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Author Topic: Battery Free LED Flashlight Driver - SJR Looper V4  (Read 46983 times)
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Hey Slider
I can't help but think of Doc Stiffler's earlier SEC units with the ferrite rod sliding inside the small coil.  It seems to me that tuning was an important part of his device's ability to "cohere" energy from the ambient domain.  I suspect that your own coils positions relative to one another will have a tuning effect on the circuit in a similar way.  The other item, of course (which you have amply demonstrated) is the role of a ground of some kind.
Enjoying your posts.
Bob
   
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Thanks Bob, yes indeed there's a lot to look at, regarding the operation of such circuits and for understandings of what happens in this one. The couplings are great to explore. With the version where 2 coils were stuck end to end, the distance between them decides the intensity of the LEDs and run time of the circuit.

Some unexpected runnings feature all over the place with the SJR L 4. Which, I might say, definitely includes the next oddity !
I wound a 150:400 of 40AWG on a small ferrite core. It didn't seem to work, would just show a really bright light and then switch off....
But it hadn't. A few seconds later, the extinguished LEDs came back on and ran onward at a low intensity for a couple of minutes !
With having added a 1meg resistor in parallel with the usual small non electrolytic capacitor, I presumed it was that and I do say as much in the short video below. However, on removing the resistor, it still does it !
Changing the capacitor value slows or speeds up the frequency of the circuit, but also changes the off time of the LEDs before they come on again.
All very odd.
I then tested it with an AM radio to pick up the oscillations and sure enough it trundles along fine when the LEDs are off, yet somewhere along the line manages to relight the LEDs.
Have decided to term it The Phoenix variant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwl-1akY6dc


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Hi Slider
Pretty cool stuff happening with the circuit. Here's what I think may be happening:
After you power it up with the battery, the circuit starts to oscillate at a relatively high frequency (relative to where it is when LEDs are lit).
The frequency slows down to an optimal "tuned" point of resonance where the circuit as a whole begins to interact favourably with the ambient domain.
As long as the frequency stays in this optimally tuned zone, it will bring in ambient energy to produce light in the LEDs.
BUT... the resistor is a key factor in facilitating this process. 
When dealing with ambient energy or negative electricity, resistors actually become a kind of hyper conductor for ambient charge.
Without a sizeable resistor, this process may not happen.
It all seems counter to the prevailing paradigm/understanding of electricity in the hot domain.
Have fun!
Bob
   
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Um..... ok.....      ???

Some months ago I did some slight modifications to an earlier LaserSaber version of this circuit and found some very interesting behaviours with that as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjgemF5zpeE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHI7LnVWBlY

   
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@TK - you get points from here for using a C3198
Once upon a time, I drew up a whole list/chart of transistors for Slayer exciter use and the C3198 was beating MPSA06, 2N2222A and other regularly used types. Other good ones commonly not considered were C1815 'GR' and S9014 'D'.

@Bob - Well, I dunno about the operation in quite such a way, as it does do the same without the resistor and that was very surprising. The theory at the moment, is that there is a duty cycle component (to be verified with the scope). The oscillations are switching off too fast for the LEDs to register as a glow to the eye. As the duty cycle changes, with the cap lowering in voltage, we see the LEDs come on. 


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I just updated the V4 schematic.  The previous one had the winding ratio flipped.



I also added this video showing how to wind the SJR coil: https://youtu.be/l5oh4y83mZU?t=5m29s

What do you all think of CoolJoule's latest video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjTyg-CGaxU

I think that maybe he thinks that the diode has to be there and that it has to be leaky.  It is my experience that the diode and capacitor can be removed completely.   Here is the schematic that I see as illustrating the heart of the SJR L circuit: http://laserhacker.com/?p=406   Anyway I really enjoyed seeing the thought he but into helping other folks get the circuit going.  His explanation of the circuit reminded of Lidmotor's claim that this is essentially a tank circuit.

@Slider
I am really enjoying your videos showing the many oddities with this circuit.  Please keep sharing.

@Bob Smith
Personally I have never thought of a resistor as a good thing in a circuit like this.  Of course I could be wrong but my working presupposition for years has been to avoid them at all cost.  I have actually found that the capacitor and diode are not always necessary.  I often have to add them after removing the clip leads and miniaturisation of the circuit.  This tells me that I can I can probably build the needed capacitance into the coil itself.  Copper foils perhaps?

@TK
Those videos showing the low voltage with the third coil effect are really cool.  I just rewatched them and gave them thumbs up because the videos were great and I notice that they had a really high ratio of thumbs down for some reason.  Check you e-mail when you get a chance, I am curious about the voltage on the cap.

Have a great rest of the weekend everybody.

-LS
   

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Today I tested a new pot core.  It works better than any of the other ones I have tested.  Here is a link to a picture of it: https://www.surplussales.com/Images/Inductors/Ferrite/PotCores/ich-2616-77.jpg

Model: (ICH) 2616-77  https://www.surplussales.com/Inductors/FerPotC/FerPotC-1.html

It's performance is much better than my previous cores.  It is a very different looking material.  It has a super smooth mirror looking finish where the two halves meet.  It performed about the same as others with a current draw of around 2-5uA until I clamped the two halves together with a plastic clamp.  As the pressure increased the current draw fell to less than my meter can register.  In blink mode it runs on less than .1uA in fact my best digital meter just sets on 000.0uA.  I now need to find a much better meter so that I can see improvements.  In solid lit mode it runs for a much longer time on one of those small 200v caps than my previous build did on two of them.  So some more good progress has been made.
   
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That's very cool to hear about.
I did notice something related to your observations about the pot core halves. The ones I have here are from last year, the larger type that you showed in your last video. When one side is removed, a coil doesn't run anything like as well as when both halves are tightly secured together. I thought that was quite strange, being that the mass of ferrite was 'merely' halved.

Am looking forward to a new vid !


Over here, i've been testing a related circuit, from Bill P. It's resistor and inductor based, mostly resistor effects that are very standard and can catch us out. But, on a test this evening, his circuit does extend the light output duration compared to an equivalent simple resistor value. It's all about the same for output where it matters for reading etc, but does carry on longer by many minutes on the 8200uF testing cap. As I say, it's slight. On his 10x larger 82000uF cap, the LEDs emitted light for 48hrs.
Quite surprising, extra passive components ought to lessen the run time.
Here's his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqolbtK-CgA
Circuit schematic at 4:49


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That's very cool to hear about.
I did notice something related to your observations about the pot core halves. The ones I have here are from last year, the larger type that you showed in your last video. When one side is removed, a coil doesn't run anything like as well as when both halves are tightly secured together. I thought that was quite strange, being that the mass of ferrite was 'merely' halved.
Slider,

It' not just the mass of the ferrite that determines the inductance, but also the geometry and in particular whether the ferrite creates a closed magnetic path through the coil and back around the outside.  If it doesn't do that and the magnetic field lines travel through air then the inductance is more determined by that air path.  Your half core inductor will have tiny inductance compared to your full pot cored inductor.

Smudge
   
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@smudge
I would agree and it depends on how we perceive the the objects or materials we work with. I tend to start at the molecular level considering the nature of the materials, geometry and fields present from experience. Others tend to consider them as bulk objects having lumped properties. A split core is a good example because even a smooth polished mating surface looks like mountains under a microscope having a large boundary condition between the two surfaces. In fact using magnetic viewing film a person can see a white line where field leakage occurs which is not the case with a solid material. Thus it is seldom a case of one or the other but the degree of interaction across a boundary condition.

Most people do not even notice these little things until they push the limits as in lasersaber's case at which point they may become an issue. As they say the devil is in the details and it may not be apparent to many others but people like Tesla and Moray were masters of this craft. It is said it took Moray 30 years to perfect his device to the point it would function as he wanted. As such this was most definitely not something Moray just slapped together in an ad hock fashion but a well thought out machine having distinct functions and properties not apparent to the layman.

AC


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Comprehend and Copy Nature... Viktor Schauberger

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”― Richard P. Feynman
   
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Although wired as a closed system, does the split core more effectively make this circuit an open system?
Bob
   

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@smudge
I would agree and it depends on how we perceive the the objects or materials we work with. I tend to start at the molecular level considering the nature of the materials, geometry and fields present from experience. Others tend to consider them as bulk objects having lumped properties. A split core is a good example because even a smooth polished mating surface looks like mountains under a microscope having a large boundary condition between the two surfaces. In fact using magnetic viewing film a person can see a white line where field leakage occurs which is not the case with a solid material. Thus it is seldom a case of one or the other but the degree of interaction across a boundary condition.

Correct, mated surfaces however smooth still have an effective air gap.  That is why measurements of ferromagnetic materials are carried out on ring cores, not mated C cores or pot cores.  The effective air gap in the pot core experiment has gone from cm down to um so an enormous change of inductance.  An even larger change would take place if the mating surfaces could coalesce, which of course they can't.

Smudge
   
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@Smudge
Quote
The effective air gap in the pot core experiment has gone from cm down to um so an enormous change of inductance.  An even larger change would take place if the mating surfaces could coalesce, which of course they can't.

That may not be exactly true and again we are speaking of degrees, properties and conditions. If the surfaces were perfectly clean and true and all impurities removed under a strong vacuum then the surfaces may cold weld or fuse. Which in itself raises certain questions, if the boundary condition was near perfect under a very high voltage high frequency alternating current know to exclude common gasses through mutual repulsion then...who knows. There are many ways to skin a cat.

AC


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Comprehend and Copy Nature... Viktor Schauberger

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”― Richard P. Feynman
   
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Thanks Smudge and AC for the insights.
It was just a little surprising to see the huge difference when the ferrite piece was removed. Layman logic saying that half of it was still there. In experiments last year, it was noticed how the pressure on the securing nut and bolt made a difference, but hadn't personally been investigated further.
No doubt the mirror finish on these new cores of LS's are making useful and beneficial changes to performance.
Makes me wonder about fine sanding these that I have here. Similar to car body finishing with the wet and dry fine sandpaper. 
It might start a trend  :D


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What could be interesting is to put compressible material in the gap and then you can get some magneto-mechanical effects.  It is possible that the Bearden MEG uses this effect.  The C cores there are not held tightly closed because it is impossible to use the banding straps normally used on C cores.  Also the magnet induces like poles on the two mating faces so they move apart until restrained by the flimsy strap used.  The AC drive then causes the gap to oscillate so you get parametric amplification.  This is enhanced at the natural mechanical resonant frequency of the C cores.

Smudge
   
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I see, thanks again.
Makes me wonder about piezo effects within that gap.
If a simple greeting card type of disk was placed between and pressure applied, the minute perturbations while 'singing' could be returned to the driving capacitor. It would be an external power source, in keeping with the needs of the circuit. What's needed is a comparatively high voltage (compared to that of an LED) and very little current, for which such a disk seems ideal.

What may be actually a less than perfect arrangement for efficient running of the system, may generate the optimum from the piezo element. That would tie in with LS's observations regarding other setups of his testing.


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Buy me some coffee
Just thought i would post this here,as we are dealing with LED circuit's.
Anyway,it just popped up on my youtube channel as a recomended watch. This was soooome time ago,and it took me a while to remember actually doing this experiment lol. I cant find a video of mine on it,but here is one that TK did.

Although we can work out what is going on here,i am going to throw this circuit back together now i have my SG and digital scope,and can have a good look over the power flowing in. O0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvf9Uo7UVx0


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Never let your schooling get in the way of your education.
   
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I liked the zero uA and 'turn it down to a dull roar'.
Had already watched it, there was a blue hand for me thumbing it up years ago. not that the significance was known then. Am certainly intrigued by the pancake coil inclusion and do vaguely remember something of yours being replicated that used one.

Will be building this one.
Those LEDs were ridiculously bright  >:-)


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Buy me some coffee
Well i have built the circuit,but i cant find my pancake coil anywhere. I think it must have got lost in the shift?.
I can get it to work with a normal inductor,but only by conecting and disconecting the inductor to get the current to go negative. I cant get it to do it by adjusting the voltage like TK showed,but im sure i did all those years ago with the pancake coil ???

Oh well,might have to make another pancake coil-->had nothing else planed for the night anyway lol. O0


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@ TinMan

Thanks for sharing TK's video.  I do not remember ever seeing that one.  I wish I could see your original video that inspired this.  If you come across that, please share.  I must say, that while interesting and probably useful for tuning, I do not trust using multimeters inline with the function generator.  I have driven halogen bulbs on joule ringer type circuits and had my power supply say that it was supplying 0mA just because the high frequency feeds back and messes with the meters accuracy.  Watching this video makes me really want to get ahold of a decent function generator.  I guess that I will start watching eBay for one.

A quick SJR L update.

I have had very little time to experiment lately.  Here is a private video that I will delete and replace shortly with a better one showing an LED board that I made that lets me adjust the amount of LEDs in the circuit.  https://youtu.be/MVHzuxO-Ecs
TK, can you confirm the value on one of those little 220V caps? I am thinking that they are 220V at under 1uF.  Your circuit has two of them in parallel.  I am just using one on my current build.  I had to order more of the 2616-77 pot cores.  I dropped the one that I had and it cracked.  The circuit never ran at 0uA after that.  After getting the new pot cores I tried putting the bobbin in the new core and it still would not perform at the old level.  I then started troubleshooting and discovered that the magnet wire I used had old flaking enamel and must have shorted itself, who knows where, inside the coil after I dropped it.  I hope that I can get back to that performance level.
   

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Buy me some coffee
@ TinMan

Thanks for sharing TK's video.  I do not remember ever seeing that one.  I wish I could see your original video that inspired this.  If you come across that, please share.  I must say, that while interesting and probably useful for tuning, I do not trust using multimeters inline with the function generator.  I have driven halogen bulbs on joule ringer type circuits and had my power supply say that it was supplying 0mA just because the high frequency feeds back and messes with the meters accuracy.  Watching this video makes me really want to get ahold of a decent function generator.  I guess that I will start watching eBay for one.


Well i havnt found that one yet,but i did find m build of your SJR 2 ,and this one kept running with the secondary coil disconected ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E9f2eEN7l8


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The bank of LEDs reminded me of Slayer Exciter experiments, where we've hung such an array from the towers.
In fact, have just found one 30 LED bank and will try it on some kind of SJRL4 variant.

Here's a question, what happens in the present set up with a 1W LED ?
What i'm wondering about, is an LED driver circuit of immense efficiency compared to commercial offerings.
Over winter, I ran an LED lighting system for plant growth and there were half a dozen 1W whites in with reds and blues. The whites were running at 70% or similar brightness to the eye, gave a pleasing natural light to check on leaf condition etc and the whole thing was powered by USB of 5V 500mA. Far less input than many would think possible (probably those who sell fancy LED systems).  A simple couple of resistors were all that were used, to balance things out.
An efficient lighting circuit, based on the SJRL circuit, could be a boon for energy efficient indoor plant growing :)
« Last Edit: 2015-05-28, 16:49:07 by Slider2732 »


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@ TinMan

Thanks for sharing TK's video.  I do not remember ever seeing that one.  I wish I could see your original video that inspired this.  If you come across that, please share.  I must say, that while interesting and probably useful for tuning, I do not trust using multimeters inline with the function generator.  I have driven halogen bulbs on joule ringer type circuits and had my power supply say that it was supplying 0mA just because the high frequency feeds back and messes with the meters accuracy.  Watching this video makes me really want to get ahold of a decent function generator.  I guess that I will start watching eBay for one.

A quick SJR L update.

I have had very little time to experiment lately.  Here is a private video that I will delete and replace shortly with a better one showing an LED board that I made that lets me adjust the amount of LEDs in the circuit.  https://youtu.be/MVHzuxO-Ecs
TK, can you confirm the value on one of those little 220V caps? I am thinking that they are 220V at under 1uF.  Your circuit has two of them in parallel.  I am just using one on my current build.  I had to order more of the 2616-77 pot cores.  I dropped the one that I had and it cracked.  The circuit never ran at 0uA after that.  After getting the new pot cores I tried putting the bobbin in the new core and it still would not perform at the old level.  I then started troubleshooting and discovered that the magnet wire I used had old flaking enamel and must have shorted itself, who knows where, inside the coil after I dropped it.  I hope that I can get back to that performance level.


Oh...let's see. You sent two that are loose, too. They are marked X7R 200V on one side, and RMC .56K on the other side. My capacitance meter reads them at 545 nF, or 0.55 uF.
   

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Thanks TK.  I was not sure what the .56K meant.  So at 9V I am running on will under 1uF.  I wonder why it runs longer on those little capacitors than it does on others marked at lower voltage and higher capacitance.  It sounds like l need to get a capacitance meter.  All my digital meters have blown fuses at the moment.

@TinMan
I will watch that video later tonight when I have access to my computer.  It sounds very interesting.

@Slider
I have thought a lot about this.  There are reasons that I think it is a much better choice over DC in certain aplications.  I will share more later when I have more time.
« Last Edit: 2015-05-28, 17:28:03 by LaserSaber »
   
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@LaserSaber - most certainly pulsed is better, for energy costs :)
Have mentioned a short while back about not seeing resonance figures for different LEDs..as in, i'd think a specific manufacturers LED would perform best at a particular frequency. We could then build and tune to the LED itself. Tinsels TinMan circuit put out an astounding amount of light from what seem to be regular superbright whites, for example. 

Oh, just a bit of fun and perhaps a thinking point. This whole Laser lightsaber thing....I wonder if there is a way to fold the light around and around after it hits a reflector point some way from the handle. It would need to be something akin to a resonant field frequency virtual plate, something unseen by the eye but acting as a mirror, or at least a limiter. Can anything non physical soak/stop a beam of light, would be one question. Perhaps a pulse train of a frequency, where the 1/4 wave point decides the interference point.
With even a DVD laser used in the device, the aim would be a 4ft or so beam of light, with at least balloon popping power. Limit the beam length with the reflector section and it would be a true Lightsaber. If the circuit to project the virtual plate was HV based, then it would likely ionize the air when moved and therefore give the correct sound. The middle of the beam (between handle and plate) would cut, because the reflector would deaden end point energy and therefore a slashing action would work better than a jab. Finally, if the frequency generator energized the air while the reflected laser built up power, then the beam would appear to quickly grow on switch on. Points which could be deemed correct for a real device.
'All' that needs to be done to realise the concept, is to limit the beam length of a laser at a position in the air.
 :D


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