Big Joule Theif

[Mark]

What you must have is the end of one wire connect to the beginning of the other.
It is a center tapped primary, and it is often the case that it is off center.
But for your first one, just do it and see.

Hi Jeanna

I'm not sure what you mean by the quote above. I have the start of my 3T and the end on 13T primaries going to positive the end of the 3T going to base w/resistor and start of my 13T going to collector. I assume thats correct because its working.

My circuit ran all night a total of 14.5 hours on the C cell. The light faded quite a bit but battery voltage was still running at just over .5 volts. I unhooked it and the battery is starting to come back some. My draw was around .180 so about .25 watts. I had an extra C cell so now I have a fwbr and cap hooked up and trying to recharge run down C cell.

Jeanna I think I have those same bulbs I bought them at Sams. Came 3 in a pack. The Sams near me carries 4 different types of bulbs. 2 of them I dont like, the flood light (green color) and a 3.5 watt bulb thats too whitish blue. The other 2 (1.5 watt) bulbs have a warmer yellowish color. The ones on my circuit are the small end bulbs. I have them in my chandalier and one of my ceiling fans. The ceiling fan light fixture has 4 bulbs in it and give decent light in my 11x14 room. (lights of america 19 leds) The other bulb I like also has 19 leds and good color just has a standard size end. I use 4 of those in a 1/2 bathroom and they give off decent light.

I did light up a gutted 14 watt cfl but the light wasn't very bright. I'll try a 10 watt when I can find one.

I also lit up one of the 1.5 watt leds on 2 hearing aid batteries! (very dim though)

Thanks for sharing Jeanna and Lidmotor

[theremart]

Hooked... on the JT

I went to order the toroid at Allelectronics suppy = -8

I made it -12 lol.

at 1.5 V I am thinking the water battery or even the ground battery should power this up.

The question I have is why can't we get an off the shelf Toroid all wound up to work with our setups? Is the winding method that precise that it demands we wind our own?

Looking forward to 1.5 V lighting a florescent.

Mart

[jeanna]

at 1.5 V I am thinking the water battery or even the ground battery should power this up.

The question I have is why can't we get an off the shelf Toroid all wound up to work with our setups?

Hi Mart,
I am with you on the EB. I have not been able to even get a transistor to turn on in my back yard, but maybe you will have a better charge.

The ones all wound up may not work because they were designed as straight transformers with house voltage in mind.
If you can find a toroid where the primary was centertapped, and you can stick the center tap onto the positive battery rail, and get hold of the free ends of that same wire to connect to the base and collector you might be able to use one. I know a lot of folks have taken the windings off these things and rewound them.

Is the winding method that precise that it demands we wind our own?

No, I don't think it is.

I think the transistor makes the biggest difference, but many of the parts need to dance together.

You need something whose secondary, when wound, will give you a solid 450 volts.
So there is a minimum.
I am the minimalist in the crowd and I did manage to get a 1 inch toroid wound that lit a 4 watt tube, but it no longer does. I don't know if the connections have gone south or if the cold could make the difference?

I went to order the toroid at Allelectronics suppy = -8

I made it -12 lol.

I am glad you got on the list, but maybe you did not. They do not backorder afaik, so check again.

I noticed they have a 2 inch one. This might do it.

I have just lit a string of 34 christmas leds with a 0.5 inch one that I squeezed 172 volts out of. [tor-23 10/$1]
There is a difference in these volts, and you need 170-180 volts of spikes to equal a 110 house voltage.
While you are waiting... try something. There is still a lot to be learned here... about 90 years worth!

===

Hi all
I am trying something with a 2N3055,a JT Toroid with a secondary and a recharable AA 1.5 Volt Batt.
... voltage started at 1.10 and went to 1.20,sofar it's stayed at that voltage for almost five hour's....also when I hooked it up My led.s dimmed just a little it may not be anything great but could give more run time to the light's. Tec

So, it might be a self charger?
cool.

====
Hi morpher44,

Interestingly if you change from 2 CFLs in series to 1 CFL,
the amp draw doesn't really change .. only the brightness of the light.

D cells have a typical capacity of 20500 mAh ... so this should run
for almost 51 hours from a fresh battery ... probably less since
some threshold will be reached whereby the JT will no longer
oscillate.

D cells for using is a good idea, but not yet for testing!

This business of the way the amp draw doesn't change but the light does is a really important point.
I have been watching something like this for a while.
[plug for think tanks like ours:
I had just noticed it when altrez mentioned it then someone else added after I said I saw it too.]

This is the beginning of where it started to look like a pattern to me.
I cannot make the frequency = amps equation, but if you force the frequency and volts to stay the same, the amps will be drawn.
If you allow the frequency and the volts to go where they want, they behave like freq = amps.
If you add a series inductor to boost the volts, you can then add a draw of some kind, the frequency will diminish.

There is more to learn about this, but I believe it is the road to 90 years ago and beyond.
Great work everybody,


jeanna

[theremart]

Ahh Joule of a theif stole my time

RE: earth ground

I have managed to get a 2n3055 to fire with earth ground and was charging up super caps with it. got up to .15 V nothing in terms of voltage, but it did charge up the second cap. The input voltage shot from .8 V down to .30 when it was charging when I flipped the scale to micro amps it did indeed show charge on the target cap very very small but it was there.


RE: Transistor makes a difference.

I fully agree with you the transistor makes a HUGE difference, I found there is worlds of differences just in 2n3055 transistors from one to another depending on who makes them.

[redrichie]

SO I put together my first Joule Thief variant today. I used one tn3055 Transistor, 1 9V Duracell and one Blue Playschool Ring Rodin Coil. Dont get too excited. Because unless I did something wrong (which is always a possibility) It did not work. I tried it in different configurations. To no avail. So I hooked up a smaller toroid I had wound for one of the first JT. Bifilar on a 1.25 OD, 1" tall toroid. This was single layer, tightly wrapped 20 ga wire. Using 9 V i was able output over 700V. Is this accurate? (ballpark at least?)
I also wrapped one 22 ga wire 10 wraps on top of the bifilar, that charged a 1500uF cap up to 12V in about 4 seconds and then held there..

[jeanna]

That could be right redritchie.

How many turns did you use on the secondary that gave you 700v?
And, what is the amps draw?

If it were proportional to a 1.2v it would be 700/9 *1.2 so this would be 93.3v on a 1.2v.

Can you check that for me?
Do you have a AA around to try?

In general, you are more likely to get high voltage and low amps draw at the same time by making a many turn secondary and starting with a lower voltage battery.
So, a 700v output is really high, but by using the 9 volt you may be throwing away amps, but nobody I know has actually tested this with the same set-up.

What do you think happened with the rodin coil?
just the difference because it is an air coil?

MK1 and ist have verbally described high results of a sloppy rodin style wind but on a ferrite toroid.
I have it on my list...

nice going,

jeanna

[morpher44]

Rodin with JT

SO I put together my first Joule Thief variant today. I used one tn3055 Transistor, 1 9V Duracell and one Blue Playschool Ring Rodin Coil. Dont get too excited. Because unless I did something wrong (which is always a possibility) It did not work. I tried it in different configurations. To no avail.

@redrichie

If your Rodin didn't have ferromagnetic material inside, I suspect
the inductance wasn't large enough. I made a Rodin-like coil
with a tuna can, and managed to get the Joule Thief to work with it.
I've seen more impressive videos than mine whereby folks
have made the Rodin work with Joule Thief using a neo-magnet
to BOOST the inductance, so
it is doable.

[morpher44]

stable amp draw...

This business of the way the amp draw doesn't change but the light does is a really important point.
I have been watching something like this for a while.

This is the beginning of where it started to look like a pattern to me.
I cannot make the frequency = amps equation, but if you force the frequency and volts to stay the same, the amps will be drawn.
If you allow the frequency and the volts to go where they want, they behave like freq = amps.
If you add a series inductor to boost the volts, you can then add a draw of some kind, the frequency will diminish.
There is more to learn about this, but I believe it is the road to 90 years ago and beyond.
Great work everybody,
jeanna

I have some other observations to pass along...

a) If you place a metal ground plate NEAR the CFLs, they
can be made to start up much easier (without needing a person
to hand touch them). The plate could be a source of ionization,
bring the CFL to a place where it can resonate and ignite.

b) I took a clip lead, attached it to one little neon bulb, looped it
around making a circle of about 7 in diameter ... and then
attached to the same lead of the neon. On the other end of the
neon, attach another long clip lead and run this over to a
aluminum plate (or iron bolt ... or anything with metal mass).
It reminds me of the Ankh!
If this is brought near the coils or neons or capacitor,
the neon will glow very easily due to inductive pickup.
If you bring the straight lead, with aluminum plate and place
the plate into the center of the loop, the neon goes out.

c) Similar to a) above, if you have a large metal capacitor (or
the hand made cylinder capacitor I had) and place the
CFLs near it, and if one hot lead goes to that cap ... with
no path to ground from that cap, the CFLs will glow --
even when not wired -- if they are brought near it.
This is not unlike the Tesla glowing bulb near Tesla coil demonstration.
The difference, though, is the power source is a
measly 1.5V battery.

d) Other nearby coils, transformer, metal objects, and so forth
near your setup ... can drain power ... since they are
inductively part of your circuit ... even though they are not
physically connected. Simply attaching my oscilloscope
alters everything. The scope, when not attached, can easily
pick up the waveform -- depending upon proximity of probes.
Attach the probes to any metal object in the area and the waveform
is there. Move these objects around near your circuit ... and
the scope shows subtle changes to the waveforms -- implying
a subtle connection to EVERYTHING in the area. Its fascinating.
This includes your human body or a cat walking by, etc.
I've walked past the circuit ... and made the lights go off resonance
in my wake. The effect is subtle like the wind at these lower power
values. When I bump source voltage up to 6V or 9V ...
these effects are less noticeable.

[Mark]

Just a couple of updates.

I was able to light up 5 of the unmodified led bulbs and pretty sure I could get six but ran out of jumper wires.

I tried a D cell and noticed that my transistor, which I'm using a MJL21194 now was getting hot. Was also getting a little warm with a C cell. Found a AAA and the transistor stayed cool with that, and the light output was the same.

I also tried 2 C cells in series and noticed that my amp draw doubles when my voltage doubles. I tried a 12 volt and the circuit wont oscillate or just acts like a short.

My biggest complaint is the high tone squeal from the toroid. I noticed it quiets down some with different voltage and batteries and that if I put a small neo magnet on the toroid sometimes I can tone it down but I need to find a way to get rid of it.

I'm going to play with the amount of turns on the primaries and a variable resistor on the base to see what differences they make.

Another thing I want to mention is that when I had 3 of my unmodified bulbs lit that I could hook a FWBR in parallel and was still able to charge a 340uf 250v cap up to around 96 volts. And it didn't seem to matter what size battery or if I was running 3 volts, the cap only varied a couple of volts.

Now if I could just find a way to dump that cap back into the primary

[redrichie]

transformer

JUst a quick question. Albeit probably a dumb one or previously answered. If less Voltage and more current are needed couldn't you run the output of the high Voltage through a step-down transformer to achieve this? I mean if i'm getting 700V and "X" current, then the 700V is seriously in excess of what I need to run an item. Or am I way off base and like Bedini devices Im looking for the potential and not the current. And if this is the case then what do we do in a world that is completely built around current consumption? Even a little motor that has high RPM's and a good amount of torque can consume upwards of 12V and over Amp.

[jeanna]

Hi redrechie,
IMO it is best to not even go there.

The effects of high voltage high frequency are so completely different from the regular paradigm, that it will take years of practice opening our minds just to make a little progress.

There is probably no need to call on amps in a pulsed circuit.
This is my thesis.
I personally believe this is one thing tesla discovered.
His backers made sure we would not be able to figure this out for a long time.

It is better to just keep experimenting and not go there. (my opinion again)

@lidmotor,
I went all around my town today and nobody had a rheostat dimmer switch like yours.
One place had a $10 (!) type that is bigger than 3 of my circuits!!
Could you please turn it over and tell me the model number?
I thought you got it at radio shack??
Radio shack will order one for me if I know the number.

thank you,

jeanna

[jeanna]

Hi Jeana. On your secondary's are they Ac or Dc. ? I have gotten 316.7 volt's Ac out of one of my coil's Sofar every J T I've checked has been AC. Thank's. Tec

They are ac. It is the form of pulsed dc over time.
Very few of mine are equal on both wires. So, It is like a polarity.
If I use a string of leds wired in series , the lights will go on in one way and not or be very dim in the other.

They are mostly very spiky and the more sharp the spikes the better.
When I forst got my scope, I thought I was looking for a smooth sinewave, but more and more I changed my mind because a smooth sinewave did not give the results.
Then I read a book called "the inventions of nicola tesla" (or close to that) written by a contemporary and checked by tesla for accuracy; and, in his transcribed lectures tesla made a very strong point that the sharpness of the pulse was the most important part to achieve.
(He was using a disruptive discharge = spark to achieve his pulses, and went into a lot of detail to arrive at a way to make the pulses begin and end sharply.)

Here is a pic of how some of my early secondary wires were connected... and now I always remove the basic jt light shown at the bottom right.

jeanna

EDIT add
I would like to respond to the notion of the step up then step down transformers.
I believe this is Don Smith's approach.
The interesting part to me is that first he gets the voltages incredibly high before he turns the transformer around.
Theoretically this cannot work, but I believe the 'magic' if you will, comes at the moment of the back spike.
It is a moment when the math goes to infinity.
If you can pack a lot (high frequency) of those very high voltage spikes into a second, you will get surprised.

but we must break out of the box to do this....
j

[kick-bak]

Microwave fan motor

Hi all

Don't post much but lurk here all the time
Having read thru this thread and also the 'Joule thief' one over at
OverUnity.com I found myself pulling apart a psu that was lying about
in me shed and found three toroids inside. Two small and one 38mm-OD/19mm-ID toroids.
I managed to wrap 20 winds thru 1 of the smaller Toroids and got to light up a few Leds.
Looking at the larger toroid there was no way i was gonna get 300+ winds onto it
Being a hoarder in nature i'd kept the motor out of our microwave oven before sending
it off to the tip just incase it came in handy someday. That day came today.
Once the shaft n fan blade are removed the coil can be coaxed off with a hammer and
what you have left is a coil with an iron laminated core. This core can be pushed out
and a ferrite rod inserted instead. My coil has 423 Ohms and 20 + 40 winds of .4 mil
magnet wire over the top of that. It lights a 22w cfl using the simple circuit Lidmotor has on his youtube chan.

YouTube - Jeanna's Light


Kick-bak

[redrichie]

Hi all

Don't post much but lurk here all the time
Having read thru this thread and also the 'Joule thief' one over at
OverUnity.com I found myself pulling apart a psu that was lying about
in me shed and found three toroids inside. Two small and one 38mm-OD/19mm-ID toroids.
I managed to wrap 20 winds thru 1 of the smaller Toroids and got to light up a few Leds.
Looking at the larger toroid there was no way i was gonna get 300+ winds onto it
Being a hoarder in nature i'd kept the motor out of our microwave oven before sending
it off to the tip just incase it came in handy someday. That day came today.
Once the shaft n fan blade are removed the coil can be coaxed off with a hammer and
what you have left is a coil with an iron laminated core. This core can be pushed out
and a ferrite rod inserted instead. My coil has 423 Ohms and 20 + 40 winds of .4 mil
magnet wire over the top of that. It lights a 22w cfl using the simple circuit Lidmotor has on his youtube chan.

YouTube - Jeanna's Light


Kick-bak

On what kind of input source? A 1.5V battery!?

[kick-bak]

@ redrichie

Yes a 1.5v AA battery.

I tried to measure the ac voltage off the 423 Ohm winding but my elcheapo
multimeter has trouble reading the pulses.

Kick-bak