Big Joule Theif

[Vaporizer]

@ Nick and all,
That's a big question I can't answer yet. I'm not sure you can run 50 off the E-C junction. The LED can appear as bright as "normal" without it's required full stated current. There is a point where adding more current makes it no brighter which is why the Base is tweakable. The JT takes a low voltage that won't light an LED and rings it up through the toriod to 30+ volts on the primary side and many hundreds of volts on the secondary. Jenna stated 7v on the secondary per LED. It appears that the higher voltage is being used to "trigger" the potential to light the LED and then comes the fun. You adjust the resistor of the JT transistor Base to charge the toroid till you get the brightness you desire. This will increase the current load of the circuit. That's where the 555 is so beneficial. It takes time for the toroid to charge and collapse magnetically. So, rather than have the LED's on the primary side constantly loading the battery, its actually flashing the LED's on the secondary faster than the eye can see. But, it only has to be "on" abt 15-20% of the time. Not much different than regular lights in your house. They cycle 60 times a second and you never see it. The low power 555 does require 3v min to work so 2 AA are needed. I'm pretty sure I have a schematic saved that adds a second transistor to pulse the JT Base so a single AA can still be used.

This is where the ratio of windings, the wire size and core size come to play. The scope pics show a huge spike on the primary & secondary as the magnetic field collapses. A standard meter will not catch it as its to fast. Normal teachings say when you cross a transformer stepping voltage up, the current is reduced. You can increase current by stepping the voltage down just as well. The JT is utilizing ignored things that happen which traditional thought felt non-useful or not worthy of notice. So, it was wasted as an "excepted loss".........till now.

This is where the JT, Bedini and its associated add-ons intrigue me so much. They are squeaking everything possible, so far, from what was once thought useless making it now useful. My having a background in the field actually makes me no better than anyone else building these. It was never taught. It may give me a better understanding of what is happening, but I'm as much as a neophyte as others are here. This is all out of the box thinking and I love it. A person with no electronics background isn't bound by the rules that were forced to learn as "the absolute law". Many new discoveries are made by people with no background because they haven't been mentally handcuffed.

This is where reading the entire threads means so much to me and there are so many. You see the start, improvements, failures and growth. You'll also see trends like I described of what leads to better outcomes. They are better but not necessarily the final best as everyone is using materials available many times. When you can make such things from scrap others throw away, all the better.

Thanks for the comment on the toroids, all were bought from ebay. The 10 2 3/8" cost me $2ea after shipping. Not a bad score. I need to contact the seller to see if I can get a part number or try to find the material type. My guess is they are "J"s. If I get something going well, I now know I can do much better by just repeating it with a "W" core and less wire. The Fuji camera transformer is a JT circuit. It's less than 1/2"sq "E" shaped core. Look what it can do and read the comment below the vid. 400 leds from an AA! YouTube - Modified Fuji Circuit Joule Thief circuit lighting 40 watt tube with AA battery
Makes me wonder what can be done with a Goldmine or 2 3/8" core!

My apologies to all for the long posts. It's just my passion showing through. I will try to do better.

[Tectalabyss]

Dont worry about the long posts

@ Nick and all,
That's a big question I can't answer yet. I'm not sure you can run 50 off the E-C junction. The LED can appear as bright as "normal" without it's required full stated current. There is a point where adding more current makes it no brighter which is why the Base is tweakable. The JT takes a low voltage that won't light an LED and rings it up through the toriod to 30+ volts on the primary side and many hundreds of volts on the secondary. Jenna stated 7v on the secondary per LED. It appears that the higher voltage is being used to "trigger" the potential to light the LED and then comes the fun. You adjust the resistor of the JT transistor Base to charge the toroid till you get the brightness you desire. This will increase the current load of the circuit. That's where the 555 is so beneficial. It takes time for the toroid to charge and collapse magnetically. So, rather than have the LED's on the primary side constantly loading the battery, its actually flashing the LED's on the secondary faster than the eye can see. But, it only has to be "on" abt 15-20% of the time. Not much different than regular lights in your house. They cycle 60 times a second and you never see it. The low power 555 does require 3v min to work so 2 AA are needed. I'm pretty sure I have a schematic saved that adds a second transistor to pulse the JT Base so a single AA can still be used.

This is where the ratio of windings, the wire size and core size come to play. The scope pics show a huge spike on the primary & secondary as the magnetic field collapses. A standard meter will not catch it as its to fast. Normal teachings say when you cross a transformer stepping voltage up, the current is reduced. You can increase current by stepping the voltage down just as well. The JT is utilizing ignored things that happen which traditional thought felt non-useful or not worthy of notice. So, it was wasted as an "excepted loss".........till now.

This is where the JT, Bedini and its associated add-ons intrigue me so much. They are squeaking everything possible, so far, from what was once thought useless making it now useful. My having a background in the field actually makes me no better than anyone else building these. It was never taught. It may give me a better understanding of what is happening, but I'm as much as a neophyte as others are here. This is all out of the box thinking and I love it. A person with no electronics background isn't bound by the rules that were forced to learn as "the absolute law". Many new discoveries are made by people with no background because they haven't been mentally handcuffed.

This is where reading the entire threads means so much to me and there are so many. You see the start, improvements, failures and growth. You'll also see trends like I described of what leads to better outcomes. They are better but not necessarily the final best as everyone is using materials available many times. When you can make such things from scrap others throw away, all the better.

Thanks for the comment on the toroids, all were bought from ebay. The 10 2 3/8" cost me $2ea after shipping. Not a bad score. I need to contact the seller to see if I can get a part number or try to find the material type. My guess is they are "J"s. If I get something going well, I now know I can do much better by just repeating it with a "W" core and less wire. The Fuji camera transformer is a JT circuit. It's less than 1/2"sq "E" shaped core. Look what it can do and read the comment below the vid. 400 leds from an AA! YouTube - Modified Fuji Circuit Joule Thief circuit lighting 40 watt tube with AA battery
Makes me wonder what can be done with a Goldmine or 2 3/8" core!

My apologies to all for the long posts. It's just my passion showing through. I will try to do better.

Hello Vaporizer and All.
I am getting behind.Headaches are bad this week sorry.I hope to have a better meter sometime in the next few weeks. This is how my amps read with 20 leds 5mm 0.04 when removed 0.03 amps so I am guessing the JT is using 0.03 amps ? does this sound about right.And I have a bigger toroid to try out if my stupid head will leave me alone I agree with you about (" The Absolute law ") I've had people to get mad over me saying It is not written in stone just to find out I was right a year later. And don't worry about the long post's I enjoy reading a well written paper,and it give's my mind a work out Thanks for sharing Tec

[sisqocracker]

@ Vaporizer

I was taught, by the military none the less; about all sorts of circuits, and power, and batteries, etc. (was qualified to work on Cobras and Apaches armament systems) And there were conversations that came up about "power spikes". They were there when powering off and powering on, and they were evil. They were "transient" power spikes (from chokes actually, thinking back on it now). They were destroying your circuit, so you had to do things in your circuit to squelch them. I think of this every time I work on a Bedini or JT circuit now. I always had this looming thought in the back of my mind back then... why not use that? Surely you could switch it, and use it....

so here we are... :-)

I'm loving that we're doing this work... hating that it has been suppressed for about 100 years.

Take care yall.

Thanks,
Coop

[NickZ]

@V and All:
400 leds from one AA is impresive, but only if it lasts longer than an hour, or minutes.
I can light 50 leds off of one AA on the C and E rails, for a couple of days. The way that my 76, 76 turn one inch toroid coil, TIP3055 transistor combo works, if I use a 1 k resistor on the base, I can't even light the leds, as they blick off from Too Much input. Unless the single run battery's charge is around 1 volt or less (dead battery).
I found that out after I burnt the pot, and have not found a replacement yet. So, that Jtc does have a good strong primary circuit, with higher current. My question is: is it better try to wind a secondary coil over on the outside of the existing primary, (as it already goes all the way around the coil). Or should I remove some turns and only make the secondary over the part where the bare core is exposed? Looks like the secondary over the bare core is the way to go, but... any ideas? And, also any opinions on the ratio of leds that should be placed in series, as well as also in parallel, to obtain the most amount of light from a single AA battery source. Like 7 in series, and 5 in parallel...
If a Jtc with 100 leds puts out the same amount of light intensity, as 50 leds do, there is no advange in using more bulbs. So, what's the best Bang for the Buck, (Leds wise), when using small AAs. Ideas...?

@V: What a great deal on the 2 3/8 inch toroids. That helps to makes each Jtc more cost effective.
I wonder what a 10 watt Led bulb would do, on one of your big Jt coils. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

[Vaporizer]

Hi all,

Tec, sorry to hear abt the headaches. I seldom ever have a headache, but I have had times where I had migraines for a period and then they would just go away for months or a couple yrs. They can deff keep you down. Hope yours ends soon! I've seen many negative comments from supposedly "learned" ppl on vids posted. Using words like "impossible, never, can't" are big statements of a closed mind IMHO. Those are easily quelled by looking at all the advances since 1900. Look what we have now and if asked in 1900 everyone would have used and did use those words. The world belongs to dreamers.

Nick, I gave your question thought abt the the LED's comparison primary vs secondary. This can be a simple test. Since you asked abt being the same brightness, that can be subjective as what the eye can see and possibly skewed by what you want it to be. This test would be cheap, easy and give you a true valid comparison. If you have a small solar cell, a .5-3v one would be fine. All you need to do is set the LEDs to directly hit the solar cell(all touching the face of the cell), say in a dark room. Adjust for max brightness, reading the voltage of the solar cell, and then measure the ma draw.
Next, repeat with them using a secondary winding. It could be done in a light tight box as long as the solar cell is reading zero with the circuit off. Comparing the 2 sets of numbers should show you immediately which is more efficient.
As far as the rest of you last post, a lot depends on what you want as a final outcome. This will determine how or what is the best setup to meet your expectations IMHO. I find myself still thinking abt this as if I want this, what is the best way to achieve it, but should I "trade this off for that" kinda thing. If one were to get away from using an AA, I saw a D size rechargeable for $4 ea 1.25v NiMH that are rated @ 10,000ma! 10A in a single battery that is rechargeable. Talk abt long run times.
50 LEDs is not shabby for a few days on a single AA! Nice.

sisqocracker, I too was schooled in electronics and worked many yrs designing equipment/circuitry for needed applications ignoring or suppressing what we are using now. It's the norm mind set ppl are taught. Most just cannot seem to break or deviate from that train of thought. I was know for being "out of the box" even then. If someone were to ask me if I believe in unity or over unity, my 1st impression is no if I answer honestly, but I cannot rule it out as an absolute. That doesn't deter me from my new passion for super efficient usage.

Well, we lost power last night for abt 7hrs. Got a chance to test my Fuji 9w JT. It did well. I don't have it packaged up yet, but here are some pics. I still think it can be improved, but I can do that and have it decent looking for now. I measured the transformer and it is 5/16" all directions.....amazing. This is why I wonder so much on what a 2 3/8"'s potential is.

Ok, it only has 5 components and the gutted 9w "U". It's setup to use 1 or 2 AA's for testing. I blew the original transistor with 2.50v(heat). This pic is in a fully lit room.


The camera is compensating for the brightness. It's not that bright, but you can read by it easily and it does make a shadow. Notice the red LED isn't lit on 1.25v.


Now 2.5v....much better. Again the camera is compensating some, but now its much better and the LED is lit.


Lastly, same shot with full room lighting for reference. 20hrs isn't bad IMHO. I have some other ideas for changes including a couple solar cells behind it for refeed. @ 2.5v, I can't take advantage of the 555 I mentioned.....yet.

[cikljamas]

Hi guys !

This is very interesting thread ! It is a pity that i join you so late,
but there is always fist step for any journy, is it not ?

I made few days ago my first little JT, and it is nice little device,
then day before yesterday i made my first big JT (Slayer007s one)
and i am very impressed with efficiency of this device for charging
batteries purpose, for example today i used 4 coil JT to test
efficiency in range of about 1 A, and result was : 900 mA input,
500 mA output...So is it good result for Slayers JT or average one,
or maybe even worse than average one ?

Six hours ago i started to make this JT with 555 timer :
http://www.energeticforum.com/attach...1&d=1291092409
but it seems that i can not achieve good output result with my little one
toroid that i thought i could use instead 2 inches one that LIDMOTOR
showed in his youtube presentation...

Could anyone suggest me what kind of substitution for that 2 inches toroid
i could use for that project ?

Sucahyo suggested me to make JEANNAs JT, does anyone know something
about that stuff or has diagram of JEANNAs JT ?

Thanks for help in advance !

Rgds !

[Vaporizer]

Hi all,

TEC, it seems the JT running alone ma's load can be set by many different means. The type of transistor, base resistor value and I'm guessing the # & gauge of primary winds/resistance. In this link Jule Thief Xee has a schematic and a chart that may help you. Looks like some can run as low as 3.4ma at idle, but also look at the output capability.

Nick, As far a over winding the 1st toroid layer..... I haven't done enough to really answer that. Most wind on a single layer unless the secondary needs more room. The "E" cores are wound on a plastic bobbin and used in many circuits. They are are all wound on a single form over top each other just as the ferrite rods are in many examples. I'm fairly sure it would be better if a specific wind was against the core, but it may make little difference. That Fuji transformer I refer to has 1750 turns on the output coil. Very fine wire 45ga? But looking at it, the primary or trigger coil is the outer wrap over it all and it seems very efficient.

cikljamas, Welcome from another noob here. lol Nothing like feeling 2yrs behind and abt 10,000 post to read huh? The thread above abt 1/2 way down the page has a post that shows what i think you are looking for by Gadgetmall. It seem to have the right title. There are 3 of the same circuits posted on that page. The one with the red line connecting the 2 tank circuits to the base is the correct one from what I've read. Also look at that transistor. You'll need to see if it can handle the load you are describing. Lidmotor used a 3" toroid for the Jennas light in the vid.

Hope this helps.

[Tectalabyss]

Thanks

Hi all,

TEC, it seems the JT running alone ma's load can be set by many different means. The type of transistor, base resistor value and I'm guessing the # & gauge of primary winds/resistance. In this link Jule Thief Xee has a schematic and a chart that may help you. Looks like some can run as low as 3.4ma at idle, but also look at the output capability.

Nick, As far a over winding the 1st toroid layer..... I haven't done enough to really answer that. Most wind on a single layer unless the secondary needs more room. The "E" cores are wound on a plastic bobbin and used in many circuits. They are are all wound on a single form over top each other just as the ferrite rods are in many examples. I'm fairly sure it would be better if a specific wind was against the core, but it may make little difference. That Fuji transformer I refer to has 1750 turns on the output coil. Very fine wire 45ga? But looking at it, the primary or trigger coil is the outer wrap over it all and it seems very efficient.

cikljamas, Welcome from another noob here. lol Nothing like feeling 2yrs behind and abt 10,000 post to read huh? The thread above abt 1/2 way down the page has a post that shows what i think you are looking for by Gadgetmall. It seem to have the right title. There are 3 of the same circuits posted on that page. The one with the red line connecting the 2 tank circuits to the base is the correct one from what I've read. Also look at that transistor. You'll need to see if it can handle the load you are describing. Lidmotor used a 3" toroid for the Jennas light in the vid.

Hope this helps.

Hello Vaporizer and All.
Thanks for the link I checked it out It looks like he's running off the E/C with a diode and cap added to the circuit. I have tried the darlington transistor but I never added the other two parts.I did get a toroid sanded and painted I am going to use this for a test coil to try different JT windings its over 2" diam I have another when I settle on a JT to build the whole thing.(I am wondering if it matter's where the JT is in relationship to the secondary On the Toroid?).I know sometime its the small things that make a world of difference. I have ran some tests and JT's and Leds do some strange things I get less of a drain on the battery with a 10mm 120.000 led than I do with a 5 mm Flattop/Strawhat both white/or a 5mm Blue round top led Thank you for all the help sorry I cant get on has much as I would like too.I looked at your build great work and to everyone here thanks and if I've not answered you back please overlook me. Tec

[Vaporizer]

Hi TEC & all.
I gutted a 13w spiral cfl and put it in the circuit that had the 9w "U" shown above. It's much better at light output, but the current went up as expected.
I decided to try adding a cap and found that a .047 from ground to battery + increased the brightness noticeably. Yep, across the battery. Also, again I tried placing a magnet on the top of the "E" core. I can dim and make it brighter than "normal" still.

On the placement of the windings....... Most pics show opposite positions or equally spaced positions. I think there may be some food for thought here. Lets try a mental example. The secondary winding is wrapped 1/2 the toroid from 9-3 o'clock. Most will wrap the trigger and primary equally spaced at abt the 5 & 7 o'clock position. Seems logical, but what if the toroid isn't being 100% saturated? The trigger coil need very little, but the primary when fired will saturate equally in a radial pattern. So, this means the 3 o'clock side sees more magnetic charge than the 9 o'clock side. This thought could leave part of the secondary seeing little or no charge to pickup on collapse. It would seem more logical to have the primary wrapped at 12 o'clock right in the middle of the secondary coil. E cores and rods are "over wrapped" so its not impractical to think abt IMHO. If this were true smaller toroids of smaller size and less permeability may be used. Some with better results.

Comments?

[NickZ]

All:
I received a PM in Oct. from Conradelectro from the OU.com. In the attachment is his message which he had sent to me, and had also been posted at that forum earlier.
I think it might help in understanding the ratio of turns of the primary to secondary in a Jt, for the desired voltage results, as also the layout pattern.
Yes, IST is back, and wants to build something new (10kw device)... Now he's going by the username -Osiris-.
Toroid Tuning:
Jule Thief

[Vaporizer]

Nick & all.
Good reading on that link Nick. The pic showing the 10p cap was interesting as it is only isolated from being across the battery by a resistor and they claim a 300% improvement. I can't say that amount, but non-electrolytic caps pass ac, but not dc. So it has to be refeeding an ac pulse back into the step up of the circuit if its adding brightness. If it extended time run or lowered ma's, it would be going back to the battery. The pics and descriptions above that are really nice. I need to read them more closely, but they are saved in my now 56 page Word doc. lol
All but one of the pics shows exactly what I was describing in my previous post. All but 1 have the coils opposite on the toroid or equally spaced. I wish i could find out if the toroid was being completely charged magnetically. I did score a couple ferrite rods from a couple motherboards. Actually 5 1/2" dia toroids and 2 rods. Both rods are abt 1/4" in dia and they are abt 1/2 & 3/4" long. The one pic with the 10p cap would be an easy wind on them and I could try a 3 winding too. One would have the trigger & primary JT on the rod, a layer of tape then the big winding over it all. The other would start with the output coil on the rod. I can glue index card disks on the ends so they can be wound level end to end.

@Tec, I can't say I'm surprised abt your finding on the LED's. I can't wait to get some big ones. It seems you just cant say, without testing , what the draw will be vs the light output. It certainly doesnt seem to be what they normally draw when used with a battery and a dropping resistor. On the Darlington, I couldn't see an advantage in this type of circuit. It has a terrific gain in rf applications, but these circuits seem to be using the transistor for high speed switching. So I've been looking for ones that have the high A rating with the lowest Base on voltage needed. 2 transistors can be and are used in some circuits. The 1st like a 2N2222 is used as a low A draw in the oscillator and a second larger one used to drive the load grabbing its Base trigger signal from the C of the 1st.
So much to decide and test......................but an interesting learning experience.

If someone wants the schematic of what I did above, I'll be glad to trace it out and post it. The problem is that the camera circuits are a few yrs old. I need to try to get some more recent Fujis. some are Kodak and some are Fuji, but none match what has been posted so the best I can do on the transformer would be to give the ohms reading of the 3 windings, not the turns. This seems kinda pointless since I dont even know the gauge of wire. Sorry....

[cikljamas]

cikljamas, Welcome from another noob here. lol Nothing like feeling 2yrs behind and abt 10,000 post to read huh? The thread above abt 1/2 way down the page has a post that shows what i think you are looking for by Gadgetmall. It seem to have the right title. There are 3 of the same circuits posted on that page. The one with the red line connecting the 2 tank circuits to the base is the correct one from what I've read. Also look at that transistor. You'll need to see if it can handle the load you are describing. Lidmotor used a 3" toroid for the Jennas light in the vid.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Vaporizer for your answer ! It did help, i just have to spend
a certain amount of time reading a lot from this thread to be able
to participate equally , but i am interested in this light producing
stuffs very much...I ll try to plug myself in this discussion and then
plug my cfl to JT too

All:
I received a PM in Oct. from Conradelectro from the OU.com. In the attachment is his message which he had sent to me, and had also been posted at that forum earlier.
I think it might help in understanding the ratio of turns of the primary to secondary in a Jt, for the desired voltage results, as also the layout pattern.
Yes, IST is back, and wants to build something new (10kw device)... Now he's going by the username -Osiris-.
Toroid Tuning:
Jule Thief

Hi NickZ !
This link is superb, thanks for that !!!

[Vaporizer]

cikljamas,
Don't go with cfl because I did. I was very impressed with Lidmotors vids and bought 4 9W on and order from Goldmine. Of course I found out later LED's are better bang for the ma so most say. Now I have to get some better led's. lol
I have some 12,000mcd white 10*, but they aren't very impressive. I'm looking at a way to diffuse them. The one 13w spiral at good brightness, 2.25v draws 465ma. They lasted for abt 2.5hrs before dropping out. Not really suitable IMHO for long outage use. I'm abt done with the fuji transformers. I can use them for 1 aa and only draw abt 130ma so I should get 20hrs from my power outage "safety" lights to sit around the house. Next is back to coils and see what I can do.
Good luck on what you try and keep us posted!

[Tectalabyss]

@Tec, I can't say I'm surprised abt your finding on the LED's. I can't wait to get some big ones. It seems you just cant say, without testing , what the draw will be vs the light output. It certainly doesnt seem to be what they normally draw when used with a battery and a dropping resistor. On the Darlington, I couldn't see an advantage in this type of circuit. It has a terrific gain in rf applications, but these circuits seem to be using the transistor for high speed switching. So I've been looking for ones that have the high A rating with the lowest Base on voltage needed. 2 transistors can be and are used in some circuits. The 1st like a 2N2222 is used as a low A draw in the oscillator and a second larger one used to drive the load grabbing its Base trigger signal from the C of the 1st.
So much to decide and test......................but an interesting learning experience.

Hello Vaporizer and All.
Yes I've had some strange things with the JT and Leds right now I've added a diode between the base wire and the variable resistor going to the base of the transistor.seems to have helped with the drain on the voltage.
One thing I did want to share (do Not leave your meters hooked up to your JT during a test) it will almost all ways show a incorrect reading even with the meters off a case in point I had forgotten to unhook my amp meter and even with it off when I checked the next morning My voltage had increased I knew that could not be,so I ran the test again without the meter hooked up at all sure enough the voltage had dropped .My Point If I had ran to the computer and said I am gaining volts !!!!! and no one else could do it I would have been labeled a nut or worse.I did that once and took the post off with the statement (Did not work Has stated) Tec

[Vaporizer]

Tec & all,
Variable resistors are necessary to find the lowest current draw for the circuit to operate as you want it to. Once found, it can be measured and replaced with a fixed one. If the JT is used for different things, many leave it in so it is versatile for different applications.
Using a meter on a JT circuit is almost useless. You can put in a 1ohm resistor off the battery and measure the current draw across the resistor using the volts range. 1v = 1ma current draw. Sometimes the circuit will dim from that. If you are charging a cap, it can be measured, but not much more. The spikes occur to fast for a meter to read. Most of the reading you see posted on the high voltages and such are from scope measurements.
Good point Tec.