Joulethief SEC exciter and variants

[Farmhand]

Hey no probs, I'm just impatient. Thanks for the info, i'll see what I can do.

Lamare, nice to hear from you and for the cool circuits you show, the cap is for the L1 to discharge into like a resonant charging circuit, but I guess that could kill the oscillation too if it is not forced.

Like in this circuit I use for my Tesla Coil. THe charging inductor discharges into the cap when the current stops and the cap is discharged through the coil in the next cycle.
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=32a91...1195&sc=photos

I'll take the tips you guy's gave me and see what i can do, i've been busy with other things myself.

Thanks very much

P.S. Slider I like you're last video, I say that same thing too sometime's.

Oh and the recovery to the charging battery is not really wanted I just drew it in because I don't have any spare LED's.

[Slider2732]

Heck, sorry for the delay in reply
Yes, Lamare's top circuit is the same sort in some respects, with diode protection, mine are bare bones compared...nicely drawn btw there.

Best small voltage transistor so far for me is the 2SC2785. They are about half the size of regular MPSA06 types and have an ultra low switch on of around 0.2V. I get mine from an old circuit board from a 90's hi-fi.
Simple circuit is a NPN transistor, put a 1N4148 diode across the Emitter and Base (black end to Base). 1K resistor from Base to positive of supply, Positive extends to the top of your Primary, if it's wound counter clockwise. Collector goes to the other end of the Primary. Base goes out to the Secondary.
There's a list some pages back now, where I did a Mega-test of about 3 dozen transistors NPN and PNP.
Standard and normal would be the likes of a C945, 9014 or 3904. Other nice low power trannies would be 2SC1213, MPSA06, 2N2222A.
For plasma output at higher voltages I go for especially the A966
You can look up any of those found on circuit boards by adding '2S' to what is normally seen on the front of the device. Look for low saturation voltage of around 0.2V, high hFE of around 400 and a forward diode voltage as low as possible, like 0.4V. The speed of switching is kind of oddball, in that some 80MHz devices are really quite good, but i'd recommend 200MHz and higher if you see it.

Again. so sorry about that, been multi-tasking with projects lately and we all know us guys can only do 1 thing at once lol barely that quite often.

[lamare]

OK, I'll design my own circuit then, Hows this look.

I can't seem to get it to oscillate but I always have trouble with self oscillating circuits. Do any of you guy's think this could work ? I'm also short of solderless board space so I don't want to clear an exsisting circuit just yet.

(This circuit is theoretical and has not been tested)
I don't like to post untested drawings but I need some help.
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=32a91...1241&sc=photos

How much resistance should I use on the base approx. ?

Is the trigger coil the correct way ?

Will an MPSA06 transistor work ?

And how many turns or how much self inductance do I need in the bifilar coil ?

I want to use a JT circuit to drive the primary of the small coil in my previous post. And I want it to work from between 3v to 6v or maybe 12v if it worked from 1.5 volts then even better.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

That sure is an interesting coil design


When I look at your circuit, you have an oscillator very similar to what I have drawn some time ago, with the idea of getting to identical (aircore??) transformers into resonance, just as you resonate one large coil with the JT circuit, so you get a signal on the second transformer that should be low voltage but able to give relatively large amperage, so you may be able to add a diode bridge as load and close the loop eventually. (The coil values shown are just to indicate which coils should be identical and which should have a sigificantly larger number of turns):

This is also still untested, but is a standard Hartley oscillation circuit:
Hartley oscillator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the distinguishing feature of the Hartley circuit is that the feedback needed for oscillation is taken from a tap on the coil, or the junction of two coils in series.

Like this one:
Article:Free Electric Energy in Theory and Practice - PESWiki

Normally, you would take L1 and L2 exactly the same and because the transistor is an inverting amplifier, giving a 180 degree phase shift, and the coils both give a 90 degree phase shift when resonating at their natural base "1/4 lambda" resonance frequency, you get a total 360 degree phase shift and therefore oscillation.

With your circuit, you have an additonal coil in series with L1/L2 and a decoupling cap as well, which does not make much sense to me.

I think the easiest way to get your coil into oscillation would be to add a tap in the primary, about half way trough so you get an L1/L2 in series, and then build the standard oscillation circuit shown above....

Note that if you would add a trimming capacitor where C4 is shown in the canary circuit, you can tune your oscillation circuit to match a natural higher order resonance frequency of the secondaries, so you can maximize your output.

[Farmhand]

OK, I'll design my own circuit then, Hows this look.

I can't seem to get it to oscillate but I always have trouble with self oscillating circuits. Do any of you guy's think this could work ? I'm also short of solderless board space so I don't want to clear an exsisting circuit just yet.

(This circuit is theoretical and has not been tested)
I don't like to post untested drawings but I need some help.
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=32a91...1241&sc=photos

How much resistance should I use on the base approx. ?

Is the trigger coil the correct way ?

Will an MPSA06 transistor work ?

And how many turns or how much self inductance do I need in the bifilar coil ?

I want to use a JT circuit to drive the primary of the small coil in my previous post. And I want it to work from between 3v to 6v or maybe 12v if it worked from 1.5 volts then even better.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Hi Guy's, Nice Video's Slider. Slider can I ask you which circuit you are using ? I need a small self oscillating circuit to run this coil.

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=32a91...1229&sc=photos

The coil has got a 9 and 3/4 turn x 1mm primary, the cone is 156 turns 0.5mm and the cylinder is 800 turns 0.2mm The cone and the cylinder tower are joined of course.

I want to try to run it from the receiver of my larger "pair" of coils. So I need to use a circuit that will work from very small power.

You're setup seems to be very productive. Very impressive.

Cheers

[ricksl]

alright well thanks for the permission, i look forward to starting it at my earliest convenience, need to order some parts to do a nice build. if you didn't see my last build was a mini with the ferrite core, high gauge wire (relatively) and an incorrect transistor. so anyway i hope to do and document a very high quality build, might be awahile though, going to visit family in the midwest for a good 3 weeks, no sense ordering parts to there cause then i wouldn't have the means to get it back. (would be funny explaining to tsa what an exciter is)

its gonna be hard making this as an intractable, its not like this is overly well understood stuff, im hoping i can get input from everyone so that explaining the theory of operation (hazards, suggested uses, ect) won't be so... painful.

[Slider2732]

I think it would work well, for experimenters and tinkerers.
It may introduce some folks to this who never would have known too

Speaking of Mr. Slayer's circuit principle..I altered a pulse motor when looking to reduce its size. Moved the diode to be the same as his circuit has it (both being collapsing coils) gained back the inline to coil diode loss and reduced the size of the circuit to boot !

[slayer007]

ya know ive ben meaning to ask, would it be alright if i made an instructables page detailing the build and basic operation of a slayer exciter, i found that there are few mainstream sites that have any info about this sort of tech. quite sad really. and there are a large amount of builders out there who enjoy playing with tesla sort of stuff. and a bigger following could mean more advances in it. i don't know the last time slayer looked at this thread but i think idt be worth it if he at least thought about it.

Ricksl that would be ok if you want to post a instructables page.

When your done with your page please post a link for your page in this thread.

Thanks.

[ricksl]

ya know ive ben meaning to ask, would it be alright if i made an instructables page detailing the build and basic operation of a slayer exciter, i found that there are few mainstream sites that have any info about this sort of tech. quite sad really. and there are a large amount of builders out there who enjoy playing with tesla sort of stuff. and a bigger following could mean more advances in it. i don't know the last time slayer looked at this thread but i think idt be worth it if he at least thought about it.

[Slider2732]

@Lightning - if still looking for solutions, i'd say check out Zener diodes. I don't understand all about them myself, but they will break down at many different voltages depending on type and then might trip an 'Off' circuit at that voltage.
This PDF might help: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~aperkins/pd...nijunction.pdf

@All
Here's the Wild Thyme mini tower, named because of the spices container it is built from.
It's wound with approx 600 turns of 30 gauge wire from Mabuchi RF-300 motors/printout calculator solenoids/PC floppy drive coils or maybe even folks buy such wire new lol.
The windings are protected with 3M Blenderm type medical tape.
Circuit is a physically condensed Slayer exciter, using a standard and very normal C1815 as transistor, nothing fancy. The normal LED for a transistor is replaced with a 1N4148 diode, to further reduce size.
The primary is an elevated spiral wound coil and a similar spiral is fitted to the top.
It does weird stuff !
Using one AAA battery, a neon bulb will light from the top spiral if I touch my left hand to the right hand that is holding the battery
It will wirelessly run a circuit, from a Walgreen tower nearby, without an AV plug and on 1 wire.
The circuit for the LED is from one of Lidmotor's circuits, the sMartCreations one you may have seen on his YouTube channel from March, that powers a pulse motor.
At 12V, plasma is excellent from the top spiral, with an A966 transistor replacing the C1815.


YouTube - ‪Wild Thyme - Mini Tesla Tower‬‏

[totoalas]

Hello from lightning in Australia,

I have a 4v solar panel, I have a RED LED for a charge light and I want the RED LED light to go out as soon as the super cap is full...say around 1.5~2.0v

Any simple circuit idea's ?

Thanks

Ps check on Lidmotor youtube channel

[lightning]

supercap joulethief charger LED

Hello from lightning in Australia,

I have a 4v solar panel, I have a RED LED for a charge light and I want the RED LED light to go out as soon as the super cap is full...say around 1.5~2.0v

Any simple circuit idea's ?

Thanks

[Slider2732]

Thanks Watson
After some more time with the circuit, the variable pot certainly brings in more useful results than I expected. Had linked draw to pot position and LED brightness, but not to transistor on-time. It should be obvious and now is, after reading your post.

[Watson]

The new variant has caught my attention too. I'm happy to read that you have one running Jim
Mine began its run almost 36hrs ago and is fading off now. Components were similar but not exact. Dr. Stiffler mentioned in the named thread about this, that a red LED isn't the best of choices for results assessing...reds can light off an AV and wire to Ground for example and I see that point. White LED's would appear to be a better choice, particularly as they would form any long run lighting solution for casual viewers/users.
My first one has used an AAA battery that was found in a door pocket of our car. I'd changed the batteries on our older digital camera in winter and a couple of dead batteries had just sat there from probably November. We got the new camera at New Year. Transistor is a 2SC1213, 11 turn 1" toroid.
Pics below.

Where the circuit may help your thoughts boguslaw, is that by default design the output can be adjusted with the 10K pot that sits in line with the output LED. It regulates the output as expected and is about the simplest method for current control eh. On the input side, I guess you're thinking about efficiency with known constraints, the way that the circuit would have known values independent of input current from the powering source ?
The Wiki entry for current limiting shows a few tricks: Current limiting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Collector current reductions of a transistor seem viable. I can certainly see the point of the load draw creating swings of difference inside the circuit, rather than relying on input from the power source to change. And there being little point to warming up a simple resistor as input clamp.

The pics below show my Steven E. Jones replication at start up (voltage reading 1.4V), after 24hrs (voltage reading 1.0V) and now at nearly 36hrs (voltage reading 0.6V). Not scientific in any way, just shows the circuit runs well and for a good length of time.

If you want to reduce the power to the LED, it can be done with less loss and waste. Putting a resistor in series with the supply input or LED will work but it does its job by wasting power in the resistor. This is good battery energy that could have otherwise been used to produce light.

The lowest loss way to go is to reduce the bias to the base of the transistor. Instead of a 1k resistor, use a potentiometer to vary the light output. If you want to get very low light output, you may have to increase this resistor to several hundred k or more.

The idea is to get the transistor to stay off for longer intervals, but put out a good pulse of light when it is on, to keep the losses low. I will have to discuss this further when I write it up in my blog.

[Watson]

lamare-

I'm going all out on making a flat bifilar coil. Rig is in place to wind a set of 28 AWG magnet wires between two plates of glass. Shooting for 1,200 turns. Space between the glass will be sealed along the edges and brought to a hard vacuum (at least 1 atmosphere, hoping for 2). Wire should show up tomorrow and the fun starts this weekend! Yes, I understand the dangers. I have a theory that many projects fail not because the idea is unsound, but at a small-scale any minor deviations can ruin the results.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but based on this design, the harmonic resonance is inherently controlled by the coils. Is there a need to get my hands on a signal generator and spectrum analyzer to get the optimal harmonic resonance? From my understanding the answer is no, although exactly how many turns "n" represents will change the ratio.

I'm all for KISS!

Thanks!

- Mike

I hear a lot of these, to me, apparently non-technical or pseudo-technical terms in these groups, and forgive me if I have doubts and have to ask where it is used and for an explanation. I'm an experienced elec tech and I don't believe I've ever heard the term harmonic resonance used before. I've heard the term self-resonance, which every inductance has. But I'm not sure of that is what was meant in the above post. Thank you.