LED TORCH

CIRCUITS
also called Joule Thief

This project illuminates a white LED and

explains how a transformer works . . .

Page 1

Conventional torches come in all shapes and sizes.

From a single AAA cell to 4, 5 and 6 "D" cells, as well as
"lantern" and "fisherman's."
This project uses a white LED to produce illumination
equal to a small torch.

White LEDs have different "characteristic voltages." A 1,000mcd

white LED used in this project had a characteristic voltage of 3.5v
and a 3,000mcd white LED had a characteristic voltage of 3.2v.
Both LEDs were driven at 20mA and the 3candala LED produced a
brighter, whiter light while the 1candella LED had a yellowish ring
around the edge of the illumination.

A LED torch is one of the simplest projects you can build and it's very interesting as it uses a
super-bright white LED.
In the history of LED production, red LEDs were the first to be invented and their output was so
dim you could barely see if they were illuminated. You needed a darkened room to see them at
all.
Then came green, yellow and orange LEDs.
As time went by, the brightness improved and it came to a point where the output would shine
into the surrounding air. These were called Super-bright LEDs.
Then came the blue LED. At first it was dull, but gradually the output increased to a dazzling
glare.
With the combination of red, green and blue, manufacturers had the potential of producing a
white LED.
This was the dream of all LED manufacturers.
Since the illumination produced by a LED comes from a crystal, it is not possible to produce
white light from a single crystal or "chip." The only way was to combine red, green and blue. As
soon as the output of blue came up to the quality of the other colours, a white LED was a
marketable product.
The more-recent way to produce while light is to illuminate a blue LED and surround it with a
yellow phosphor coating. The yellow and blue combine to make white light. This is called
additive mixing of colours.
White LEDs are now with us and their output makes them a viable alternative to the globe.
There is an enormous array of LED torches on the market, from $2.00 "give-aways" to $200
"rip-offs."
Although a LED torch is passable for illuminating an area, it certainly does not have the
illuminating capability of a $10 lantern, using a 6v battery.
A LED torch is more of a "fun-thing" to see how far LEDs have come in the past few years and
see what can be done with a single cell and an handful of components.
When we first decided to produce a LED torch project, we wanted to fit the circuit into a 2-cell
torch but a white LED requires about 3.4v to operate, and two cells produce only 3v. So we had
to think of a number of ways around the problem. That's why we have produced a number of
circuits.
As you know, a LED will not operate on a voltage below its characteristic voltage. It simply will
not operate AT ALL.
This characteristic voltage depends on the type of LED and is about 1.7v for a normal red LED,
while a super-bright LED is about 3.1v - 4v.
The exact characteristic voltage varies with the colour, the intensity of the LED, the current
flowing and the way it is manufactured. This feature cannot be altered after it is manufactured
and the EXACT voltage must be delivered, otherwise the LED will be not work or if the voltage
is higher, it will be destroyed. This is the cold, hard fact. The supply voltage must exactly match
the characteristic voltage.
This sounds a difficult thing to do, but a simple solution is to add a resistor in series and the
voltage across the LED will sit at the exact value required by the LED, while the extra voltage
will appear across the resistor. According to Ohm's Law, a current will flow though the resistor
and this will also flow though the LED. This applies when the circuit is supplied with a DC
voltage.
All we have to do is create a voltage higher than 3.4v and we can drive one of the latest
SUPER-HIGH-BRIGHT white LEDs with a single cell, using a step-up-voltage circuit.
This will produce a series of pulses to the LED and the brightness will be slightly higher than if a
steady DC voltage is applied. These are the things we will be covering in this project.

This project explains the operation of a "transformer" in flyback

mode. A transformer is one of the most complex items in
electronics. Even a simple hand-made "transformer" requires a lot
of understanding to see how it works. This project will demystify
some of the features.

JOULE THIEF
The web is filled with circuits similar to "CIRCUIT A" below.
Here are 3 circuits:
Although they work, the performance and efficiency can be increased an amazing 300% by
simply adding a capacitor.
We will look at the Joule Thief circuit and show the improved design.

CIRCUIT A
The first circuit in this discussion is the simplest design.
It consists of a transistor, resistor and transformer, with almost any type of LED. The circuit will
drive a red LED, HIGH BRIGHT LED, or white LED.
The circuit produces high voltage pulses of about 40v p-p at a frequency of 200kHz.
Normally you cannot supply a LED with a voltage higher than its characteristic voltage, but if
the pulses are very short, the LED will absorb the energy and convert it to light. This is the case
with this circuit. The characteristic voltage of the LED we used was very nearly 4v and this
means the voltage across it for a very short period of time was 4v. The details of the
transformer are shown in the photo. The core was a 2.6mm diameter "slug" 6mm long and the
wire was 0.95mm diam. In fact any core could be used and the diameter of the wire is not
important. The number of turns are not important however if the secondary winding does not
have enough turns, the circuit will not start-up.
HOW THE CIRCUIT WORKS
The transformer is configured as a BLOCKING OSCILLATOR and the cycle starts by the
transistor turning on via the 2k7 base resistor.
This causes current to flow in the 60-turn main winding. The other winding is called the
feedback winding and is connected so that it produces a voltage to turn the transistor on MORE
during this part of the cycle.
This winding should really be called a "feed-forward" winding as the signal it supplies to the
transistor is a positive signal to increase the operation of the circuit. This is discussed in more
detail in Circuit Tricks.
This voltage allows a higher current to flow in the transistor and it keeps turning on until it is
saturated.
At this point the magnetic flux produced by the main winding is a maximum but it is not
expanding flux and thus it ceases to produce a voltage in the feedback winding. This causes
less current to flow into the base of the transistor and the transistor turns off slightly.
The flux produced by the main winding is now called collapsing flux and it produces a voltage in
the feedback winding of opposite polarity. This causes the transistor to turn off and this action
occurs until it is completely off.
The magnetic flux continues to collapse and cuts the turns of the main winding to produce a
very high voltage of opposite polarity.
However this voltage is prevented from rising to a high value by the presence of the LED and
thus the energy produced by the collapsing magnetic flux is converted to light by the LED.
The circuit operates at approx 200kHz, depending on the value of the base resistor and
physical dimensions of the transformer.
The circuit draws 85mA from the 1.5v cell and the brightness of the LED was equivalent to it
being powered from a DC supply delivering 10 - 15mA.

Before we go any further, there are a number of interesting circuits on the web.
The following two circuits need explaining. The first circuit is identical to our "Circuit A" except
the design engineer did not do his homework. He only added 8 turns to the 100uH inductor and
found the circuit did not start-up. His solution was to add another transistor and tie the base to
the collector. What a waste of a transistor!
The second circuit is a very inefficient design. The second transistor is being turned on via a 1k
resistor on the collector of the first transistor and when this "turn-on" current is not required, it is
being shunted to "deck."
Our circuit uses the "oomph" of the secondary winding to saturate the transistor and this
produces the highest efficiency.
Here is a circuit from one of the major chip manufacturers:

Apart from the circuit being enormously complex and expensive, 62mA is too high for many
white LEDs. The maximum current must be kept to 20 - 25mA.

The first "poor design" got me thinking. Maybe the signal at the transformer end of the 220R
needs to be stabilised to improve the performance of the circuit. I tried a transistor and it did not
work.
But I actually thought of placing a small capacitor at the join and taking the other end to the 0v
rail. This will allow rail voltage to enter the feedback winding of the transformer but prevent the
signal generated by the winding being lost through the 2k7 resistor.
The following circuit is the result:
The brightness of the LED did not alter but the current changed from 85mA to 28mA.
The circuit instantly became 300% more efficient.
I could not believe it.
When I put the CRO across the LED, I realised why. The frequency of the circuit changed from
200kHz to 500kHz. The LED was getting more than twice the number of pulses per second.
That's why you cannot trust anything or anyone. This improvement has never been presented
in any circuit on the web. Obviously no-one has done any experimenting at all.
If the brightness of the LED is equal to a DC voltage of 4v and a current of 10mA, the circuit we
have produced is slightly more efficient than delivering a DC voltage to the LED, even though
there are some losses in the transformer and transistor.
This proves the fact that LEDs driven with a pulse, are more efficient than being driven by a DC
supply.

Here is a photo of Circuit B constructed by a reader. He used a toroid (a circular magnetic

circuit - or ring) and this has lower losses because the magnetic flux does not emerge (come
out of) the end of the core. The magnetic flux keeps circulating. However if the flux is not very
high, it does not saturate the core and there are no losses and the slug performs almost the
same as a toroid.
 You can clearly see the number of turns on the toroid.
The circuit is not very efficient because it does
not have a capacitor to improve the efficiency.

BIKE FLASHER - Amazing!

This bike flasher uses a single transistor to flash two white LEDs from a single cell. And it has
no core for the transformer - just AIR!
All Joule Thief circuits you have seen, use a ferrite rod or toroid (doughnut) core and the turns
are wound on the ferrite material. But this circuit proves the collapsing magnetic flux produces
an increased voltage, even when the core is AIR. The fact is this: When a magnetic filed
collapses quickly, it produces a higher voltage in the opposite direction and in this case the
magnetic field surrounding the coil is sufficient to produce the energy we need.
Wind 30 turns on 10mm (1/2" dia) pen or screwdriver and then another 30 turns on top. Build
the first circuit and connect the wires. You can use 1 or two LEDs. If the circuit does not work,
swap the wires going to the base.
Now add the 10u electrolytic and 100k resistor (remove the 1k5). The circuit will now flash. You
must use 2 LEDs for the flashing circuit.

BIKE FLASHER - AMAZING!

 THE IMPROVED BIKE FLASHER CIRCUIT

The original 30 turns + 30 turns coil is shown on the right. The circuit took 20mA to illuminate
two LEDs.
The secret to getting the maximum energy from the coil (to flash the LEDs) is the maximum
amount of air in the centre of the coil. Air cannot transfer a high magnetic flux so we provide a
large area (volume) of low flux to provide the energy. The larger (20mm) coil reduced the
current from 20mA to 11mA for the same brightness. This could be improved further but the coil
gets too big. The two 30-turn windings must be kept together because the flux from the main
winding must cut the feedback winding to turn ON the transistor HARD.
When the transistor starts to turn on via the 100k, it creates magnetic flux in the main winding
that cuts the feedback winding and a positive voltage comes out the end connected to the base
and a negative voltage comes out the end connected to the 100k and 10u. This turns the
transistor ON more and it continues to turn ON until fully turned ON. At this point the magnetic
flux is not expanding and the voltage does not appear in the feedback winding.
During this time the 10u has charged and the voltage on the negative lead has dropped to a
lower voltage than before. This effectively turns off the transistor and the current in the main
winding ceases abruptly. The magnetic flux collapses and produces a voltage in the opposite
direction that is higher than the supply and this is why the two LEDs illuminate. This also puts a
voltage through the feedback winding that keeps the transistor OFF. When the magnetic flux
has collapsed, the voltage on the negative lead of the 10u is so low that the transistor does not
turn on. The 100k discharges the 10u and the voltage on the base rises to start the next
cycle.
You can see the 100k and 1k5 resistors and all the other parts in a "birds nest" to allow easy
experimenting.
This is the first circuit you should build to flash a white LED from a single cell.
It covers many features and shows how the efficiency of a LED increases when it is pulsed very
briefly with a high current.
The two coils form a TRANSFORMER and show how a collapsing magnetic filed produces a
high voltage (we use 6v of this high voltage).
The 10u and 100k form a delay circuit to produce the flashing effect.
You can now go to all the other Joule Thief circuits and see how they "missed the boat" by not
experimenting fully to simply their circuits. That's why a "birds nest" arrangement is essential to
encourage experimenting.
Note: Changing the turns to 40t for the main winding and 20t for the feedback (keeping the
turns tightly wound together by winding wire around them) reduced the current to 8-9mA.

The circuit can be made small by using a ferrite slug 2.6mm diam x 7.6mm long.
The inductance of this transformer is quite critical and the voltage across the LEDs must be
over 6v for the circuit to work. It will not work with one or two LEDs.
2-TRANSISTOR CIRCUITS
The circuits we have presented above use a single transistor and a transformer to provide
feedback. This feedback is a form of REGENERATION to turn the transistor on HARDER and
HARDER to produce the maximum efficiency.
An oscillator can be produced with two transistors and an inductor, but there are some design-
features that need to be applied to produce an efficient circuit.
The first circuit is a POOR DESIGN.

Poor Design - see text

In the circuit above, the base current is constant and will be very small through a 10k resistor.
Base-current is effectively wasted current or "wasted energy" and should be kept to a minimum.
The circuit consumes 10mA and the LED will see less than 4mA.
By reducing the 10k base bias resistor to 470R the circuit-current increases to 25mA but the
LED is still not at full brightness.
Secondly, the base-current is shorted to the 0v rail via the first transistor and is completely
wasted during part of the cycle.
But the main problem with the circuit is the fact that the driver transistor is not driven into full
conduction at any part of the cycle and the circuit has very little efficiency.

To solve this problem, the two transistors are connects so the "turning-ON" is provided by a
transistor and it effectively reduces in resistance to a small value to turn ON the driver
transistor.
Theoretically a current-limiting resistor should be added in the base of the driver transistor
(about 47R) but this made no difference to the current taken by the circuit.
 2-Transistor Joule Thief Circuit
The circuit turns ON via the 220k resistor and the voltage on the collector of the NPN transistor
drops to nearly 0v. This action causes current to flow through the inductor and at the same time
the 1n capacitor is brought towards the 0v rail and this turns ON the first transistor slightly
harder. This action continues until the driver transistor cannot be turned on any more.
The 1n charges a little more and the current through the base lead reduces slightly. This action
turns OFF the first transistor slightly and the driver transistor is turned OFF a slight amount.
The voltage on the 1n rises and very soon both transistors are fully turned OFF.
The magnetic flux in the core of the 1mH inductor collapses and produces a voltage in the
opposite direction.
This voltage is added to the 1.5v rail voltage and the final voltage is high enough to illuminate
the white LED.
This keeps both transistors OFF and when all the magnetic flux has been converted to energy
to illuminate the LED, the voltage on the collector drops. This lowers the top plate of the
capacitor and since the capacitor is slightly charged, the bottom plate drops to a voltage less
than rail voltage. This action turns ON the first transistor to start the next cycle.

Another 2-Transistor Circuit:

This circuit is designed for mass production as the choke is a standard 33uH.
It can be made by winding 50 turns of 0.1mm enamelled wire on a 1.6mm diam ferrite slug.

With this we turn to a surface-mount chip that has been designed to carry out the exact same
task as circuit B. The chip is called PR4401. The following is the promotion advert for the chip:
I could not find any sales literature on the internet, but the manufacturer requires 9,000 pieces
to be bought at a cost of 36 cents per piece. This comes to $3,240 if you want to incorporate it
into your project.
I have described the pro's and con's of this chip in another article "Circuit Tricks" and you
should read it and work out what they really mean.

LED TORCH - JOULE THIEF - INDUCTOR TESTER

Kit of components $3.00 plus $4.00 postage
An equivalent IC (chip) has come on the market for 10 cents and it is a better chip.
Here is the circuit for QX5252F:
Using 220uH, the circuit takes 13mA an illuminates 2 white LEDs very brightly.
Using 100uH the circuit takes 30mA and the LEDs are really the same brightness.
Using 33uH the circuit takes 80mA and the LEDs are just about the same brightness.
Obviously the 220uH creates the most efficient circuit.

Here is the prototype:

The kit comes with a PCB, all parts: QX5252 Chip, tactile switch, 1.5v
button cell, tinned copper wire for cell and heatshrink for cell-cover,
100uH inductor, very fine wire and 1M to make your own 100uH, 2
machine pins and length of fine solder, but only 2 LEDs and not the
change-over switch. All for $7.00 posted.
Email Colin Mitchell for details on buying the kit.

The prototype has been built on Matrix Board and shows the change-over switch used to test
different LEDs. You will get the Printed Circuit Board in the kit that has been generated from
the layout. This is the easiest and simplest way to make a PCB and avoid any mistakes.

The inductor has been fitted via machine pins and it can be removed and different inductors
fitted to see the results. A machine pin is hollow and allows to poke the ends of a conductor into
the pin and it will make contact.
The current taken by the circuit changes according to the inductance and this will enable you to
compare inductors and even find the value of an unknown inductor.
You need to use one, two or three known inductors and make a table of the inductance and
current taken by the circuit.
The current may or may not be linear but we measured inductors from 33uH 1,000uH and
recorded currents from 80mA to 2.5mA.
This enabled us to measure unmarked coils.

HOME-MADE INDUCTOR
One more feature of this project is to wind your own inductor and see if it is effective as the
100uH supplied in the kit.
The kit comes with fine wire and a 1M resistor.
Wind 250 turns on the resistor very carefully and as you come to the end of the winding, you
can criss-cross the wire over the other turns to keep them in place.
Leave at least 4cm of wire at the beginning and end.
Now heat the wire very close to the body of the resistor with a hot clean soldering iron that has
been fully tinned. The wire will get tinned very close to where it comes from the winding. Now
wind 5 turns around the wire coming from the resistor and solder it in place. Break off the wire.
Do the same with the other end.
Fit your home-made inductor and the LED should be as bright as the 100uH.
Measure the current across the switch. It should be about 32mA.
The voltage is being converted from 1.5v to 3.5v and each LED will get slightly less than 6mA
by the time you take the efficiency of the circuit into account.

Here is the waveform:

 What is happening?
The first part of the cycle shows the inductor being pulled down to the 0v rail.
This means the 1.5v for the battery is directly across the inductor and current starts to flow in
the winding.
This produces magnetic flux (called EXPANDING FLUX) that cuts all the turns and produces a
voltage in the turns that is opposite to the incoming voltage.
This means the effective voltage entering the inductor is very small and thus a small current
flows. However enough current flows and enough time is allowed so the inductor produces
magnetic flux.
This is shown in diagrams A and B.
The circuit then immediately turns OFF and the magnetic flux collapses very quickly.
This is shown in diagram C. This voltage is actually in the opposite direction to the original
voltage and this is one of the most important things to understand.
The voltage produced by the inductor will be very high (possibly 10v or more) (and is added to
the voltage of the battery. But as soon as the voltage reaches 3.2v, the white LED starts to turn
ON and produce illumination.
The magnetic flux keeps collapsing and supplying energy to the LED for about 2uS and when
the voltage falls to less than 3v, the LED turns OFF.
The QX5252 IC turns ON again and pulls the inductor to the 0v rail to start the next cycle. The
IC operates at about 130kHz and if the inductor has not lost all its magnetic flux, it will add to
the flux on the next cycle.
You can see the inductor only has to produce about 1.7v as the voltage is "produced" on top of
the 1.5v from the battery. The circuit will work down to about 0.9v
Understanding and interpreting a waveform is very important because the LED is only turned
ON for a very small portion of the time but it is turned ON very brightly.
Our eyes detect this brightness and hold this brightness while the LED is completely turned
OFF during the rest of the cycle. This effect is called PERSISTENCE OF VISION.
This is why a very small current will produce high brightness and create a highly effective
circuit.
That's how the circuit got its name: Joule Thief. It appears to get energy from nowhere. But we
know a LED can operate in pulse-mode and product a very high brightness while consuming a
small OVERALL current.
This project will teach you 3 things:
The number of turns to create 100uH inductor, testing different inductors, testing different LEDs
and determining the value of inductance by measuring the current.

oooooooooooooooooo000000000000000000000000000oooooooooooooooooo

When you build circuit "B," you will realise the specifications given in the .pdf for the chip, could
be improved. We have achieved a supply current of 18mA for an equivalent brightness of
10mA. The chip requires 25mA. So, all the technology in the world has not surpassed a hand-
made circuit.
The advantage of our design is the ready availability of components and you can change them
to suit your own application.
If you want to increase the brightness, the 2k7 can be reduced to 1k5.
If you want to drive 2 LEDs, they can be added in series:

Adding a 100u across the battery will increase the current by 4mA and the brightness will
increase slightly.
When 2 LEDs are placed in series, the current drops from 28mA to 23mA and the brightness
from each LED is slightly less. This circuit is operating at about the maximum capability of the
transformer. The actual limiting factor is the size of the "core." It can only "hold" a certain
amount of magnetic flux and return it to the windings during the collapsing part of the cycle. A
larger core will allow three or more LEDs to be illuminated.
The "high efficiency" of this circuit is due to the "pulsing of the LED." When a LED is pulsed with
a high current for a short period of time, the brightness is equivalent to a lower, steady, current.
That's why a current of 23mA from the battery will illuminate 2 LEDs with an equivalent
brightness of about 8mA of steady current. It is very difficult to compare the brightness of one
LED against another and these results are the best you can make by visual inspection. We are
not driving the LEDs to their maximum but the output is very impressive.
THE TRANSFORMER
The secret of this circuit is the transformer.
We normally think of a transformer as a device with an input and output, with the voltage on the
input and output being connected by a term called "turns ratio."
If the output has more turns than the input, the output voltage will be higher. This is called a
step-up transformer. If the output has less turns than the input, the output voltage will be lower.
This applies to "normal" transformers where the voltage is rising and falling at a regular rate,
commonly called a "sinewave."
But the transformer in this circuit is different.
The voltage applied to it is not rising and falling smoothly, and thus it does not work in normal
"transformer mode."
The voltage is being applied and then turned off. When the voltage is applied, the primary
winding (the 60 turn winding) produces magnetic flux. When the voltage is turned off, the
magnetic flux collapses and produces a VERY HIGH voltage (in the REVERSE DIRECTION),
in all the windings.
Our transformer is really a coil in flyback mode with a feedback winding.
The feedback winding delivers a voltage to the transistor to turn it on HARDER. If the winding is
connected around the wrong way, the circuit will not work.
The other important factor about the transformer is the core material. There are many different
types of ferrite. Ferrite is a type of iron which is powdered very finely so that the magnetic lines
that pass through the particles do not create eddy-currents. These eddy currents absorb the
magnetic flux. The material we have used is F29 and this is suitable for high frequency
applications.
The circuit also employs a term called RE-GENERATION. This is the effect where a circuit is
turned on slightly by a component (the 2k7 base resistor in this example) and then the
transistor turns itself on more and more until it is fully turned on. The feedback winding is
configured so that the voltage it produces (actually the current it produces) is fed into the base
to turn the transistor on.
Thus the feedback winding is very clever. It produces energy and is delivered in a particular
direction - in other words it can be a positive or negative energy. In this case it produces
positive energy, to turn the transistor on harder.
This is called POSITIVE FEEDBACK as it turns the transistor ON during the active part of the
cycle.
Now we come to the MAIN, PRIMARY or FLYBACK winding.
This winding produces a high voltage during part of the cycle (the FLYBACK part of the cycle)
and this is passed to the LED.
If the LED is removed, the transformer produces a high voltage with a low current, but when the
LED is inserted, an amazing thing happens. The energy from the transformer is converted to a
lower voltage with a higher current.
What actually happens is the LED absorbs the energy and turns it to light as soon as the
voltage rises to 3.6v.
We could achieve the achieve the same low-voltage, high current requirement, with less turns,
but the number of turns has actually been determined so the core does not saturate.
The voltage for the LED is produced when the transistor is switched off and the magnetic flux
in the ferrite core collapses.
The speed of the collapse produces a very high voltage in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION and
that's why a positive voltage emerges from the end connected to the LED. These two facts are
important to remember.
The other important fact is called "transformer action." This is the action of magnetic flux.
When a voltage is applied to a winding of a transformer or a coil of wire, a current will flow and
this will produce magnetic flux. If another winding is present, the magnetic flux will cut the turns
of this extra coil and produce a voltage in it.
However, there is a very important point to remember. The magnetic flux can be: EXPANDING,
STATIONARY or CONTRACTING.
When the magnetic flux is expanding, a voltage will appear in the second winding mentioned
above.
When the magnetic flux is stationary, NO VOLTAGE will appear in the second winding.
When the magnetic flux is contracting a voltage will appear in the second winding with
REVERSE POLARITY.
The size (the amplitude or "value") of the reverse voltage will depend on the speed of the
collapsing magnetic flux. If the flux collapses quickly, the amplitude will be very high.
That's how the transistor turns itself on and on until it is fully turned on. At this point the current
flowing through the circuit is a maximum but the flux is not expanding so the base of the
transistor does not see the high "turn-on" energy and thus the transistor suddenly turns off.
The magnetic flux collapses and the transistor sees a reverse voltage on the base to keep it
turned off until the flux is fully collapsed. The current through the 2k7 enters the base to start
the cycle again.
From this you will be able to see how the transistor and transformer work.
THE FLASHER
Now we come to the problem of flashing a white LED, using a 1.5v supply.
The following circuit performs this task:

The oscillator charges the 100u via the 1N 4148 diode and when the voltage reaches about
10v, the BC 547 transistors "zeners" (breaks down) and conducts. Energy in the 100u is then
dumped into the LED to make it illuminate. This causes the voltage across the 100u to drop and
the transistor comes out of conduction. The oscillator then continues to charge the 100u to
repeat the cycle.
The zener voltage of the transistor is not 10v as approx 4v is dropped across the LED. This
conforms with an article on the web that said the emitter-collector junction is equal to a 6v2
zener.
The 330R charging resistor produces a fast flash and the 1k produces a slow flash.
The current for the circuit is approx 22mA and any type of LED can be fitted.
Measuring the current-consumption of a circuit is a very difficult thing to do. When you insert a
a meter into the positive line (or negative line) of a circuit, you introduce extra resistance and
the operation of the circuit will alter. You may think the low resistance of an ammeter will not
affect the performance, but quite often the "ammeter " is really a "milli-amp meter" and the
"shunt resistance" on the 200mA scale can be 4 - 7 ohms. This is quite considerable when a
circuit is operating on 1.5v and drawing 30mA. This can be a loss of 100mV to 200mV and the
current taken by the circuit will alter considerably.
That's why the best approach is to place a 1 ohm resistor in line with the positive of the battery
and measure the millivolt drop across the resistor. Each millivolt drop will correspond to 1mA
flow and this will change the circuit conditions as little as possible. The following circuit shows
how this is done:

A 100u electrolytic across the circuit will reduce the impedance of the supply and keep the
circuit working as normal as possible.
As a point to note: The White LED Flasher circuit did not start-up on a flat AAA cell.
Solution: take two flat cells and connect them in series and see how long the LED will flash.
You will be very surprised. The circuit will draw about 30mA and the LED will flash very quickly.
The circuit will continue to work on two very flat cells until the flash rate drops to one flash per
second.
This type of circuit puts a very heavy "strain" or "noise" on the power supply. In other words it
puts a heavy demand on the battery for a short period of time.
This is not a problem if the only item connected to the battery is the flasher circuit. But if the
battery is also driving a circuit such as an mp3 player or microcontroller, the high-frequency
noise may upset the operation of the electronics.

THE OSCILLATOR TRANSISTOR

The oscillator transistor needs to sink a very high current for a very short period of time (as
mentioned above) and thus it must be a "high-current" type. A "high-current" type improves the
efficiency of the circuit. If the transistor cannot sink the transformer to the 0v rail, it effectively
becomes a "resistance" in the network. Suppose the supply is 1500mV (1.5v , 1v5) and the
transistor can sink to 500mV, 30% of the voltage is dropped across the transistor and thus the
circuit is using only 66% of the incoming energy. If the transistor can only sink to 0.75v, the
circuit is using 50% of the incoming energy.
Some transistors can sink to 0.3v and thus the circuit is more efficient.

STABILITY
Now we come to the stability of the circuit. The circuit is very unstable and very unreliable.
Touching the components with a finger changes the frequency of the flash-rate and connecting
CRO to the collector of the oscillator transistor inhibits the flashing. The oscillator keeps
working but the zener transistor fails to operate.
This circuit is totally unsuitable for a commercial design and it reminds me of some of the
original transistor flasher circuits. They required precise values of resistance and did not work
when the supply voltage dropped.
Fortunately someone came up with the flip-flop flasher and changed everything. It is totally
reliable and operates under all sorts of conditions.

Now we come to the design of a higher output circuit, to satisfy those who want to use a larger
cell and drive 2 or 3 LEDs to maximum brightness.

HIGHER OUTPUT
To drive more LEDs, a higher output is needed. We have already mentioned, the limiting factor
with the circuits above is the transformer. To achieve a higher output, the size needs to be
increased. This is quite easily done by getting a larger core. It is the core that determines the
amount of flux that can be stored. When turns are wound on a core, the result is called an
inductor and when a second winding is added, the result is called a transformer.
Most of the inductors and transformers we use in the circuits in this article have an open
magnetic circuit. This means the flux escapes out one end of the core and in general the result
is not very efficient. But it has proved to be satisfactory.
An improved core is called a "pot core" and consists of two halves as shown in the diagram
below:
The magnetic lines go around the "magnetic circuit" as shown in the diagram above and pass
through an air gap. The air gap is to compensate for the DC across the coil (transformer). If the
air gap is closed up, the inductor will saturate before the circuit is fully conducting and this may
make the inductor less effective. All this theory is very complex and you really have to try the
component to see the effect.
Our circuits use a simple "in line" inductor as shown above or a "bobbin" as shown below in the
third item. The photo below shows the "slug" transformer used in circuits A, B, and C and the
"bobbin" transformer used in circuit D. The size of each transformer gives some idea of the
relative output. The centre inductor is a 10mH choke. This is unwound to get the bobbin for the
transformer.

The bobbin is re-wound with 35 turns of 0.5mm wire for the primary and 20 turns for the
feedback winding. The two pins connect to the primary and the 20 turn-winding is wound on
top, with flying leads. The gauge of the wire is chosen so that the windings completely fill the
bobbin. The feedback winding can be a thinner gauge, without any detriment to the operation of
the circuit. By the appearance, you could expect up to 5-10 times more output from the bobbin.
But with a higher output, you need to provide some form of energy-limiting circuit to prevent
damaging the LED.
The following circuit provides current limiting so that the LED will produce maximum brightness
for the voltage range 1.5v to 0.9v.

This gives a choice to suit a variety of torches. The smallest penlight torch will only have
enough room to drive a single LED while the larger "C" and "D" cell torches will drive two or
three LEDs.
There are some slight differences between each of the circuits and you need to read the article
if you want to deviate from any of the layouts we have given.
For instance, the 2SC 3279 transistor is capable of sinking 2 amps and this makes it a better
driver for circuit-2 but its collector-emitter voltage is only 10v and it may zener in circuit 3, where
the voltage is very near this value.

Circuit-1 drives one LED from a single cell

 Circuit-2 drives two LEDs from a single cell

Circuit-3 drives three LEDs from two cells

CURRENT REGULATION
The circuit includes a feature called "current regulation." You can also call the feature "voltage
regulation" as both have the same effect of controlling the brightness of the LED.
It can also be called a "constant brightness" arrangement.
It's a feedback arrangement consisting of a BC 547 connected to the base of the main
transistor.
When the voltage across the "detector resistor" rises above 0.7v, the BC 547 turns ON and
prevents the main transistor operating.
This allows the LED to produce a constant brightness over a wide supply voltage. The circuit
will theoretically work to 0.8v.
Do not remove the current regulating transistor as the circuit will over-drive the LED when the
supply is 1.5v. The excess current will instantly destroy the LEDs.

The actual operation of the circuit can be explained in a little more detail.
When the circuit is turned on, the oscillator transistor produces a high voltage from the inductor
and this is rectified by a diode to charge a 100u electrolytic.
When the voltage rises to over the total characteristic voltage of the LED or LEDs, they turn on
and current flows though the 39R "detector resistor."
The voltage across the 100u will continue to rise and since the characteristic voltage of the
LEDs has been reached, any further voltage rise will appear across the resistor. As soon as this
voltage reaches 0.7v, the feedback transistor begins to turn on. The feedback transistor acts
like a variable resistor as shown in the diagram below and some of the current from the
feedback winding is passed to the 0v rail, through the transistor. The oscillator transistor sees a
reduced "turn-on" effect and the output of the stage is reduced.