/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>2700223
I'd guess it to just be a phantom voltage due to capacitive coupling, if you load it down with a kilo-ohm or so it should drop to basically zero. You could try measuring the short-circuit current of it with your DMM.

>>2700258
Method A: use a seperate boost converter like a joule thief to power the entire circuit. Boost converters can be made from commonly found PWM control ICs like the TL494 and MC34063, they can also be found as premade modules, or even made from discrete comparators and transistors. It's also an option to make a capacitive charge pump to double your available voltage.

Method B: turn that square wave into a voltage doubler using the first stage of a CW multiplier. Pic related flashes two LEDs alternately, the square wave source in the middle would be your oscillator, though I wouldn't recommend using a 555 for this low a voltage. A schmitt oscillator made from a 74HC14 or a comparator would be more reliable, a CMOS 555 might work.

Method C: similar to B, but with an inductive boost network for each LED instead.