Hypothetical: Free Energy - Wrapping wire around incoming mains before meter?

[eveares]

Been a long time since I was at school and learning about the interaction and relationship between electrical and magnetic fields and the angles of the fields that pass each other. (90° IIRC).

Just wondered whether one would hypothetically be able to obtain a small amount of unmeterd and illegal energy by wrapping a coil of wire (acting as the secondary side of a transformer) around the incoming meter tails before the meter.

Would this behave like a inefficient transformer should current be going through the meter tails or would this simply not work.

And how much use would this be should it work. i.e. Could you power a door bell of it for example?

Regards: Elliott

 

[ericmark]

We use current transformers to measure how much power we use, but I have never worked out who pays for the small amount of power extracted. I would think it's down to balanced feeders and the adding of a current transformer would cause an imbalance. I would have thought the amount of power is so small not worth considering. A small solar panel would be more cost effective and legal.

 

[Nozzle]

Yes it would work, but you wouldn't get any useful power out of it as your Primary "coil" doesn't have many turns and there would be no iron (whether it be laminated or unlaminated) core to enhance the magnetic field. The secondary coil can have more turns to make up for it, but then needs to be made of finer wire to be close to the primary, and then it has too-high an impedance. As Ericmark suggests, use a VT to measure current or volts (or power) but this is just enough uA to drive a moving coil meter or input stage of an instrument, no useful power in it. Also, the magnetic field would be somewhat cancelled out along the cable by the neutral conductor in parallel going back "the other way". If you could wrap a coil around only the line, you'd get a bit more.

Electric fields are more closely related to plates of a capacitor or storm clouds to ground etc. In the near-field electic and magnetic fields are related, but not over the distances/magnitudes concerned here.

Nozzle

 

[eveares]

We use current transformers to measure how much power we use

Quite, and as you suggest any power obtained from such a device is extremely small.

balanced feeders

As in the line and neutral tails to the meter are the balanced feeders??

 

[bernardgreen]

Current transformers would as Eric said provide some small amount of power but only while current was flowing to some loads in the house. I seem to recall that pwer from a current transformer was considered as being too small, compared to the load in the house, to be considered. It would fall with the percentage allowed for error in the meter and could for accounting purposes be ignored..

There are current transformers that do take power from the current in a supply cable, often used in airport runway lighting. The primary windings connected in series and spaced out along the cable that runs the length of the runway. The secondaries each feed one light. This method allows the use of high current and extra low voltage on the supply cable in a way that avoids ( minimises ) the problems of voltage drop over the miles of cable needed to supply run way lights.

One way to obtain "free" power ( the cost of the equipment would almost certainly never be re-couped ) would be to use the difference in potential between the "Earth" ( derived from the Neutral ) and true Ground to supply a step up voltage convertor and battery charger.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

What about lighting your garden if you live under a HV transmission line?

 

[eveares]

What about lighting your garden if you live under a HV transmission line?

Reminds me of a old Mythbusters episode where Adam extracted a small amount of power out of a HV transmission line by putting some device he made up to it. (As close as he could legally get to it.)

 

[EFLImpudence]

I lit my garden.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Reminds me of a old Mythbusters episode where Adam extracted a small amount of power out of a HV transmission line by putting some device he made up to it. (As close as he could legally get to it.)

Get Photonicinduction, or Colin Furze on the case - they'd be shinning up the pylon with some fat cables and croc clips, cackling like madmen.....

 

[WabbitPoo]

You could sacrifice a bit of water pressure by installing a device to convert the flow of water through your incoming pipe to electrical enegrgy, perhaps to charge a phone? Just a thought.

 

[eveares]

And also power a LED from background RF transmissions, just like how a self powered crystal radio works. And then you have the power from the phone line, but not really free as one normally pays line rental.

 

[bernardgreen]

You could sacrifice a bit of water pressure by installing a device to convert the flow of water through your incoming pipe

Some church organs used to be powered by water

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/waterengine/waterengine6.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-...o-life-for-the-first-time-in-36-years/7394362

Converting to electric often meant there was less moisture in the air and wooden organ pipes often dried and cracked. Humidifiers were necessary