(Cont’d from previous blog) During the early days of my LED lights, I did some conversions of regular flashlights. The one in the picture is a Craftsman that used four AA cells and a regular incandescent flashlight bulb. I took the bulb out, broke the glass and removed it, and put three white LEDs, each
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In this Youtube video, the experimenter connects the Joule Thief to the audio output of an amplifier, and lights a string of LEDs. About the only thing new about this is the source of power: the amplifier. I would say that it’s less than desirable to use the amplifier for power for the obvious reason
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I’ve read quite a few of the blog posts (here is one) and seen quite a few of the Youtube videos that use a JT for a charger. Basically it’s a regular JT, with a diode from the collector to the charging battery’s positive terminal, and the other negative terminal connected to the positive of
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The following discussion is in regards to the schematic in my Supercharged Joule Thief blog dated 2011-12-04. Flagiusz had some different ideas as to how it works. I would like to say that I totally respect his opinions, but I have no way of offering a firm explanation of how it works because I have
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I found two CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) that were dead, so I opened them up to see what happened. Both self destructed when the components burned up. I decided that most of the parts were damaged by overheating and unsalvageable, so I took the toroids out and threw most of the rest away. As can
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This Youtube video shows a guy’s Joule Thief that has its brightness controlled by a CdS photocell. The ambient light changes the photocell’s resistance, which adjusts the JT’s brightness. I haven’t yet seen the schematic but he promised another video with more will be posted soon. I left a comment with a link to my
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I built this in May, 2003 using an expensive plastic project case. It worked very well, and put out a .lot of light thanks to the high performance transistors. I added the yellow LED to make the light a little warmer, since white LEDs tend to have a lot of blue light. The URL I
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This pic is dated Nov 2003, which was about the time I built the light. It was one of my early creations. I built the circuit which used two transistors (not a true Joule Thief), a toroid, and three white LEDs. Most impottantly it used two AA cells in series, which was kind of odd
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I built this light back in the early to mid 2000s when the LED flashlights were very expensive and generally not available. As can be seen, it runs off a single AAA cell, and lights a single LED. I used point to point wiring, then I put clear silicone seal over the circuit to hold
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This is another of my pictures originally posted to my warsonseblog in 2009. This uses a whole board full of 1F 2.5VDC super capacitors I got from an online surplus sales, I don’t remember which. I think they were all used since the leads were short. At that time I don’t believe that super caps
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