Anyone looking for an efficient low power electrical circuit for a number of alternative energy uses - possibly electrolysis, but that is less certain - should check out the latest "joule ringer" low power self-oscillating circuits. In these circuits, potential and natural oscillation are in a high-gain positive feedback loop to the extent that noise buildup seems to create a bit of its own current.
Here is a simple circuit that is fascinating in its implications: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td8v2oc4JFw&list=UUIKzUKkh7XtnSYPW0AJb-9w&ind ex=2&feature=plcp http://www.laserhacker.com/JouleRingerCrossOver.html ... since it has minimized internal circuit losses and gets natural oscillation via only two transistors - not quite a Darlington but more like what we used to do 50 years ago with a one tube feedback circuit. A charged cap and no battery can keep an LED light bulb going for a surprisingly long time - as you see in the video. Back in the old days, kids doing Morse code transmission on a low budget with the weak batteries available at the time, could build a simple high gain regen feedback loop (aka: "autodyne") with one vacuum tube, since high noise was not the major problem (for that use). This kind of circuit went out of favor when transistors came along, but Wiki still remembers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_circuit Positive feedback tends to run to instability as a natural feature, since there will typically be exponential growth of gain towards a failure point ... so obviously it has extreme limitations with communications applications. But less so with energy. In fact this could be a most interesting combination ... since "noise" can be your friend ... when all you care about is gain. Jones
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