How to make an authentic Joule Thief.
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- Опубликовано: 12 июн 2015
- On the basis that it's me who actually named the Joule Thief, it's about time I actually put up a video showing how to make one.
This video shows a version that is true to the original design sent in by the mysterious Z Kaparnik to the Ingenuity Unlimited section of an electronics magazine called EPE. I just loved the simplicity of the circuit and built many of them. Latterly when the Internet "happened" I added it to my website as a project and gave it the snappy name Joule Thief on the basis that it steals all the last energy from a battery. The combination of the circuit's amazing simplicity, functionality and the fun name just developed a life of its own on the 'net.
There are a few variants on the design which add extra components to improve efficiency, but a true Joule Thief uses a single transistor, 1K resistor, hand wound ferrite bead transformer and the LED you want to light.
The circuit is just incredibly rugged. It can be used with just about any small ferrite toroid or core you can find. It's great for use with the little ferrite rings found in the circuitry of dead compact fluorescent lamps.
The wire you wind it with can be new or salvaged lacquered wire (used in transformers and relays), and the gauge of the wire isn't too critical. The transistor is a general purpose small NPN transistor. You can either use the suggested one or just whatever you can find in your electronic hoard.
![Roddy Ricch - Survivors Remorse [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/J5IeFzr2GgE/mqdefault.jpg)
I don't think I'll ever work out how he holds about 5 things at once, his dexterity game is on point
It is viral, I often find myself soldering something in mid-air, and I don't think it ain't right any more; instead, I'm thinking «OK, it's clived right» every time I solder it well.
It's an electronics thing ❤
Also an electronics thing lead exposure 🤪
VODKA does most of the work. Ask any one from the east side of the planet.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon had to dress each other for spacewalk, pump air in spacesuits simultaneously while depressurized the lunar module, not only they didn't have the dexterity needed, they didn't have the required square footage to exit, especially with backpack on and spacesuits inflated, they could never fit through the 33x32 inch opening of the lunar module, and so I think they had assistance, and studio artificial lighting and cameraman filming the ascend takeoff from the moon, it was a sloppy magic show and their dexterity problem is certainly a magic trick all by itself. But with wishful thinking and wilful ignorance the American way, anything is possible 🇺🇸
@@empathicallyyours4937 Well, that's right! People were so much more gullible weren't they back in the days before the internet and social media were there to think for them.
And suddenly the penny drops, electronics components that seemed to be unfathomable, even magic to me, especially transistors now seem fathomable with this fantastically simple yet amazingly useful circuit. Thank you very much Clive.
Andy Wood That's how it goes with electronics. Suddenly the bits of the puzzle fit together and it all starts to make sense.
@@bigclivedotcom Thank you!
Hi Clive. I have been soldering for 50 years and I am impressed each time with the dexterity you show with your left hand. I wish I had seen these videos back when I was in high school - they would have inspired me to strive for such skill myself. Thank you for your wonderful videos. They are most interesting and educational!
You never cease to amaze me. I had no idea you put the name to it. On climbing trips, I collected everyone's dead batteries to use in my head lamp. Under false environmentalism, I don't recall buying a battery for years.
This looks very similar to a circuit which uses inductance to increase voltage from a battery, somehow piling the inductor discharge on top of the battery voltage. I really love that Clive teaches this stuff. The part I have trouble understanding is the back-flow surge from the transistor. It seems like a lot of what I'll call side-effects of electronics become really useful design ingredients. Very simple, really cool, and yet still a little elusive for full understanding.
Suddenly three decades (or more!) of memories comes flooding back in. Everyday & Practical Electronics was what I grew up with until it became too expensive for the importers to bring to South Africa. Thank you Clive! Keep up the good work!
Greetings from yzerfontein
@@KaylaJoyGunnGreatings from McMurdo Station Antarctica 😊👍
I think I finally understand how to build this, which is a good thing, as back in SD I have several failures laying in boxes and about a dozen or so ferite cores taken from old pc power supplies that I have torn down most have had the wire removed from them, and I also have a small shipping box filled with various sizes of laquered copper wire from the same teardowns. Thanks a million. For some reason I have it in my old brain that if I can just learn something new, every day, then I may well keep going with a whole mind till the end of my days. Being 65 now, and still thinking with a relaivly clear mind and watching my 90 year old mother still playing Pinocle with the best of them gives me hope. The fact that dad passed away at age 63 does worry me a bit, but it was the booze that took him, and I try to avaoid that at all costs. So thanks again, for keeping me educated, and in that process young at heart.
Oh as a side note, on returning to South Dakota, I watched this once more, and followed along, using slightly different supplies that I had laying around, and suddenly I HAD ONE WORKING!!! Wow what a great feeling to hit that switch and watch the LED light up brightly from a dead battery! That said, my second attempt to make one slightly different was a total failure, but still I have the one that works on my table beside my recliner just waiting for the power failure that come on a fairly regular basis here on the Dakota State Line. Then too though I picked up one of those tops to a solar walk light at a yard sale. It was so damn dirty that I had no idea what it was but for a nickle what could go wrong. I took it back to the RV and cleaned it up, then it became obvious, and when I put in a single AA battery, it came to life. Nice unit with solar charger on top and a sensor that shuts her down when the sun hits her. That too runs on a single AA but I have not tried a dead one on her. I would guess it has something like that circuit in it. I am planning on striping down that light and using the solar cell to run a small weather station based on an ESP8266.
@@JerryEricsson Maybe that/this would be solution to problem that solar lights usually use more power than the solar can make, so with this joule thief you could get more time out of emptier battery.
And maybe even try to use this to boost the charging current so the battery could be filled with less sunlight
Kudos on the name! "Joule Thief" really did take off, it stuck really well in education; was as mnemonic to me as the "Op-Amp" and "555 Timer" when I was learning electronics 20 years back.
As a kid i somehow found your homepage and made a joule thief myself. I fiddled myself a whole lot of pocket lights with it. The smallest uset a printbutton and a single cell from a 9V battery (I have it to this day). This brought me into electronics, because i could make a very useful thing myself, and i tried to understand the circuit. Very good work!
Wow! This man is a legend. Who hasn't heard of the "joule thief". Quite nice to meet in person the man who named it! My respect!
+Delphi Builder Agreeing with what you said, I must say that the "to meet in person" part made me smile. For a second, that actually felt right, as if watching that video or finding someone's RUclips channel felt like meeting him in person. I guess the internet is our reality, where we can meet our heroes every day.
Cheers. Maybe I'm too sentimental, but thanks, for making me feel better about the world.
What does actually mean to meet someone in person? Most of the times the only input the brain gets is video! i.e. you see and hear the person, rarely would someone touch one another, so, practically yes, I feel like having met Clive. I have also lived in Glasgow for some years working in IT and LOVED the Scotts! Greeks automatically find Scots extra close to character and personal style, and to tell you the truth I felt I was more in Athens when I was in Glasgow rather when I was in Athens with the general architecture you will find around in houses. I'm also happy that I made you smile, cheers man.
@@DBuilder1977 Athens of the North, innit.
I know right! I was today years old when I found out Big Clive (as in ... "Our Very Own Big Clive from RUclips... yes him, actually THAT Big Clive... no really, it REALLY was him!!!") and the originator of the brilliantly named Joule Thief was one and the same person. My ghast is flabbered!
Clive, in the nicest way possible, your videos are ALMOST as good as listening to rainfall sounds to fall to sleep to 🥰👌
A lot of people use them to assist in falling asleep.
Also came here to say how insane Clive's soldering skills are. The bit where you tin the wires while holding the solder and wire in the same hand never fails to make me think "wow".
I didn't even realise I did that until people pointed it out.
@@bigclivedotcomIt's almost like the opposite of the Dunning-Krueger effect here. You'd so damned good at something, you don't even know you're that good at it. :D
Always a pleasure watching your videos. Between the skill and the humor, yours are definitely some of my favorite videos.
Yea i agree with you
There are others as knowledgeable, but none exude the charisma and approachability that Clive does with every word. I love his accent, too.
Not terribly sold on combination of vodka and coke with Parma-Violets, though!
Diet Pepsi. Ewww.
Impressive, didn't realise you were the man behind the joule thief name
arcadeuk Yeah, it just took on a life of its own. And to be fair, it is a great little circuit. I can remember the excitement of my first one working.
+bigclivedotcom Congratulations on the joule thief, alot of YTuber give demos on it, with no through back to you.
Is it the basess for that Batterizzer thingy.
Nathan Trigg They are two very different things. The joule thief is designed to extract every last bit of energy from a battery. The batteriser is designed to extract money from your wallet ;)
+arcadeuk ha..ha. l understand now, thanks for clearing that up.
Please return to youtube :)
Well, im 53 this year, and still i learn new things everyday.. especially with Big Clive, thanks for letting us tap in to your fountain of knowledge sir ;-)
Wait... you coined the term Joule Thief? That's impressive... It's a fitting and creative name.
He's credited on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief
+youtubkeeper thats neat
who knew our Clive was famous.
youtubkeeper He's even credited in german wikipedia
gone gone he's a legend in my book.
I've been slowly making my way through your back catalogue for a couple of months now, not in a linear fashion so much as whatever takes my fancy, but I never learned until today that I was in the presence of a historical figure.
I just breadboarded one of these from another video, it had a bigger resistor (33k, I think) and a 10uF capacitor across it to make the LED blink. I went a step further and used a 500k pot and a 100uF cap, so it's quite bright and I can vary the flash rate. Blue LEDs seem to have the best output and flash at the same rate as pink or white ones. Yellow, red or green LEDs flash at different rates given the same setting on the pot, I would imagine because they will have a different switch-on voltage or something and the pink and white use a blue LED with a coloured phosphor. Every day's a school day for me :)
Big Clive, the father of electronics, we salute you.
I assembled your little joule thief and, other than having the LED backwards, it is now working fine! Even with my shaking hands and old eyes I was able to wind the very small toroid (a 37?) with .2mm wire, and I am documenting battery voltage at start and on battery depletion! I think I am going to try running the small (10 and 20 copper wire Christmas lights) that normally take 3 AA batteries. Fun times...
Regarding your crimper for molex terminals, I have been using a similar one, made in Sweden, since the late 70's, for wiring harness repair and building in automotive and experimental aircraft systems. There is nothing like professional crimps with built-in strain reliefs! I have interchangeable crimping jaws for different AWG wire sizes, from 14 to 28. Once I used it, I never used the old crimp terminals again! The learning curve wasn't that long, and I know that my crimps are as good as factory OEM!!
The way you say ferrite bead makes me want to wear a kilt, grab a claymore, play a bagpipe and go to battle for scotland.. and I'm german.
He's a Manxman, not a Scotsman.
He's Scottish, goes about it a lot.
webchimp The hell’s he doing on IoM then?
@@kraio-sfu Watch the beard club stuff, lots of those questions get answered :)
Its 'bagpipes' & no bagpipe, ya wee slicer.
So *you* are responsible for that name, huh, I had no idea.
At some point I made one using an old forged iron bolt as a core, also tried one winding of an audio transformer, and an oscillator coil from a radio, all of those worked.
Another thing that I did once, was instead of an LED, I put a transformer coupled with a capacitor, which stepped up the voltage, then I rectified it and charged a cap to about 200 Volts to drive a vacuum tube from batteries.
cool
@Another Dick The most likely reason is that you were using the wrong ends of the coils - as wrapped instead of finding the *other* end of the second coil as Clive demonstrated. You'd think it would be the same thing but it's not - the coils have to be in opposite directions otherwise the coils don't "ring" (resonate), so no current will flow through the transistor or the LED.
@Dave Micolichek I was replying to a user called "Another Dick" who said he couldn't get anything to work despite trying several combinations of core and windings. That post appears to be missing now. My point was, If you wire it as two coils in parallel it won't work, because the coils won't resonate in that configuration. You HAVE to find the other end of the OTHER coil to hook the battery to, as Clive demonstrated. IOW the coils are running in opposite directions. There's really no other reason for this not to work as long as the solder joints are good and there's enough juice in the battery to at least kick it off.
The circuit diagram as drawn is a bit misleading in that regard, so it's understandable if people go off that and get it wrong. On the circuit diagram either the windings should be going in opposite directions which might no be very obvious, or it should be drawn so it's obvious that the "center tap" that Clive talks about in the video is actually opposite ends of the two coils.
So, I'm not sure if you were confused about who I was replying to or what the problem was that I was describing, but I hope that covers everything anyway.
Chris Robinson I think the original commenter another dick deleted his comment, that’s why we were confused
For some reason I'm flooded with your videos form 6 years ago.
I'm not complaining but it feels weird when I can see the change in your setup but your voice is exactly the same.
Clive, just lovely, definitely in the top 23 of my favourite web Clives.
I have been binging your channel for over a week now and I am so very thankful there are people like you, just sharing the seemingly endless knowledge you have accrued through life. This is a really cool circuit. Thanks so much man!
Wow... I feel slow I knew Clive Mitchell was responsible for the name and I knew I watched a RUclips channel that I always read as big-c-live... 'C' live really self, really? Clive! dumba$$... wow I feel slow. Well Clive it's an honor to finally realize who you are.
I can see how that could happen. Glad it was you and not me this time- fellow dumbass
Myth busted, Grant. Now the "DOT" portion of it...I've tried : and - plus ; to no avail. I'm getting close although still rather uncertain... As Clive is in the vicinity of Britain (I've deductive skills Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would envy), next I will try a comma! 'Tis us 'Mericans that use a decimal point like that. Huh, it's possibly more accurate that my skills are Selective, & Sir Doyle would be feeling ennui...yeah cuz pretty certain the envy is an American auto made for women. Ok, I think I got this now. I know Paul Revere was to indicate with lantern one if land, two via sea, but I still don't know which it ended up being! Sshhh!! Did you hear that?? It smells like 7!!!
Grant, may well you rest in peace
I'll build this and bring it to the lab. My Prof is going to love this, he has an enourmous knack for anything that oscillates off batteries
Your soldering technique and then holding the project in one hand is just simply awesome.
Great demo Clive.
+RODALCO2007 I didn't even realise I soldered like that until people started pointing it out.
The joule thief was one of the first project I made when trying to learn soldering, never knew where it came from
Much like the ferrite beads. Excess stock my hat. Joules aren't the only thing being thived, wonder how much other RS stock ended up as random ebay listings.
What a great little device. Just made one up to run a 6v string of 20 LEDs and works perfectly from a have dead D size battery. Interested to see how long it runs.
How long did it run?
Yeah how long bub?
Only about 4 days. But then I don’t know how dead the battery was or what current it was drawing.
@@mostlysane77 4 days constant or on and off? if constant that isn't bad at all.
I learned to make this device from your website many years ago. Thanks for the hours of happines winding coils and soldering.
I know nothing about electronics. Truly, electricity baffles me. You, and your videos, fascinate me though. Peculiar man perhaps, but your random, casual comments (about violet candy with vodka and pepsi, or a chilled beverage while relaxing) crack me up. Fascinating and comically genuine in your delivery; I like the way your brain works. Thanks for exposing the mysteries, sir.
Thank you for your inspiration. I did not use your schematic because lack of space for the coil but the idea of reusing old batteries fascinated me after this video.
I built a water resistant illuminated dog collar with 4 slow color changing LEDs (you also inspired me to use these ones). My Joule thief if made of two inductors, a resistor, a capacitor and a transistor. It all fits into a tranparent flexible tube with an inner diameter of 9 mm. Only the AA or AAA battery sits in a short piece of a wider flexible tube that is used as a connector to make a ring of the other tube at the same time.
It works perfectly, looks awesome and runs for 60 - 100 hours with a single AA battery.
There is no such word as"these ones",there is however"these,them,and those",just sayin' .
Hi Clive, still working my way through your greatly entertaining videos. Really enjoying this little gem, as I just like these simple rewarding practical circuits. Reminds me of my starting point reading Everyday Electronics. Great stuff.
Thank you for this very useful simple circuit that shall undoubtably prevent premature throwing away still useful batteries.
Built along with the video, and it came out great! Thanks for all of your great work and many contributions. PLEASE keep making videos! Ive been watching them all week lol.
Didn't know Clive coined the name, that's very cool indeed! It's the original "Batteriser".
PuchMaxi except it actually works.
You are so right Shaya! :D
@@shayamaddex996 Works just as well as the Batteriser.
>
Wow you are even namend on the German Wikipedia. I didn't know you created the Name. I love that Story
Things like this is what inspires me the most.
To see in the mind's eye through all the noise of complexties, clearing all the cobwebs and suddenly there it is.
I watched many of your videos and somehow I stumbled on the phrase Joule Thief and had no idea what this was all about.
After seeing few of them, suddenly I ran in to your video only to realize that you actually were the founder of it.
Love it.
[Moral of the story, centertapping a toroid coil]. Good one.
Do you have any suspicions on the real world efficiency of center tapping a toroid coil, because it's such a simple and elegant way of driving an LED from a DC source I wonder what it's like not run from a battery but a stable power source.
Greetings once again, a few months ago, I found this and used it as a guide to build my FIRST working Joule Thief, it has been shining on now for several months, twinkling on my computer bench, and drawing comments from those who know you just cannot run an LED off one AA Battery! So today, I came back and followed the directions once more, simply because I ran across one of my earlier attempts that failed. I took her all apart, and followed your directions bit by bit, step by step until at last I had one connection left to solder, and I just could not wait, I twisted the two leads together and stuck in an old dead rechargable AA that was nearby, and by God, she lit right up once again, so now I have two working models, one on each side of my computer desk to light up the clutter fro either side! Thanks a million, I do so love your videos!
"They are so violety."
I wasn't aware violet had a flavour?
You haven't missed anything, violet tastes fucking awful...
@@fredriksjoblom5161 Air freshener taste
It's the same flavour as the little hand soaps in your nan's bathroom. I love and hate them at the same time. If you want the same taste in the US, go for Chowards Violet Mints. Better still, if you have any friends you don't want to keep, carry a stick of either and offer them without warning what the flavour is.
That said, following the taste of hand soaps with diet pepsi and vodka makes my tum rumble in fear.
I did not know you were the author of this circuit. you're the father of the free energy . just a joke. regards. saludos amigo
He is not the first author; although, they say he coined the name.
yer like an alien the way you use your fingers soldering!!! awesone talent!
Big Clive, thank you for the tutorial on the Joule Thief!! I did put it together, and on my second try, and a little troubleshooting, I got it working. I had the LED in backwards, but knew that I was close when I saw the LED dimly flashing when I stuck my grubby fingers into these works. I reversed the LED, and Voila, it works as advertised!! Now that it is working, it is time to dive in and beginning experimenting! Thanks for the marvelous tutorial, I'll let you know if I come up with any monumental experiment results! I used a .37" toroid pirated from a computer motherboard, and found a suitable .2 mm enameled wire from some sort of ferrite pole, and all the rest of the components from miscellaneous bits and pieces. A bit of Dark and Stormy would make the toroid winding much more enjoyable, I am quite sure...😁
I very much enjoy your videos so I had to comment on your explanation of the Joule Thief's circuit operation.
The operation has nothing to do with the saturation of the core, but rather with the inverse coupling of the windings.
The base tap (leftmost inductor in your schematic) provides a DC path from the supply rail, through itself, through the base resistor and into the base-emitter junction to turn on the transistor.
This, in turn, "turns on" the transistor, allowing it to pass current between its collector and emitter terminals.
Now because the inductors are connected in anti-phase, the current flowing through inductor two (rightmost inductor), induces an opposite current in the "base inductor" and turns it off.
Consequently, the transistor turns off, and the flyback of the collector inductor creates a voltage spike at the collector.
This flyback effect (U = L * di/dt) allows for the voltage boost of the Joule Thief and is dependant on the collector current and inductance value of the collector inductor.
After the magnetic field stored in the collector coil has been converted to emf (basically voltage) and its energy depleted through the load (the LED in this case), the process starts over.
For the case of saturation, the inductor would (potentially, depending on the power supply) get hot and (not dependant on the power supply) its inductance would drop significantly. The inductors would basically become short circuits and the circuit would stabilize (not oscillate).
The base current will be determined by approximately (Vcc - 0.65)/Rb where Rb is the base resistor and the collector current will be approximately hf * Ib (current gain of the device multiplied by the base current). Since the inductors are saturated they will no longer function as a choke (forcing equal currents in both windings) as they normally would during non-saturated operation (like in a mains power supply).
You actually built the circuit correctly (with anti-phase coupled inductors) instead of as you explained it (with in-phase coupled inductors), hence it works.
To avoid confusion related to the phase relationship of the coils, it is convenient to use a phase dot.
As to the interesting case of the low-voltage (sub 0.65V) operation. I strongly suspect it is due to the fact that a transistor still passes some (albeit very little) current below its "turn-on voltage" (which is simply where it transitions from conducting very little current to conducting significant amounts of current very non-linearly), and this tiny amount of current is still enough for the Joule Thief to operate.
Another possibility is, perhaps, leakage being cut off due to strong reverse biasing of the base-emitter junction, but I'm purely speculating here.
Very, very late reply... But I believe this is important to clarify for those seeking to understand.
I believe that the first part about the inverse coupling being what causes the shutoff is incorrect. I do agree that he intended the diagram to indicate the transformer was in inverse-phase configuration (where a current coming in from the top of the left winding induces current leaving the bottom of the right), and should have used the dot notation for such. But this in fact means that the currents as created by this connectivity (all going down on the page) AMPLIFY each other: more Ice drives more Ibe, which drives more Ice, etc.
If the induced current in fact opposed the base current, it would never get started in the first place.
I'd love an explanation of how the transistor works in general. I know I could just look it up, but sometimes having it explained audibly works sooo much better! Also great circuit, very fun and am planning to try it out for the kicks n giggles :D
Trust me, it all starts with the diode. Historically and educationally. Understand the physics of a diode first and then transistors, mosfets, voltage regulators fall open to your brain.
Started watching your videos about one or two months ago, and looked as you as a hero in electronics.
Watching this, however, I realised you're not a hero...
*... you're a legend!*
Best introduction of Joule Thief on RUclips. Thanks for your kind efforts.
LONG time ago but I'm just seeing it and absolutely love it. Really tempted to see if any of my friends have any of the parts needed and make one. I'm surprised it'll light the whole string of lights too! Wish I could give it 5 likes!
European CFL toroid beads are so much bigger than American ones... I had a ton of trouble winding my toroid. I had no idea you coined the name joule theif, that's pretty cool! Thank you for making videos! All of your content is quality and you post semi often which is awesome, also the fact that you look through and reply to comments on your videos is amazing! You deserve so many subs!
I summon u hear
Awesome... No shaking of hands while soldering! I m impressed 👍🏻
I've been watching your videos for a while now, without any idea that you're the one who familiarized Joule thief. It was my first electronic project and I find it so satisfying when I make it work, hahahaha. Thanks to you and to my classmate who influenced me.
The output voltage should be clamped by a LED string or other load to no more than about 6 volts or the transistor Vebo will be exceeded when the transistor turns off and the base goes negative. Whilst it won't initially matter too much it will impact the lifetime of the transistor.
If a higher voltage is required then maybe something like a 2N7002 MOSFET could be used which can stand about 30 volts. The 1K resistor should probably then be increased because no base current is required, you only have to drive 30pf of gate capacitance. The switching threshold of the 2N7002 is about 0.6V so the operational behavior should be pretty much the same as the BC547. Would be interesting to try.
Would a 13003 transistor be good iyo?
hang on-joule thief is famous world wide. your telling us you came up with that name?
Yes I did. It kinda took off.
my uni prefessor used the name back in 1995 but there wasn't a popular internet then and he's long dead.
@@spectrumsystems bullshit
@@spectrumsystems The name "Joule Thief" was originally coined by Clive Mitchell in his write up of the EPE article with modifications shortly after initial publication
@@mikeguy1899 i know he says this but we studied it at Glasgow Uni in 1994/5 during the Electronic Engineering degree course - doesn't really matter though
I made my first joule thief tonight! and it works :) thanks Clive. I started to play with small elecs at home (mechanic in the day) when i watched Mark Jones making E-cigs a few years back, I never thought it would lead me on to eventually make something so magical so easily lol. now time to make the xmas lights more efficient. Thanks again, enjoy the Coffee.
I want to thank you for your video. I built a dozen joule thief's and never got one to work. Tonight I built two of them and they both worked fantastically. Your video showed me what. Was doing wrong, especially the drawing at the end which showed each connection in detail and the way you showed how the coil was wrapped. Again, thank you very much.
"In 2002,[3] the name "Joule Thief" was coined by Clive Mitchell" Nice one
If you're too lazy to build your own, you might be able find a similar circuit in the AA cell to USB chargers at your Dollarama-type store (assuming they still have them). I think it's basically the same idea with a little extra to provide a smooth-ish 5V.
That's a really neat little circuit.
I'm amazed how you can solder things and keep them together while you solder other parts to the same soldered connection. I would've had parts disconnecting and falling on to the floor!
just threw this together in about 10 minutes (I'd guess) and it worked straight away. Used parts from my scrap bin. Thanks
There might be an advantage in using a germanium rather than a silicon transistor. This is because the silicon transistor requires about 0.6 volts to turn on, hence the oscillator will not self-start below 0.6 volts. But a germanium transistor turns on at about 0.2 volts and therefore the oscillator should self-start at around that voltage.
Hi,
I just found the following chip from ebay, it is HH004F which is basically a Joule Theif IC chip that only needs a 1/4 watt 47uH inductor to run.
majdinj And how would it compare in price to a cheap transistor, an even cheaper resistor and an extra winding on the coil?
Thumb up! Ilike the way you are presenting your video, straight away, no technical nonsense, very educational even the way you are soldering and assembling is educational.
And the Joule Thief is properly the greatest idea in recycling ever made.
Have a good time.
I just made one of those joule thieves powered by a button cell, and it shines much brighter than the LED+button cell combo. Thanks for this fun and easy project, clive!
This is lovely! I've seen these Joule Thief circuits before, but never this simple. I grabbed the nearest inductor that I had (two windings in a plastic case. I checked the resistance and they were exactly the same), a 1k resistor and I just happened to have a bc547. Wired it up and ran it off a AAA battery reading 1.3v. There's a slight high-pitched squeal coming from it, but it's barely noticeable to my old ears. Pretty neat useful little circuit. One question, how does this react to a full battery, or a higher input voltage?
It will be brighter with a fresh cell, but it's really intended for used cells. The squeal may be due to the use of a fairly large inductor that is oscillating at an audible frequency.
Hey. Been watching your vids for the pass two days. I know diddly squat about electronics, but you make things very interesting to watch. BTW I love Parma Violets and vodka and coke.
Lynn From Scotland
My father, who was an absolute expert on alcoholic beverages, having abused them from age 12 till his passing at age 62 when he consumed over a quart of Vodka per day switched from blended whiskey's to Vodka when he read in some idiotic men's magazine that it was the coloring in whiskey that gave you the hang over and killed your liver. So it was that the last 20 years or so of his life were dedicated to drinking as much Vodka as he could get his hands on. He died of the DT's laying in a hospital bed as the doctors tried to find a drug that would replace the alcohol that he had become so very dependent on. I was a Soldier at the time and had been sent home by the Red Cross due to his eminent death, but had not reached my 21's birthday, so I could not just run up to the liquor store and buy him a half pint to save his life. To this day, I hate doctors who try to ignore life saving legal drugs when they are necessary because of some damn regulation of the hospital.
Just started in the hobby of electronics and greatly appreciate the wealth of knowledge you're sharing.
You just got another subscriber.
Cheers m8
Cheers Clive! :) I love your shared online knowledge, slowly absorbed in my simple brain. Food for the soul...
So awesome! Just today I found out that you "coined" the name.. I didn't know this and I've been subscribed for quite some time now.. I didn't know anything about who did it in the first place before I subbed to you either..
Just for fun, the video that brought me to your channel is the asian flame doll ;) Both me and missis loved that video =D and ever since I saw that, I've loved every single video you've put up! Hope to see many, many more! =)
Dave Jones may have a grum with your video :)
Jared Reabow I don't think there's anything that Dave doesn't have a grumble about.
bigclivedotcom Hmm true, it does bug me that if it Doesn't have a "respected" brand, it's a crusty cheap design but the identical or worse with Fluke etc brand is Just better because...
bigclivedotcom The constant jeering is getting very tiresome.
Jared Reabow Erm.. he doesn't just see an item from a non respected brand and instantly say its a cheap design, he does take them apart and analyses the insides, have you not watched one of his videos properly?
megaspeed2v2 Nope, he jsut assumes its rubbish then when he takes it apart goes to town on everything bad,
Specifically the multimeter shoot out where he berated what i think it was the UNI-T for several issues however Fluke had EXACTLY the same issues and they were ignored.
I believe they were design of the circuit layout and the banana plug post designs but I cannot recall exactly.
On a number of tare downs, he burns on a product for a design flaw and sometimes states that is the very reason why the product is bad and should not be bought but some of his tear downs on the branded products with the same issues get a small comment or snide remark but no condemnation.
Clive:
I have many videos on this great little circuit that I was introduced to by you many years ago. My record for running off of a single depleted AA battery ("dead") is 400 leds. I also used this circuit along with my earth battery to light up a bunch of stuff.
Many of the lights in my apt. are leds lights powered by JT circuits using "dead" batteries given to me from friends that would have thrown them away.
I first saw your circuit when Bre Petis and Wendall Oskey mentioned you in their Make video on the simple, basic JT circuit.
You are famous in many circles now. There are many topics dedicated to this circuit on many research blogs including Overunitydotcom. I have been told it is a simple blocking oscillator circuit that was developed by a Russian guy back in the late 1960's. Who knows...but...you are the one that made it famous and named it the Joule Thief.
Great work Sir.
Bill
Watching you solder the smoke still goes in my eye!
Great stuff man!
The two poundland garden lights for £1 have a joule thief circuit
They are very very cheap. Add a diode capacitor and resistor and you can smooth it out as well, so you won't see flickering.
WOW! I NEVER KNEW YOU NAMED IT! I always loved the circuit since it was so simple and fun to make! So you are Clive Mitchell?
Yes I am. I never really expected it to take off the way it did.
Wow. I actually have 2 flashing joule thief circuits hanging from my ceiling, one blue and the other yellow, just soldered right onto an AA cell and they will last for years! Instead of a 1k resistor I used a 100k resistor with a 100 uF cap in parallel. you should make a little blinking joule thief with an AA or 2 then put it in resin so it is in a cube of resin, then cut and polish it into a sphere and it would look awesome!
Modra reka That has the issue that it doesn't run as long as a battery due to the fact that capacitors don't have the same energy density as a battery does, so a battery is a better alternative if you want it to run for years off of a single power source.
@Modra reka it would need a lot more than 10, a joule thief takes quite a bit of currant, and why use LEDS as solar panels? Why not just use an actual solar panel that would be a lot more efficient?
@Modra reka I'm not sure if you just don't speak english well or what but nothing you say makes sense.
This explains why some LED lamps left ON for weeks still glow!
I've built one years ago, I think in early 2004 or 2005? I never knew it was your site I found it on, but the pictures instantly reminded me of my build. It worked instantly each time I built it, no matter what kind of iron core I used.
that is a good triangle
+the4armedmonk Yeah I was impressed by his triangle drawing abilities myself.
Wait, you named the Joule Thief?????
Yes I did.
You're awesome
I'am going to name mine "Katie" after my X she stole all of my stuff out of my shop at home while I was at work , I'am a jeweler . HA !
wow i couldnt believe it till i found out it is stated in wikipedia then Clive named it (even on the german wikipedia)
Absolutely Fantastic Circuit Dude. Keep up the great work. Nick.
Thank you for sharing. I’m new to all of this and this is the easiest video I have seen yet to help me understand and feel comfortable enough to try.
I'm reminded of Bob Ross as I watch, esp the part where you are winding wires. No mistakes here just happy little circuits.
I am curious. If this circuit is so simple and versatile, is it possible to miniaturize it to a microchip scale and mass produce them? A tiny chip scale Joule Thief can be integrated into the "button" shape positive terminal of any cell battery. All of a sudden, the battery manufacturer can sell a product that last 3 times as long as current batteries. You mentioned about the voltage change, that may be another problem to solve.
+cplai
There is already a company that sells a battery clip-on device just like that, and they do make wild claims about battery life.
However modern batteries do not discharge in a linear path for the exact reason of getting more life, they will drop down to 1.1V pretty quick but then only very slowly drop the voltage to 0.8V at which point they are 80-90% empty (depends how good the battery is), from that point on they drop the voltage rapidly.
Obviously you can still get some juice out especially in for low power devices, but it isn't a huge amount, and because the circuit takes some power to run itself you would make things worse using it on a new battery.
+MsSomeonenew You are talking about the batteriser/batterizer right?
+MrOpenGL - Thank you for pointing out such product. I didn't know it existed. batteriser.com/ I wonder if it is same design used in the product.
cplai
Remember the batteriser is a scam (See EEVBlog video about it)
www.eevblog.com/2015/06/07/the-batteriser-explained/
+cplai The joule thief is not particularly efficient, so it would quite likely waste more energy due to inefficiency during the generally "usable" part of the discharge curve than it enables you to extract additionally during the "dead" portion of the discharge curve.
Also the joule thief is an unregulated boost converter and therefore not practical in most applications (slapping on some form of voltage regulation would reduce the efficiency even further).
Another negative point would be that when used in a product that isn't on often, the joule thief will still discharge the battery.
Besides this, it is very expensive to make inductors on a piece of silicon, as they are physically large.
You could (probably) achieve greater efficiency with a state-of-the-art boost converter chip. but you'd still be stuck with the efficiency problem.
The only usable option would be a circuit that's in standby (not consuming power) for the usable part of the discharge curve that activates when the battery is considered "dead", but clearly this is not worth the effort or someone would have done it. (Remember, batteries are specifically designed to be drained of their energy as much as possible (e.g. keeping the voltage usable (high) for as long as possible))
Alway thought that the performance of the Joule Thief was exaggerated.But after building my own I'm convinced. Old flat AA cell ran for nearly a week. The first few days at full brightness.
Love watching your videos.
I still don’t have that great a knowledge on electronic components, but this video put some great inspiration into me that I haven’t had in a while. Thanks man.
Could a joule thief be used to transfer energy to a rechargeable battery instead of powering an LED? Perhaps to charge a USB power bank?
you could rectify and trickle charge from an AA but, it would be slow and not worth doing unless you have a lot of old dead AA batteries on hand
@@cjdelphi Well yeah... I think we've all probably thrown away hundreds... that's my point.
@@TimothyKing1 if you have thrown them away, you don't have a point lmao
I like the part where he said "lineal line", also the part where he said "vodka".
I made a shirt covered in a net of these for Christmas last year based on the instructions on your site!
Yesterday I found my little pocket flashlight that I occasionally bought more than ten years ago, and I completely forgot it uses just a single AA cell, and at that moment I wasn't quite able to disassemble it and see what's inside, so I just forgot and took it for granted.
Moreover, even if I looked on what's inside, I couldn't understand how it works. I guess I probably assumed it just somehow boosts the voltage, but it wasn't clear for me how it does that.
Anyway, it was just a single white LED, not very bright at all. These days I can build my own JTs, and I'm very happy that a while ago I discovered your channel (my friend recommended me the video by Mehdi where he reviewed a poor man's shower head for electrocutions, and linked DGW's videos on the topic, as well as yours), so I can learn something interesting and probably become a better and more skillful, and more competent human being.
Many thanks!
I'm afraid your curve (not the math) about the remaining battery energy is incorrect.
+The Signal Path Blog Specifically?
+The Signal Path Blog It is the area under the curve (the integral), isn't it? I'm always bad at this stuff so I'd love to hear from you the right way. Would much appreciate it!
+Aurelius R Sorry, I should have been more specific. The math is correct, the curve is not. The discharge is not linear at all, therefore the area under the curve from the remaining battery life is actually much much smaller than just drawing a linear line. I hope this helps.
+The Signal Path Blog Ahh, right, yes you are certainly correct. It's much more exponential than linear. Hence Dave Jones vs Baterriser
+The Signal Path Blog Hi, i found this video yesterday and i was amazed, so I build my own joul thief - ferite core from USB cable and few turns of wire, 1kOhm res - NPN C458 - SMD 5730 LED diode(3,2V 150ma) + 24Ohm res and 1,5V brand new battery. Next I setup monitoring of battery Volt level by using arduino and there is nice graph of approx 24hour nonstop monitoring prntscr.com/9t5zd4 Y- Volts X-time in sec so there is approx 80 000 values and i update graph after LED stop shining. So I think remaining battery energy is correct
Just watching this makes me think I have thrown a whole lot of money away on batteries I thought were dead.
Well you spend more on recharging the batteries, so it's not free energy
@That Guy not everyone uses Rechargeable batteries.
@Charlie Fleming - thrown money away and not to mention the damage to Env... Such a clever design - Kudos to Jeff Bridges aka Steve of Electronics :)
Mukesh Pandya Well then they're silly.
(Also this isn't twitter)
+That Guy does electricity for one rechargable battery really cost more than a whole non-rechargable battery? I will google that up, but what are your sources?
+That Guy lol u made me #chuckle
what a good instructor you would make.
I remember the guy who taught me he was so droning on and on if you got lost and wanted to know some thing he would ignore you but i am enjoying a refresher corse
thanks
Great project i really do admire your dexterity thanks for posting
Don't know why you don't have more views, I enjoy your videos more than most that get 100s of views the second they are posted. As for parma violets! I'm sure they were a punishment to be given them as kids, disguised as sweets :p
Andrew Sparrow that, along with spangles, and if you were really bad, fishermans friends.
jusb1066 Sadly they don't still make the Old English Spangles. Otherwise I would be buying them.
jusb1066 I used to eat fishermans friends as regular sweets. I was weird like that. Wait, still am
The tag line "try sucking a fisherman's friend" will make you surprisingly popular with the fish bothering community, lol
how many leds can you run of a joule thief
It depends how bright you want them. They can be wired in parallel and series.
i wanted 8 leds in series would that work
Yes.
good looks like i'm getting my soldering iron out
Thanks for such a clear instruction and explanation! I finally understand how this works and how to build it.
Superb complete story! As a surgeon I admire you're dexterity too!😁
Dear Lord above NO, not violet candies. Truly truly... not a good thing. They make me feel like I'm eating perfume, and I can't imagine that's good...
So you're saying you started the "Joule Thief" name? You named it that alone and it took off from you?
+Keenan Smith I introduced it onto the Internet and gave it the catchy name. Then it just kinda took off unexpectedly.
+bigclivedotcom I see. Well it is a great name, so well done
+bigclivedotcom I really like The Vampire Micro-Torch name as well, but I will admit Joule Thief is a catchier name.
A good video. I've built several Joule Thief's. They're quite a useful circuit & I use something similar to light my main room at night at quite low input.. I modified a Tesco camping lantern to brightly illuminate 12 LED's from less than half a volt. The transient has been my main interest for the last few years... Love your videos... a good watch.
This is the best smallest circuit I've ever seen, that is quite ingenuous there Big Clive. Also yours is running (10) LED's where others who make theirs are only running just 1 LED. That's very impressive indeed.