This, I believe, is the first Joule Thief I’ve built using a European style connector, I call them EuroConns, but Paul calls them chocolate blocks (I’ve never seen one chocolate color, though). I’ve built other things with them. If you’ve ever watched the Youtube videos of Xee2 AKA Xee2vids, you’ll know how handy these can be for quickly putting together circuits. These are available in 8 and 12 position versions from Radio Scrap. I call it a “SIM” because it’s a Single Inline Module.
It was a bit of a stretch to get the leads of the PN2222A transistor to fit into the three holes, but I finally got it. It should have a socket or extension wires, but soldering extension wires onto the leads kind of defeats the purpose of the strip, which is to get away from soldering.
The JT uses a PN2222A, a 1k resistor, a high Mu toroid core with two separate windings, look like 9 turns each, and a Seoul Semi 1 watt warm white ‘star’ LED. The connections are pretty much self-explanatory. The white wire from the black lead of the LED to the black negative lead (far left) can be replaced with a 1 ohm resistor to monitor the LED current. I haven’t made any measurements, probably because I plan in disassembling it after I’ve blogged it. It’s JAAJT (just another average Joule Thief).
Back to experimenting…