Hi all. I'm stuck, again. My project is a bug zapper using a camera flash like circuit to charge a large capacitor in parallel with a joule thief powering two UV leds to attract the bugs. Everything works perfectly. on a single 1.2v rechargeable battery these two circuits draw just over 100ma and run for hours on my 2500mah battery. I have good solar cells that put out over 200mah so recharging is handled well also. But, as it sits, it runs 24/7 and I thought that was both annoying and inelegant. So, I looked around and found the attached circuit which will block current while the solar panel is active but will let current pass when the panel is not charging. The problem is that I'm losing almost all my power for some reason. If I connect two batteries in series without the transistor I get around 3vdc. When I attach the solar panels and the transistor I still get around 2.5vdc. But, there's almost no amperage available. Those two batteries are both 2500ma and without the solar panel/transistor combo they provide all the power I need and more. When I connect the solar panel and transistor, and then block the light, I can't hardly get 11ma out. Barely enough to get the leds to glow even with the joule thief. I'm hoping this is obvious but my question is why am I losing all of my amperage when I go through the 3906 as in the diagram?
Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Grant
Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Grant
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