linuxlove
Veteran Member
what kind of transistor will work to make a joule thief? i have a lot of transistors on old boards, but i don't know what type of transistor will work.
hmm. so any transistor in the 2N series should work? i'll have to look out for those types. as for the wire, i might have run across some of that type, but it got recycled cause i didn't know about joule thiefs then.
there is no capacitor. just the ferrite, transistor, resistor and LED.
if i had the pins wrong, wouldn't the transistor get hot when voltage was applied?Hi
I looked at the circuit on the web. I thought I'd
list a few of the possible problems:
1. Transistor pins not connected right ( base emitter and collector are in
different orientations for different transistors ).
That may be why it isn't working. however, i am no electronics engineer and can't figure out waht anything is on an electrics diagram like that.2. Transformer winding not in correct phase ( it makes a difference which
wires are tied together. The dots in the diagram have specific meaning ).
maybe. i have a bunch of other size resitors here i can use; i was just using a 1K resistor.3. The resistor may be to small or too large a value for the particular
transistor you are using.
nope, i've tried the LED both ways and it still didn't come on.4. The LED has its leads reversed ( the long lead should go to the negative
of the cell ).
Dwight--the capacitor I was talking about was a small one between the base of the transistor and ground to improve stability of the otherwise untuned oscillator, not for charge storage.
See: the discussion here.