How to make the joule thief circuit for power a CFL

Below is the circuit diagram for what worked for me. The trickiest part was getting the right windings on the ferrite
toroidal core. It's only around a 1 1/4" (3.5 cm) outer diameter toroid so it had to be very efficient while not having the
insulation on the coils breakdown from the high voltage.

Circuit diagram for Jeanna's light variation of joule thief circuit

The normal joule thief circuit has only two coils, but as you can see in the above circuit diagram, this one has three.
That third coil and the CFL are the only additions to the regular joule thief circuit. There's also one change and that's to
change the normal low power transistor for a power transistor.

Cutting open (or gutting) the Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL)

The only part of the CFL you need is the spiral fluorescent tube and the wires that are connected to it. Inside the base of
the CFL are a whole bunch of electronics parts which you can discard or reuse for something else. Sometimes you can
just pry it open using a sharp edge, like a knife, but usually I have to cut it open. I use hack saw for this, but most any
saw will do (see photos below.) Make many shallow cuts all around the circumference. Don't cut too deeply otherwise
you may cut the wires inside shorter than you'd like to. Just cut the case.

Cutting open CFL.

Make shallow cuts.

The electronic parts.

Back of circuit
board.

Once you've cut the case in two, pry it open as much as you can. Depending on where you made your cut, you'll either
see electronic parts like the third photo above, or the back of a circuit board like in the fourth photo.
You want to get at the area just behind the tube. There are two pairs of wires there and you want to cut those wires as
near to the circuit board as possible, leaving as long a length as possible still connected to the tube. In the first photo

below I'm using a knife to slice the wires and in the second photo it's much easier to get at them and just cut them with
scissors or wire cutters.

Cutting wires using a

knife.

Cutting with wire

cutters.

A gutted CFL...

... and another.

And the last two photos on the right above are examples of the end results, what are often referred to as gutted CFLs.

Winding the coils

The coils are wound on a toroid core. You'd think a ferrite core would be best but an iron powder core works quite well,
as in my case. Most of the cores you scavenge from old equipment are iron powder cores.
The first coil is the one with many, many turns. It's the red one in the above diagram. I fit around 256 turns. Keep each
winding next to each other with as little gap as possible and as few overlaps as possible. Use a small diameter, enamel
coated wire so you can fit as many turns as possible. I used 30 gauge (AWG) magnet wire. To make it easy to wind, first
wrap the wire around a stick of some sort, as shown in the photos below.

Toroid core and winding stick.

Lowering stick down...

... and out the bottom.

Stop winding when you have about 1/8" or a few millimeters gap between the first and current winding on the inside of
the toroid (see photos below.) This is because there will be a high voltage between these two ends and the enamel
insulation isn't enough to prevent voltage breakdown between them. Instead, solder on some wire with thicker
insulation. I used red 24 AWG plastic coated wire. Do this for both ends and continue winding both ends until they meet.
Wrap the end with tape to help with insulation and provide a flat winding surface for the next coil (see photo below.)

The gap between the two Soldering on wire with thicker Finished 1st coil, covered
ends.
insulation.
in tape.

Then, as shown in the first two photos below, wind 10 turns of a plastic insulated wire on top of the first coil. I used black
24 gauge (AWG) plastic coated wire. Start winding on one side of where the first coi888888888888888888888l ended
and end on the other side. Wind in the same or opposite direction as the first coil. It works either way.

Winding second coil.

Second coil done.

Third coil and done!

Lastly, as shown in last photo above, wind 5 turns of a plastic insulated wire on top of the second coil. I used blue 24
gauge (AWG) plastic coated wire. Again, start winding on one side of where the first coil ended and end on the other
side. Wind in the same direction as the second coil.
Wrap everything well with tape so nothing comes loose.

Assembling all the other parts

The first few steps involve attaching components to things before wiring them up.

Cutting a bottle to put

it all in.

Screwing
battery case
closed.

The two bottle parts.

Holes for
potentiometer and
switch.

Hot glued
transistor and
Taping coils to
potentiometer to other part of
battery case.
battery case.

Checking the fit.

Checking the fit.

The following photos show connecting both ends of the blue coil and one end of the black coil. Be careful which ends go
where. Doing this wrong is the most common mistake. Follow the diagram above closely.

Blue coil's ends are

soldered to the
Using nut and bolt to attach
Battery negative is
potentiometer and to the one end of the black coil to one
soldered to the
transistor's base pin.
of the transistor's case holes. transistor's emitter pin.

Next come the connections to the switch.

A red wire is soldered to the

potentiometer...

... then that red wire and

the remaining black coil's
wire are soldered to one
leg of the switch.

Battery positive is
soldered to the other
leg of the switch.

Next comes soldering the compact fluorescent light's (CFL's) wires to the red coil. There are two pairs of CFL wires.
One pair goes to one end of the red coil and the other pair goes to the other end of the red coil. The polarities don't
matter here; either end of the red coil goes to either pair. Note that on some CFLs I couldn't solder to the wires. Perhaps
I wasn't using enough heat, though I was using a 150 watt soldering gun. Just be aware that you may have to connect
some other way.

... and then

Soldering one end
soldering the other
of the red coil to
end of the red coil
two wires of the
to the other two
CFL...
CFL wires.

Everything connected together.

Some photos of the joule thief powered CFL in use

Finished!

In a soda can.

Reading by its light.

Giving light outdoors.