thanks

[Watson]

Hi guys about the capacitor I am using 10uf 16v electrolyte cap. Is this limiting my voltage down?. I have to increase this in slayer circuit to acquire more voltage in circuit?.
Any help please?
Thanks

Is a schematic available? A link to it? Thanks.

[vzon17]

Wow good one!!
I think that this is a "Must do" experiment replication as soon as I find a ferrite ring big enough. Any tips on where I can find one? I tried a speaker ring magnet but had very poor results. What is the amp draw on this when the CFL is on? Paul's rendition of this JT/CFL was drawing 800Ma at 10volts but he wasn't using secondary pickup winding. This 8:1 winding ratio seems to work just fine. Are the primary and secondary wires the same thickness?
Thanks,

Lidmotor

some ferrite torroids
Toroids | AllElectronics.com

[Watson]

some ferrite torroids
Toroids | AllElectronics.com

I bought some of the "charcoal" # TOR-23 cores from them. The TOR-43 is so small it's difficult to wind for a JT, but I stacked three of them and wound 34 AWG, and managed to get it to work.

The TOR-23 cores do well with three 16 inch lengths of 30 AWG trifilar wound, which gives each winding about 150 uH. I connect two windings in parallel for the primary, leaving the third for the feedback winding.

I just bought (from Mouser) some Fair-Rite 2673002402 and 2643002402 "IM shield beads" which are really toroids. They're smaller, about 3/8" O.D. and 3/16" high, so I have to use smaller wire with the '43, but the '73 is good enough with 24 gauge telephone wire.

[Guruji]

Bjt

Hi SLayer another question please.
How much ac voltage should the secondary give in 480turns cause I did not add the turns .
Now my BJT secondary is giving 14v ac. I have alot to go to light a flourescent?
Thanks

[slayer007]

@ Guruji

Running at 3v with two 1.5v batterys.

The rectified voltage across the sedondary going into a small capacitor is around 380 volts.

It should take close to 300v to run a CFL.

This was tried with the basic JT circuit with only one transistor.

One thing you could also try is to take out the 1k resistor and put a 5k pot in it's place.
That way you can go below 1k if you need to for tunning.

Also for best results the toroid should be a ferrite toroid.

P.S. I used a rectifier across the secondary because the AC comming off the secondary isn't true AC it might not be right at 60mhz.
So my meter wouldnt read it correctly.

[Watson]

@ Guruji

Really you don't need the capacitor in there at all.
Xee2 at OU redrew the circuit for me and he put the capacitor in there.

I didn't have it in there in my origonal circuit I posted at OU.
It's there for a filter but it's really not needed at all.

OU? any chance you could post a link to it? Thanks.

I got some Fuji and Kodak flash units from disposable cameras and I'd like to modify them for driving a CFL.