LED Grow Light using Joule Thief Battery Power in a Wick Gardening Container for CHEAP!

Step 2 Assembling the Joule Thief Circuit

So robomaniac does an EXCELLENT job of describing the joule thief circuit. I don't want to steal his thunder so I will suggest you look at his instructable for more detailed instructions, especially since I don't know how to make a real wiring diagram...
http://www.instructables.com/id/Table_top_energy_seed/

Since, I don't know how to do a real wiring diagram this one will have to do. I apologize for all the crossing wires, but it should give you the common person's idea of how it is set up. The wiring colors probably look like I'm hooking up a car stereo with all the purples, blues and yellows but I was just trying to keep people from getting confused when the wires are crossed. The colors are not important, just so you can distinguish between the wires.

Basically we will expand this to have 5 Blue LEDs in one joule thief circuit and 25 Red LEDs in another joule thief circuit. All I can say is make sure your Emitter (E) leg of the transistor goes to the (-) of your battery and LED, the Cathode (C) leg goes to the (+) of your battery (through the ferrite core) and LED, and the Base (B) leg goes to the (+) of the battery (through the ferrite core). Also when looking at the transistor the lettering goes E B C from left to right when you are looking at the side that has the writing on it (so the side that says "2N3904" is the side that has E B C from left to right). Practice with one LED first to make sure it works!

Ultimately, I made two of these circuits for my design

Comments

[acmefixer]

The transistor acts like a switch, and turns the current on and off rapidly, which creates spikes of voltage across the coil. The spikes are higher than the 1.5 volts, high enough to cause the LED to conduct current and to put out a pulse of light with every spike. The spikes are much too fast for the eye to see, so the light looks like it is continuous. I recommend using a better transistor than the 2N3904, preferably the 2N4401, MPS2222, or BC337, which gives the highest LED brightness. You can buy these parts on Ebay.

[andybuda]

dose the uses of a transister make the led any brighter....
or isit just to regulate