tomogchi's entry for the 11th annual old lumens contest - hand made category

[Tomogchi]

Thanks for hosting the contest again!!

This year, i have a brief idea of what id like to do but not the foggiest idea of how the idea works in reality.

So far (likely to change, but for now) i have some 23 and 30 gauge magnet wire, a few ferite beads?(maybe wrong word?) selection of transistors, assortment of leds, and a hope and a dream (but little understanding of HOW).

Ever notice when you remove a ‘dead’ aa battery from a device, its not 0.0volts, but approx .9volts( in my experience). Thats not dead - just below the threshold for said device. if only there was a way to deplete a not-so-dead cell (lets ignore the whole alkaleak situation here, im thinking apocolypse situation.

I’ve seen this done years ago (via big clive) but would like to make myself a vampire light. We all have 4,8,even15,000+ lumen lights now… shit my 4500lumen s2+ is still kicking almost 5 years later… BUT i dont have a single light that will suck a cell down to or close to 0v. Ever notice when you remove a dead’ aa battery from a device, its not 0.0volts, more like (approx) .9volts in my experience. Thats not dead - just below the threshold for said device. A great example: my tv remote is so finicky, it thinks the aa cells are dead at 1.3v.
I have a sofirn c01, which is realllllly close to what i want to make. BBBUUUUUTTTTTTT notice its ‘dead’ at .6v. I have watched big clive draining cells down to .3v and able to make his turn on at voltages over .6volts. my sofirn c01 will NOT turn back on under .8volts, but will drain down to .6v if left on. Sure, the light difference between .6 and .3v is almost nothing, but in pure darkness, you dont really need more then a couple lumens. couple lumens could be the difference between life and death (okay probably not but my point remains!)

tl;dr: crude flashlight/joule thief. maybe more if it works?

[Tomogchi]

Almost didnt think this would come to fruition but this project turned out rather interesting. I have assembled 5 joule theif circuits, labeled 1 through 5. Each containing different windings of 23 or 30 gauge wire and varying amounts of ferite but each one using an 1000 ohm resistor and the same 2n2222 transistor. I had/have NO idea what im doing here but i absolutely nailed my original idea of sucking a cell down below .6 volts (co1s cutoff in my experience). remember, im an idiot and know nothing. monkey see, monkey do. monkey wait for light to go off. monkey record, maybe monkey learn something.
(irony) I failed to record which number this was, but one ferite bead wound

#1) number 1 has 1 ferite bead with approx 20’ of 23 guage wire. it lasted 6.5 days and had a final voltage of .424v.

#2) number 2 has 3 ferite beads stacked on each other, with approx 20’ of 30 guage wire. it lasted 6 days, and had a final voltage of 1.011v (from 1.607v) (boooooo) after2 days It turned itself back on for a day, and wrote the numbers down but didnt count it. when its out, its out.

#3) number 3 has the most wire i could physically fit in the bead. took me 3 attempts because i kept scratching enamel and shorting the coil. approx 20’ of 30 guage wire. It lasted 9 whole days, with a final voltage of .336v (WOW). (1.611 start)

#4) number 4 has 10’ of 30 gauge wire on 1 ferite bead, and almost lasted as long as #3. it made it 8 days with a final voltage of .330v (again, wow!) (1.612 start)

#5) man, number 5 is cool. its proof that this crude boost circuit will power even a 36v led off an alkaleak. 8’ of 30 gauge wire on a single ferite bead. It lasted a whopping 3.5 days, with a final voltage of .583v (1.610 start). man i really wanted to do something with this guy, build a few more variants and see how long i could get THIS to run for, or how BRIGHT could i make it… but too much going on atm. we aint done with #5 though, just for this project.

I have at my disposal, a broken usb power bank. its close enough to the size that i will raid its shell and house my monstrosity #3.

Man, if you think this looks bad, imagine being in my head for any length of time. The ? and ?? you see is when i thought the alkaleaks were about to give out. Looking back, i cant believe that its taken me a month just to find time to post. But we made it!

9 days of light off of a single aa. 9 days - 216 hours. absolutely astonishing. Number 3 is a perfect bug out light. not a blinding wall of light by any means, but honestly not much worse then the cellphones flashlight. I can see whats immediately infront of me, and not worry about destroying night vision. It may not be pretty, but damn if it doesnt do exactly what i wanted it too!!

[MtnDon (Don Miller)]

Those joule thief circuits are cool. Good job!