Joule Thief. For those of you who don t know the joule thief is a tiny little circuit that allows you to drive a white or blue led from voltages as low as 0 5 volts. A joule thief is a minimalist self oscillating voltage booster that is small low cost and easy to build typically used for driving small loads.
Step by step run through of how a joule thief circuit works. Don t throw them out yet. Includes how all the parts the 1 5 volt aa battery the resistor the transistor and the ferrit.
A battery is often considered dead when it can t power a particular device.
A joule thief circuit is basically an efficient self oscillating voltage booster circuit built using a single transistor resistor and an inductor which can boost voltages as low as 0 4 v from any dead aaa 1 5 cell to much higher levels. For those of you who don t know the joule thief is a tiny little circuit that allows you to drive a white or blue led from voltages as low as 0 5 volts. Don t throw them out yet. A joule thief circuit is basically an efficient self oscillating voltage booster circuit built using a single transistor resistor and an inductor which can boost voltages as low as 0 4 v from any dead aaa 1 5 cell to much higher levels.