![]() You could have switches that control frequency up and down and duty-cycle up and down so that you could adjust your frequency and duty cycle of your timing source "live" while the microcontroller runs. ![]() You could write a simple program that reads some of the I/O bits that are configured as inputs. This gives you the ability to have software control over the timing signal generated by the hardware that is built into the microcontroller. All microcontrollers have built-in hardware timer registers that can control the frequency and duty cycle of a square wave on an output pin. The more intelligent timing source could be a microcontroller. Therefore the solution is to switch over to a more intelligent timing source and get rid of the Joule Thief circuit altogether. The timing source comes from the trigger (a.k.a. You pay a price in power consumption and have limited control over the timing source when you make a standard Joule Thief circuit. The pulsing inductor discharges it's energy into a load, typically an LED.Ī timing source controls the switching of the Joule Thief. ![]() ![]() When you reduce it to its basic form, a Joule Thief is a pulsing inductor that gets its energy from a voltage source, typically a battery. The end of the inductor that connects to the switch also connects to a diode to collect the energy spikes and pump them into a load or into a capacitor. The answer is to abandon the whole Joule thief concept and do it with a microcontroller or a pair of CMOS 555 timer chips.Ī Joule thief is nothing more than an inductor connected to your voltage source on one side, and an opening and closing switch that connects to ground on the other side. So what is the ultimate Joule Thief? How can you really get more efficiency? ![]()
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