Electronic Circuits and Projects Forum

Make magazine just had a link/article/video for a weekend project that really simplified it to point of being fool-proof. I made 4 Sunday. Really only takes about 15 minutes. There is a site that sells a kit, but for $10...

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/joulethief
This link show you how simple the coil is to make, has the schematic, and parts list.

Pretty much any ferrite toroid will work, bell wire, phone wire, cat5, enamel will work. Most any NPN general purpose transistor 2n3904, 2n2222, or similar.

PM Krumlink, he'll walk you through it. He made an Instructable on how to stuff it in a TicTac box. Search this forum, you should find his link from last week. Might not be to late to vote for his impressive accomplishment ...

can you give me the parts list
and a better schematic

http://www.joulethief.com/kit.php

i mean this

can you give me the parts list
and a better schematic

What, exactly, would a "better" schematic look like?

Originally Posted by firdaus93

http://www.joulethief.com/kit.php

i mean this

I can't imagine what more you need, except for somebody to give you the parts, and maybe assemble it for you...

This one is the simplest, and requires almost no parts to purchase, just what you can't scrounge up.

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/joulethief

Even if you do buy the parts, it would be less expensive, even with shipping, to build then the kit. The instruction were written for small children in mind, use google.translate, if you have trouble reading the text. There are about 20 pictures the illustrate everything from how to wrap 7-10 turns of wire around a ferrite toroid bead, to which lead on the transistor is which (LED too). They give information on where you can salvage the parts. It's only 3 simple, common parts, and a simple to wind coil of wire. You don't even have to do it neatly. The only thing they should have added was a quick soldering guide, and a few pictures of which end of the soldering iron is safe to hold...

Originally Posted by mneary

What, exactly, would a "better" schematic look like?

Well, there are several things that would make any schematic much better. For instance if it had the winning numbers for next week's lotto. Or photos of Sandra Bullock naked. You get the idea.