Archive for April, 2012:

2012-04-20 Davro’s Diode Oscillator

on April 20th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-20 Davro’s Diode Oscillator

I received a Google Alert and watched Jonny Davro’s Diode Oscillator running from a AA cell and putting out light when connected to, among other coils, a Slinky spring.  I thought that I should have a go at this odd circuit. I assembled it as he showed in the schematic.  I used the same BC560C

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2012-04-18 Solid State Relays – Information

on April 18th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-18 Solid State Relays – Information

I was looking at This model train web page about using solid state relays.  He gives a few examples of what he calls “home made” solid state relays – I would call them discrete SSRs because they are made from separate components.  There are a few things that I would like to add. He pointed

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2012-04-16 Stiffler’s Joule Thief

on April 16th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-16 Stiffler’s Joule Thief

I downloaded Stiffler’s SEC (Spatial Energy Coherence) .PDF and I found this schematic on P.47.  It’s supposed to be for testing how bright LEDs are with a very short pulse.  I found the circuit to be designed for danger; the same high voltage that appears across the primary (collector connected) winding also appears across the

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2012-04-15 Air Core Joule Thief Without Toroid Core

There’s no law that says that you have to have a ferrite toroid or any core material.  Air core works, but the coil has to have many more turns, which makes it bigger and bulkier.  But if the space is available, there’s nothing wrong with using a reasonably thick wire for the coils to keep

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2012-04-14 8V to 12V DC to DC Converter

on April 14th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-14 8V to 12V DC to DC Converter

Andrew asked a question about a DC-DC converter: I need your advise on the following challenge I have an 8 volt 0.3amp solar panel which I would like to use to charge a small lead acid battery 12 volt no more than 10 AH. Could you suggest a simple JT circuit that could be used

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2012-04-13 Friday the 13th – Old HP Test Equipment

on April 13th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-13 Friday the 13th – Old HP Test Equipment

Well, it’s Friday the 13th.  We just had a Friday the 13th just 13 weeks ago, and we will have another one in 13 weeks.  Wow!  That’s almost spooky! Friday really was Friday the 13th for me and my co-workers.  We had several network problems, one which required me to run from one building to

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2012-04-12 A 12 LED Joule Thief Lantern

on April 12th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-12 A 12 LED Joule Thief Lantern

I blogged this for a neophyte on Energetic forum. If you’re going to use an existing lantern, then you may have a lot of modifications, since a lantern usually has several cells in a battery pack, which gives you a long battery life.  If you reduce the number of cells, the battery life will be

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2012-04-11 Low Power DC-DC Joule Thief Conversion

on April 11th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-11 Low Power DC-DC Joule Thief Conversion

Many experimenters have this “brilliant idea” of using a Joule Thief to boost the voltage of a low voltage, low power device such as a solar cell or Peltier TEG, to a higher voltage.  I’ll go over what I’ve learned in my experiments with Joule Thiefs. Conventional JT performance  See a photo of a conventional

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2012-04-10 Watson’s Tentacle Power Cord

on April 10th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-10 Watson’s Tentacle Power Cord

I made a few of these in early 2010, and they are very handy to have around.  I can use power strip sockets that would normally not be usable for a ‘wall wart’ adapter, and the power cord frees up a power strip outlet that would otherwise be used for the adapter.  I’m not sure

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2012-04-09 Meek’s Mk. 21 Mod. 1 Regen Receiver

on April 9th, 2012 by - Comments Off on 2012-04-09 Meek’s Mk. 21 Mod. 1 Regen Receiver

The 1000 character limit of the Yahoo “regenrx” Group comments makes it necessary for my comment to go here.  Also, I’d like to post the schematic here since they tend to drift away, never to be seen again. My major complaint about this receiver is that it uses a FET on the antenna input.  FETs

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