Big Joule Theif

[Watson]

So the "big joule thief" is using 2n3055.
Question: Anyone try using an IGNITION coil or
flyback coil?
I guess one problem with ignition is that NEGATIVE is common
for primary and secondary and joule-thief is not happy with
that arrangement.
A flyback, on the other hand, might work -- especially if it doesn't
have a diode on the high-voltage lead -- like some of them do.

-- morpher44

Neither terminal is grounded if you're using a standard 'Kettering' type ignition coil - the one used with points and condenser.

Here's another ignition coil circuit. It gives you an idea of the internal coil wiring. If in doubt, check the windings and windings to case ground with your ohmmeter.

Read the text carefully - it's very informative.

Ignition Coil High Voltage Circuit

And here's how to drive a flyback coil from an old TV or monitor.

Sam Goldwasser's Flyback Transformer Circuit

There is nothing that says that you must use two transistors. You can "halve" the circuit and turn it into a conventional Joule thief circuit. But two transistors gives you more POWER!

In order to view these ASCII schematics you must use Courier or other monospaced font.

[morpher44]

Super Joule Thief Proposal - ala Hubbard

I had an interesting idea that someone out there might want to try.
Take a close look at the so called Hubbard coil.

What has bothered me for about 2 weeks now is this mysterious
2.8Ghz declared to be the "Natural Resonance Frequency of Magnetism"
that Hubbard derived all his frequencies and golden ratio geometry from.
So ... crack that ... I thought.

Today I had read up on EMR and PMR ... and WOW!
EMR has the electron spin frequency at 28Ghz if the electron
is in a field that is ONE Tesla.
Ok, so to get 2.8Ghz for the spin, you need 0.1 Tesla.
Did Hubbard have 0.1 Tesla in his coil? If yes, the electrons would
SPIN perfectly AROUND its periphery -- a most optimum situation.

So could a SUPER Joule Thief be constructed with a Hubbard
coil?
Hubbard claimed COP = 3 or so.

[sucahyo]

In the schematic, notice the 1N4005 protection diodes around the IRF640. But I think I would use some 3 amp diodes because the current through the ignition coil might be higher than the 1N4005s can handle. But come to think of it, you could put two or three 1N4005s in parallel and get the same result. They're cheaper and common as dog doo-doo.

I wonder if diode will reduce the output since our kind of circuit do punish the transistor by forcing it to stop the current abruptly. I think adding diode will add leak point that reduce the power that we can use. I think we should AVOID using diode and protect the transistor another way.

[ashtweth]

Guys we built this mainly as a homage to all, its Lid's slayers/rick's /ren's and John's AIO

In this AIO (switchable) We have a pulsed inverted joule thief , plus solid state, Fan and Lid's light. Schemo and video coming soon. We could operate all (Fan, light solid state charger) on under 1 amp. 500mA with good light and charge two 7aH batteries from one.

Imageshack - aio1
Imageshack - aio2
(full light with fan and charge 900mA

We could get it down to 100mA with no light on and a good charge (still 2 7aH batteries). Fan has good RPM

More details soon guys sorry about the short post.

Ash

[Lidmotor]

Slayer's winning design----A five day test at sea

Guys we built this mainly as a homage to all, its Lid's slayers/rick's /ren's and John's AIO

In this AIO (switchable) We have a pulsed inverted joule thief , plus solid state, Fan and Lid's light. Schemo and video coming soon. We could operate all (Fan, light solid state charger) on under 1 amp. 500mA with good light and charge two 7aH batteries from one.

Imageshack - aio1
Imageshack - aio2
(full light with fan and charge 900mA

We could get it down to 100mA with no light on and a good charge (still 2 7aH batteries). Fan has good RPM

More details soon guys sorry about the short post.

Ash

Hi Ash,
I just got back from a five day sailing vacation to Catalina Island here in California. I just saw your post here and I was glad to see that round Fl in the your photo. On my trip I took a few of my light projects along to try them out and it was my "Halo Light" that really worked. WHY?? It lit up bright and gave out lots of light. I ran it every night to light up the boat and charged it with a little solar panel only a couple times. It just worked. On a 32' sailboat rolling around at an anchorage 30 miles from home for a week you need something that gets the job done and this thing did.
I'm anxious to see what you did in your design. Round is beautiful.

Lidmotor

[Watson]

I wonder if diode will reduce the output since our kind of circuit do punish the transistor by forcing it to stop the current abruptly. I think adding diode will add leak point that reduce the power that we can use. I think we should AVOID using diode and protect the transistor another way.

Yeah, stop using the 2N3055, which can handle only 60 volts on the collector. Get some transistors made for this kind of work, the horizontal output transistor. Or if you have an old PC power supply laying around, use the big switching transistors (and the heatsink they're on) instead. Many of the PSes I've cannibalized use the 2SD2646, IIRC.

Then it might just be better to buy an already made power supply such as this one. For $6.50 plus S&h you get a PS that accepts 12V, 1A input and puts out 2000 volts at 10 mA, 30 kHz.

GAS TUBE SIGN POWER SUPPLY | AllElectronics.com

Or see my latest blog dated July 16 for info on building a 12V Fluorescent tube Inverter.

[morpher44]

Honey Comb Coil in a Joule Thief?

Joule Thiefers, I wonder if using a honey comb coil
might be even EASIER for all concerned to wrap
in a Joule Thief.
Is there such a thing as a bifilar honey comb to create
a 1:1 ratio transformer?

Inductors

[Watson]

Joule Thiefers, I wonder if using a honey comb coil
might be even EASIER for all concerned to wrap
in a Joule Thief.
Is there such a thing as a bifilar honey comb to create
a 1:1 ratio transformer?

Inductors

What improvement is this going to have over a conventional air core coil? The honeycomb coils I've seen are very large, and when the coil is large and made up of, say, 28 gauge wire, the resistance is higher than a compact coil. The higher resistance limits the peak current that the coil will conduct, when what you want is a high peak current.

With a small compact coil, especially with a ferrite core, the length of wire needed for a certain inductance is less, and the resistance is lower. It takes dozens of feet of wire to make a 100uH coil on an air core, even more for a honeycomb coil, and the resistance might be more than a dozen ohms. I can wind a 100 uH coil with a foot of wire on a ferrite core, with a DC resistance of less than a tenth of an ohm.

The special coils such as honeycomb coils are great for high impedance circuits such as receivers, but for low impedance, the ferrite core coil has the lowest resistance.

Would someone please tell me how your 2N3055 power transistors fail? Do they short from collector to emitter? Thank you for any information on this.

Oh, BTW, instead of honeycomb, it would be easier to wind a spider web coil, where the coil form is a flat piece of wood or fiberboard with notches cut around the outside edge.

[captainpecan]

Confused, please enlighten me!

Hey all, I don't post real often, but I have been working quite a bit with the JT. First off, I love the work you guys have all done, and I watch each video from Lidmotor, Xenomorph, and many others many times over... Great stuff guys!

Anyway, I was working on a JT hack of a simple garden light. I grabbed a couple really cheap ones at the local walmart for 4 bucks each. Problem is, I was quite surprised with the performance, and I cant figure out why they seem to work at all. There isn't even an inductor in the circuit, and it still only uses 1 "AA" nicad to light 2 LED's? Upon testing, I am sort of impressed, because it is running those 2 LED's when I tested it with 1.23v and only at 20ma. It does put off pretty good light for what it is. Obviously with a joule thief I have easily gotten more usable light, but I have also done it with more amperage, and a good inductor.

I plan on playing with the TLC555 inverted JT on this anyway, so I know I will get it tweaked to be brighter, with less amp draw. But I am still baffled as to why this thing works so damn well to begin with? There is a component on the board I have never seen before, ANA608 and although it looks like a transistor, it must be an IC chip. It does have 4 legs which is kind of a giveaway. It obviously must be the magic that makes this thing push the voltage higher, but HOW?

Could anyone please take a quick look at the circuit, and maybe enlighten me a bit? With no inductors, how is the voltage high enough to light those LED's?

PS.. At 4 bucks, this little made in china piece of junk is a pretty darn good buy for anyone looking to play around. Direct sunlight, the solar panel is showing 2.48v at 30ma measured after the diode voltage drop. Parts alone are worth 4 bucks.

Sorry the circuit pic is a bit blurry, cellphone cam didn't focus well. And no, there are no capacitors in the circuit either. Only 2 resistors, 2 LED's, a switch, a diode, a photo resistor, and that mysterious ANA608... ???

[weri812]

hello Cap

this is what i could fing on the ana608

http://dc87.4shared.com/download/119...ing_ana608.pdf

and picture

[JohnnBlade]

Hi All,

i have made the big joule thief.
and i get about 220v with this joule thief on a NI mH 9.6v 700mah

when i hookup one of my cfl lights i only hear this high tone but no light at all, does that mean all is hooked up correctly, but i just need more volts ?

hope anyone can help me out here

thnx

Greets JB

[captainpecan]

hello Cap

this is what i could fing on the ana608

http://dc87.4shared.com/download/119...ing_ana608.pdf

and picture

Thanks for the quick response. From reading that link you gave me, I see an extremely similar circuit as is shown there. He mentions he mistook a resistor for an inductor. I did exactly the same thing. This thing only has two resistors, and both are color banded... Upon closer look, I did not notice at first the print on the board. One resistor is labeled R1, the other resistor is labeled L1... So that REALLY IS and inductor. It's color banded exactly like a resistor, green, brown, black, silver. Turns out, this must be some kind of wire wound resistor, used as an inductor?

New one to me, lol, I would have never caught that one! Thanks for the enlightenment!

[rave154]

captain, would that component that "looks" like a resistor with its colour bands......actually be an RF choke?......i have a couple..and they look exactly like resistors but of course they are "coils" ( i think )

[captainpecan]

captain, would that component that "looks" like a resistor with its colour bands......actually be an RF choke?......i have a couple..and they look exactly like resistors but of course they are "coils" ( i think )

Very possible. Like I said, I learned something on this one. I would have never guessed there was a coil hiding in that thing. I guess just seeing color bands on a resistor, does not mean it's just a resistor! Hey, I'm a little smarter now, woohoo... I'm hacking this thing up anyway, I just wanted to know why it worked with no inductor. Turns out, it doesn't! I feel better now, lol.

[morpher44]

honeycomb on torroid?

With a small compact coil, especially with a ferrite core, the length of wire needed for a certain inductance is less, and the resistance is lower. It takes dozens of feet of wire to make a 100uH coil on an air core, even more for a honeycomb coil, and the resistance might be more than a dozen ohms.

I believe there is a technique to wrap a honeycomb coil around a ferrite toroid. I'm searching for that. It involves criss-crossing the wires in some way.
It would be nice to have a picture.

The advantage to this sort of coil is a higher Q. Higher Q means
at resonance, there are less losses.
IF, and this is speculation, what is being "tuned" here is a frequency
of interest that has a strong signal, such as the
Earth's field NMR or the Earth's EMR/PMR activity (or some other strong natural carrier wave out there), the resonant frequency might be very SHARP and so you want the bandwidth to be narrow / Q to be high.
A regularly wrapped ferrite core will have high capacitance, low Q, wide bandwidth -- which is not ideal.

Also, the gauge of wire you select and the size of your core is up to you. We should experiment with geometries here.

Anyone have an example of a honeycomb coil wrapped on a ferrite toroidal
to make a transformer?