1V 2mA HV circuit + Alum cell charge idea
An Alum water cell was due for a charge, reading 0.7V and 4mA. I decided to try using an Electrifly battery charger, to see whether it would work – not recommended, unless you have a sensor based ‘intelligent’ charger. Then, a simple circuit to create High Voltage is shown and demonstrated. It will run at 1 Volt and uses just 2mA. Using a solar panel earlier (indoors under a CFL lamp) I measured 1.86mA draw. That certainly makes a difference to the usual 200mA or so in previous circuits. The toroid is completely standard, as found in most ATX computer power suplpies, yellow with white on one end. A slightly larger, grey toroid will light neons better, but they are a lot rarer. Transistor is a regular S9014, salvaged from a radio circuit. LED nightlight can be found at Walmart and they have a light detector on the front, which was taped over for the demo. No circuit modifications were made to the nightlight.