In my earlier blog, yesterday I discussed using a 1 Farad capacitor to hold enough charge to run the flasher for several hours, from dusk to midnight or later. I checked Mouser’s parts and found a 1F 2.5V capacitor from Bussman for about 2 dollars in single unit quantities. Kind of expensive but cheaper in
(Read More…)
I’ve seen a lot of Xee2’s xee2vids on Youtube, but I don’t remember seeing this one before. It’s dated Sept 2011, so it’s more than 2 years old. The Joule Thief flasher obtains its power from four red LEDs connected in parallel, which are used as solar cells and charge a 10 thousand uF capacitor.
(Read More…)
I got a Google Alert that pointed to a facebook page for a Joule Thief. In that page I found a link to this UK blog about using a Joule Thief as a battery charger (click on the link to the .PDF schematic). The Joule Thief circuit is a typical example of a conventional JT.
(Read More…)
I was reading this article and saw that it said that when the voltage of a 1.5V cell drops to 0.9V, it still has 10 percent of its capacity left. I have read in the past that the battery is considered used up when its voltage drops to 1 volt. I don’t know what the
(Read More…)
I came across a schematic of a “Joule Thief” circuit, actually a two transistor LED V boost circuit, on OverUnity.com. This is part of a garden light, and has a solar cell to recharge the battery, and the battery to store the electricity until after dark. The schematic, dated 10/16/2013, was drawn partially upside down
(Read More…)
I came across this in a “99 cent” discount store, for a dollar. The UPC code is 39277 75124. They also had the standard garden lights for $2, with the plastic stake to poke into the ground. I bought one of those and opened it up, and found that they had gone cheap, and used
(Read More…)
QS sent me a link to a design that supposedly uses four Peltier tiles to generate enough light to be used as a flashlight. Apparently there are no further details. There are some points to ponder in what the link said: It used the word ‘objective’, which means it’s something that they hope to achieve,
(Read More…)
I took this photo Oct 2003 and posted it to my watsonseblog. The ‘cup holder’ is the sliding drawer that comes out of the CD drive. Other motors inside can generate enough power to light up the LED.
