Max Robinson wrote:
I remember hearing about a law suit in an engineering law class I had to
take way back when. It seems a farmer had a long fence running under
and parallel to a high tension distribution line. He had hidden a
copper line in it and was harvesting enough power to operate most of his
farm buildings. This amounted to a measurable loss from the distribution
line and the power company found him out and sued. The court ruled he
had to pay for power used in the past and stop getting his power that
way. Considering the source I don't think this is an urban legend.
Regards.
Max. K 4 O D S.
It sounds a bit of a myth to me. I've never done the maths, but I doubt you
could get a lot of power from a wire like this. To power most of his farm
machinery would need many kW.
On the very high power lines, they tend to be location very high, in which case
I would have thought the fields should cancel at long distances, as there will
be 3 out of phase currents.
I think for lighting, you might be able to claim you did it to reduce the
E-field at your house, as you were worried by the health effects. Sine you need
to dump the power somewhere, a light bulb seemed the cheapest dummy load. A 100
W light bulb is a lot cheaper than a 100 W resistor!
On a similar note, I heard about someone who powered his greenhouse by using the
small voltage between neutral and earth that will exist. I know there is at
least 30 mA available at my house, as shorting neutral to earth will trip a 30
mA RCD. But I measured the voltage once, and whilst I can't recall what it was,
it was less than 1 Volt.
Dave
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