DMMs All Over The Place – I have more than a half dozen of those cheapo Cen-Tech DMMs from Harbor Freight laying around my house, and I use them a lot for checking the AA and AAA cells that I’m constantly trying to drain with my germanium Joule Thiefs with their multicolored LEDs, of which
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Question Of The Month: Every duplex electrical outlet should come with a 5V USB charging port built into the outlet next to the sockets. [ ] I agree [ ] I disagree Well, I’m afraid that someone has already thought of that*. I was in the Big Box home improvement store this weekend and they’re
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I’ve built an automatic shutoff timer into a regular flashlight, and into my Commercial Killer. Putting a timer into a JT has a very practical use: it saves the battery. I’m not sure why someone else hasn’t tried to do it, maybe just never occurred to them. I thought about putting one into a JT
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High Voltage Joule Thief Schematic – In this Youtube video, we see the circuit connected to and lighting a neon lamp. I corresponded with the author and he gave me permission to post the schematic to my blog. Here is the link (it’s a .PDF). High Voltage Joule Thief The author sent me some closeup
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Not long ago I bought a Duracell charger for my cell phone. It has various adapters to fit the different power connectors, in my case it was the Micro USB. I connected my cell phone to it last night and plugged it into the wall, and this morning I went to unplug it from the
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I found a Youtube video with a two transistor circuit (some mistakenly call this a Joule Thief) that is used a a voltage booster to give 9V from 1.5V or 3V. He shows the schematic of the circuit at the end. I had a similar circuit in my late great watonseblog. But I think
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Surge Protectors – Pros and Cons I was just sitting there, working on something, when I heard a loud BZZZT and immediately I smelled smoke. I couldn’t tell where the burning smell was coming from. I became concerned to the point of panic that there would be a fire breaking out any second. I couldn’t
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I took this pic a while ago, May, 2001. The germanium chip and catwhisker are so clear and visible. The GI stands for General Instrument company, the maker. I know that silicon chips are light sensitive. If germanium chips are, then this one should make a good light detector.
I wouldn’t attempt this in anything less than a clean room. But she does it in the kitchen, apparently. You can click on the link and see it in action. It actually works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_znRopGtbE
