When you have a bunch of 230 kV transmission lines running over your property, why not use them for some scientific experiments? This is where the [Double M Innovations] YouTube channel comes into play, including a recent video where the idea of harvesting electricity from HV transmission lines using regular fences is put to an initial test.
![The nearly final measurement by [Double M Innovations].](https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hv_transmission_line_energy_harvesting_final_count.jpg)
As for the results, they were rather concerning and flashy, with the 1000 VAC-rated multimeter going out of range on the AC side of the bridge rectifier, and the capacitor slowly charging up to 1000 V before the experiment was stopped.
Based on the capacity of the capacitor and the final measured voltage of 907 VDC, roughly 36.2 Joule would have been collected, giving some idea of the power one could collect from a few kilometers of fencing wire underneath such HV lines, and why you probably want to ground them if energy collecting is not your focus.
As for whether storing the power inductively coupled on fence wire can be legally used is probably something best discussed with your local energy company.
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip.
This is like putting a solar panel on your property to collect the power given off by a company’s spot light.
It really is not the same thing. Magnetic induction creates a feedback loop to the power line and draws more power from the plant. It is different from collecting radiation passively, where you collect the waste. The magnetic field here is not waste radiation.
This is like sitting next to Daytona speedway and running a pinwheel
This has been done in the past. The electric company can detect this loss, and they will try to stop it. Court injunctions have been filed in the past, and the coils of wire removed. We’ll see what happens here, but in the past this has been ruled stealing in court.
Yeah, feels like a pretty clear case.
You could be liberal and make the case for “my land, my rules”, and that might fly in some select parts of the world. If you have good lawyers and money to pay them etc.
But, if someone where to do this, it would almost be more cool just to go for a bare minimum (and safe) installation, say a one watt led bulb. Just for the heck of it!
It’s not actually his land though. The power company will pay the landowner an easement fee, essentially making the land under those power lines owned by the utility.
No, it is absolutely still your land. For example, you can transfer ownership but the easement holder cannot. You may do as you like with the land other than violate the usage about which the easement is concerned. However, the easement holder can only use your land for the purpose intended by the easement. The burden of proof in any conflict is borne by the easement holder, not the landowner. A good example of this principle is road access; you cannot prevent a neighboring “landlocked” property owner reasonable access to and from a public road but you absolutely have total control and authority over your own property beyond that. Such reasonable access does not constitute an “easement”
Your land does not become a “public roadway” or even a road at all unless such a road is necessary to meet the reasonable standard, like for example if that neighbor were able to get a residential building permit, which involves a public hearing phase; meaning YOU, and any other neighbor affected. Look at it like this, if you are legally and reasonably accessing your landlocked parcel without an easement, be VERY polite and respectful. For said landlocked neighbor to have any authority or say in the matter of HOW you provide reasonable access, it would require the neighbor to have an easement. Even if your state/local laws are such that you could eventually be required to make such a sale of an easement available; the price of such an easement is largely at your discretion. You can, as you see fit, reflect all loss of use you expect in perpetuity, real or perceived. This can realistically and easily be a greater cost by far than your entire property. Again, their burden not yours if they aren’t happy with the figure, only Government can exercise eminent domain. This is why the value of a landlocked parcel with no easement can be a total toss-up; highly dependent on the goodwill of neighbors, heavily influenced by community engagement, zoning regulation and other law, and even the mood of the court in jurisdictions that give the court broad leeway. There are some narrow situations where community is very powerful, this is one of them: that’s how Amish Country stays Amish for centuries as an example, this is why it’s impossible to find anything in Beaufort, S.C. without Google Maps, all private signage is banned and all structures have to meet a strict aesthetic that makes all the shopping centers and even gas stations effectively invisible and undifferentiable. Only the locals can find anything, just the way they like it.
Ok, now on the technical side: I will add a sort of semi-related fact just for fun. In this transmission line case, it’s AC but my comment is about DC. DC current is one-way, can vary greatly in both amperage and voltage, everybody knows this part. Here is what a lot of people do not know: How fast are the one-way electrons actually themselves moving? How fast does the energy move through the circuit? Is it like the rubber ducky on the ocean when a tsunami wave goes by? (Only moves up and down) Do they not move but change energy state in some way? Do they go backward?
ANSWER: they DO move! it is from negative to positive, they move a lot like too many marbles in a marble run and the speed they move is on the order of millimeters per second, not the speed of light, lol. This speed is not related to the other variables of DC and because of the necessity of the circuit being completed, the accumulation of electrons is rather minor, proportional to ohms. The energy itself does travel super fast, 50 to 99% the speed of light.
Exactly.
Very good explanation. Covered about everything I studied years ago. Great write up.
Can you point to some specific cases? Would be interested to read more.
I agree with James. You folks can talk about this till the cows come home, but go set up a collector (air core transformer), tell your power company about it and let us know how you make out in court when you refuse to remove it.
If you can replace the electrons before the line goes to a substation nobody would know but fauxtons are rather rare these days (or they’ve gotten so good that nobody can tell they’re fake)
You are 100% correct. I had these wires running over my dads farm. As a kid in the 60’s I put up a long wire antenna for my shortwave receiver and the high voltage blew out the front end. So I hooked up a fluorescent bulb to it and grounded the other end of the tube. It stayed lit 24/7 until I left home many years later. Then I read a case where a guy lit his entire house that way and was sued by the power company for theft of service. He fought it and lost.
if you put something on the curb and abandon it, it’s not stealing for someone to take it. if it’s on your front yard and someone goes onto your property to take it, that’s stealing and trespassing. if the electric company is aware of this energy being available and they do nothing to stop it from happening AND it’s not on their property, they have abandoned it, and it’s free for the taking.
It is not waste. The electromagnetic flux is intrinsic to the physics of how transmission line operate. A better analogy would be hitching your car to a truck without the drivers knowledge. In that case you are directly stealing from the driver in the form of reduced gas mileage.
I’ve written about this before, the power loss is insignificant. THE REAL PROBLEM IS SAFETY. YOU CAN KILL YOURSELF DOING THIS. STOP THE STUPIDITY! THE AMOUNT OF MAGNETIC COUPLING VARIES WITH THE CURRENT FLOWING IN THE POWERLINE. THE VOLTAGE CAN GO EXTREMELY HIGH AND KILL YOU.
I worked on the power grid for thirty years. We had linemen killed in the early years before we understood it fully.
DO NOT DO THIS! PLEASE TELL OTHERS WHO MAY THINK ABOUT IT.
Voltage regulator, i have dealt with induction in the past and thats why we ground on both sides of our work area. Equal potential method.
Had a neighbor with electric fence for his cattel. It ran under a high voltage power line. It was never connected to a fence charger and still had enough power to keep his cattle in.
It is my understanding that the power was “available” but not “flowing” until it went to ground.
The blog didn’t say how long it took or what it would cost to collect less energy than a single AAA size battery. Not worth bothering with. How can collecting what is “floating” in the air be considered stealing? Can broadcast TV and radio stations prosecute people for “stealing” their RF energy? Next, gasoline powered cars might be tempted to prosecute carbon capture companies for stealing their CO2 emissions.
Would be as if someone attached a trailer to your car and brought down your mpg
Yes they can prosecute. A fence surrounding. Local AM antenna was used to harvest energy. The broadcaster noticed a large drop in signal strength from that direction and the governing body investigated.
Electro magnetic induction is the force that pushes electrons through a wire or electricity companies transmission line. When you capture it you are stealing energy directly from the wire. making a device that is designed to capture this energy in a significant way would be interfering with the power line.
In this scenario the coax is the secondary of a loosely coupled transformer. Voltage is magnetically coupled into the coax. The capacitor draws current from the coax. A Counter Electro Motive Force is magnetically coupled into the primary of this transformer, the power line, which increases the load, ever so slightly, on the generators producing the power. I don’t think at this level anyone will notice.
Jim WB4ILP
36 Joules? That won’t light a common light bulb for even a split second. At these voltages, a piece of wire under a power line is no different than the ground under the wire.
30 years ago it was known about the health danger of living in close proximity to high voltage lines. When shopping for a home we were shown a beautiful new home DIRECTLY UNDER/BESIDE such lines. I opted to look at other neighborhoods. Wow, I did not realize how much energy is emoted under these lines until this article! Wow.
At my last home, we had transmission lines running behind the property. If I stood on the back deck and held up a non-contact voltage detector, it would start going crazy. Glad I no longer live there.
I recall hearing from one of my physics teachers a story of a guy who basically was illegally stealing electricity by having a huge copper coil in his shed to basically do the same thing, as he lived bordering these type transmission lines. he had rigged it up to provide him power to his house. Yes it was on his property, no direct connection, and it took the company a while to figure out why the readings in that area kept acting funny, but he was eventually caught and arrested and charged with theft. Just like if I tamper and bypass my electric or water or gas pipeline or connect my cable or phone line to my neighbor or the box in my yard on my own. it doesn’t have to be physical to be theft. I doubt an experiment will amount to theft charge or even be noticed, but yeah… No free power in our land of laws if it means you’re taking it away from a utility company without authorization. Intent matters very much.
Think of it any number of ways.
Faraday’s Law: Whenever the flux linked or associated with a circuit changes, a voltage is induced in the circuit. AC current is flowing, creating alternating magnetic field, which creates an air coupled transformer to the coil of wire on the ground (1 to N), essentially stealing energy from the power company. Since it is air coupled, most of energy extracted is probably wasted.
Conservation of energy. If you extract energy, it had to come from somewhere. It is not magic, but measurable theft. They know what they generate, they know what the losses to the transmission lines are and they measure via consumers.
Free energy. C’mon. Electrons are looking for a path to ground. They don’t want to do work. If there was no theft device, no energy. The higher the voltage, the higher the tower. Reduce that distance and electricity will jump that gap. Sticking a wire under a transmission line is just asking for trouble.
Here in Texas…. Just kidding.
These are fellow humans everyone. Be respectful and have an open mind. Anyone does not know everything. This is what makes HaD such a cool and collected community. I read a lot of good points folks but lets keep debate just that debate and not some smear campaign against the fellow that you disagree with.
30 years ago, PG&E ran a high voltage line over a residential property. The homeowner’s garage was under the line. He wrapped many revolutions of wire around the garage forming a coil. He continued wrapping until he got his 120v output and was generating lots of power from the coil. There were a number of law suits with utility theft versus a challenge to the imminent domain that ran the power line. The home owner said get your line off my property if you don’t want me to use it. There was a sealed settlement , so we don’t know how to use this as precedent., but we heard that the homeowner got free power to stop demonstrating how to steal.
I find the comments on the justification of doing this an interesting read, but not very practical when it comes to the law and what’s already set as precident in a multitude of court cases.
First, head the warning of another person commenting here. Depending on what you use for a device to collect this energy, it can be extremely dangerous. And it’s not the voltage that is the danger component here, it’s the current that is which flows through you. The voltage makes all this possible to help overcome insulating properties, whether it’s the air between you and the lines or whatever you happen to isolate your circuit from you as you engage in the collection of power.
And whether what you think is right or wrong, stealing or not, it really doesn’t matter. Cases have come up in court already many times and the person doing this have been convicted of theft.
Many times going to court the cost to the utility is many times more than the damages and you might think why would they bother? It’s usually to protect the thousands of miles of line that are vulnerable to the same actions. And you might think, well, they’ll never catch me. Think again, as it’s easy for them to switch one end of an energized line out and measure a load on the system that shouldn’t exist. Now they know they need to fly the line with a helicopter and look where the loading exists on the line which they can find with instrumentation.
So the thing to learn from this, it can be very dangerous and ultimately, you probably won’t get away with siphoning off power for very long.
A farmer in Ontario did this and powered his farm. I believe,if I remember correctly Hydro one fought this as theft and lost in court.
Of course it may be a crime and affect the grid, but say someone made a fence and only happened to discover that it absorbed a lot of power. Maybe they discover that by being shocked painfully. Does it really make sense to say they are stealing if they ground out the fence to protect themselves? Does it make sense to say they are stealing if they instead hook the fence up to an indicator light so that they can see the light and know how whether it is safe to touch? It could vary depending on how much grass is leaning on the wire, after all, and if the problem is the reduction in impedance to ground, well, a device that consumes a small amount of power is a higher resistance than a short circuit to ground.
The wires above the power lines are called static lines, they are there to take the static charge that builds as the current flows through the line. Same with any wire that runs parallel with the power lines, most are grounded at the fence post where the wire is connected, an electric fence however is insulated from ground, and can build a deadly charge. Be careful everyone.
To answer the question, the power company is aware the transmission lines bleed off static electricity from the flow of electrons through the wires, hence the static lines.
I am a transmission line designer and all I have to say is that no one should listen to anything Bruce B. says. This person does not know what they are talking about…at all 🤣🤣
An electrical engineer built a 10 foot tower to collect the static electricity. Positioned under the transmission lines. The electric company took him to court for theft of electricity. They lost because there was no physical connection to the lines them selves. The land under the towers is his. Still powers his home this way for last dozen years.
Source?
A few modest proposals from a curious onlooker. Please bear with me while I share these requests:
1. I think the first thousand or so bonfire/spotlight/trash/sunlight analogies did the job. Could we stop making them for now?
2. The number of people proclaiming their right to claim “free” energy is cute. Seems like the only prerequisite is not having the standing to do more than talk, talk, talk about it.
So, a plea to hear from somebody who walks the walk: Any property owners here who are actually, right now, scooping up all of that sweet, sweet free ‘lectric to use as they please? Anyone personally telling Big Util to pound sand and leave them be while they sweep up all of those spilled electrons on THEIR property?
3. A question for, well, everyone. It’s yes or no — save the essays for sonebody else’s pop quiz:
Common sense tells me (IMHO) that if you intentionally do something, and that something:
a. Causess the producer of a commodity to produce more ro replace what you took;
b. Leaves a reduced quantity of that commodity available where consumers access it. . .
. . . Then you’re denying the use of what you took to the other customers and/or increasing the cost to the seller.
Ask yourself: if these things are true, are you stealing? *#
*This is a yes or no question. Just answer honestly–to yourself if you want–yes or no? If you have to cite Tesla or compose 60 lines of run-on prose in order to answer, I’ll say it again: yes or no?
#And yes, I know this isn’t how case law is established, doesn’t map to how any jurisdiction, anywhere, ever actually defined theft, blah blah blah. I love pedantic obfuscation as much as the next person, but c’mon–just answer the damned question, please?
4. Now, returning to the real world, where talk is cheap and actions have consequences, a very humble request for those folks with claims to make and examples to cite:
Legal eagles: I would love folks who cite legal cases/rulings from Tanzania in 1936, or the Podunk NV Utility District, or whatever the hell it is, to include a link to a source that I can use to read, learn, and educate myself. Sorry, but I’m funny that way.
Power company insiders: I would also appreciate those citing how utility easements work to point me to a source with expert authority or (ideally) an actual example of such an agreement.
Doctor, doctor: Those making medical claims, do your part, too! Point me to an actual peer-reviewed study or literature review (i.e. study of multiple studies) regarding power line transmissions and cancer/brain damage/crossed eyes/whatever.
Add it up: Finally, “do the math” warriors, I’ll confess: I’m a confirmed math-dummy. I do, however, accept that mathematics is, you know, a real thing and stuff, so blow my mind: actually DO THE MATH right here, in your comment. Or hit the easy button and link to a source that does it for you. (You get major bonus points if they do the “explain it to an idiot” thing, which is just about my speed–I refer to subtraction as “addition’s tricky kissin cousin,” but do I try my best.)
Sorry if this ran long, but there’s value in substance, and the key to substance is having quality sources for one’s claims. You can, perhaps, see why I’m ready to go stark raving nuts with the number of unsourced “facts” and low-value anecdotal claims on this thread. You can do better — please do!
Thanks!
Well put!
Have you stopped abusing animals?
“*This is a yes or no question. Just answer honestly–to yourself if you want–yes or no? If you have to cite Tesla or compose 60 lines of run-on prose in order to answer, I’ll say it again: yes or no?”
This isn’t an actual easement, but it does a pretty good job laying out the terms of the easement in an accessible way: https://www.bpa.gov/-/media/Aep/lands/lusi-Living-and-working-safely-around-high-voltage-power-lines.pdf
My land includes an easement for a BPA transmission line, and I have read it, but it was written something like 70 years ago, so the copies on file with the county are barely legible scans of a multi-generation photocopy of a hand-corrected typewritten document, so this link is probably more useful.
Of note: I need to coordinate any use of land in the easement with BPA, even though I own that land, and the easement grants them the right to remove anything that interferes with their operations. Either of those terms means that a project like this would be doomed, even if it weren’t a terrible idea anyway.
By which I mean, look up what happens when even a small current transformer doesn’t have a burden resistor, then consider that this is a current transformer with a really chunky primary current, and think about what happens when you go to fix your long wire after it breaks in a windstorm.
A lot of these things can be answered one way or another using a simple Internet search engine.
To be fair, it is a pretty big task to summarize a whole masters degree in a comment here. The math starts where school math ends.
So you start with a dot charge in free space an look at the field. You put a second charge, a line charge, a conducting plane — and you’re stuck. You replace the plane by virtual charges which generate the same field. From the field you generate components for an equivalent circuit diagram and show that it gives the same results — except when you have singular charges. Fortunately the charge-plane-conversion works backwards, too. Now you allow a time dependance in the fields, which results in partial differential equations on complex functions. At this point the answer to any question is about as cryptic as the question itself.
The equivalent circuit now has complex impedances, and you use fourier transformations to switch from time domain to frequency domain, where you can separate the three coupled phases into three independent phases (heavy math, as you might guess), which finally allows the calculation of various events on the transmission line (have a length of parallel wire, and you have a capacitive voltage divider between the cables and ground, as well as a transformer with one winding for each conductor; an isolated length of wire can trap a dangerous amount of charge, when a short circuit induces a voltage peak across the wire that sparks to ground on one end). This is why you want everything well grounded near a transmission line.
Looking at the complex functions above you realize the conductor is not what carries the energy. Instead the conductor forces boundary conditions on the fields around the conductor. This field has two kinds of modes, depending on space, materials and frequency: decaying modes (near field) and propagating modes (far field). Radiation are the propagating modes leaving the proximity of the conductor into space. You can catch these without directly disturbing the sender. The energy transport on a transmission line happens in the decaying mode, which you can not catch without disturbing the field which transports the energy. Any (ideal) conductor and isolator will alter the field, but not extract energy, any resistance will dampen the field and therefore introduce losses. This is why the energy company wants everything well grounded near a transmission line.
Now please some native english speakers translate this into something understandable :)
My only question is do we have to get up to 85 mph before the flux capacitor kicks in and the DeLorean will in fact go back in time?
I agree with another post- this is an old trick. There was a farmer in TN who had a long wire running along the top of his fence that paralleled a TVA HV transmission line just off the right-of-way. The voltage achieved allowed him to series-connect and power fluorescent tubes in his nearby barn. Others living adjacent to towers of high power AM broadcast stations have done the same trick with the RF energy they emit coupled to a lengthy wire and a simple, tuned circuit that’s resonant on the station’s frequency.
The issue here is it’s been done and if the electrical company sees you doing his they will like they have in the past charge for the power as they own it. What most dont know is under transmission stations there are webs that capture the waste energy that goes to the ground.
What if my cow uses the easement, wanders onto someone elses property, builds a fence and uses the electricity, am i stealing the electricity.
Lol… I love reading the comments on the legality aspect of this. My personal .02c view on the legality aslect is this: I have highline crossing a section of my field. There are no towers on my land. If…. IF I were to decide to “capture” some of those electrons, in such a way as to supplement some low voltage lighting in my barn, I would not ask if it were illegal, because I don’t care if it is or isn’t. In fact, this comment section has actually piqued my sense of curiosity in such a way as to intrigue the juvenile lurking inside me that likes to do stuff just to satisfy that curiosity…. to see if it can be done. Thank you all for your input, I am convinced.
From what I read is that’s what the man is asking. Can I use it, do you need better isulators to stop. Second he wonders if it could kill someone in the wrong place at the right time. So with that said. It d onto fn matter. Thr AHJ AUTHORITY HAVING JURISDICTION.
I reckon to solve the dispute you’d need to use a watt meter to the power line sensitive enough to detect the energy being drawn when a load is put on the fence or coils far below which is acting like the secondary in transformer. Any slight wattage registering on the watt meter would really be theft though.
Wow, so many misconceptions in the comments. The wire does not “bleed” radiation and “loose energy anyways” with “throwaway” electricity, etc. What really happens is the wire creates a magnetic field with practically zero amps, zero power and zero loss, because there is no load… UNLESS you tap it with electromagnetic induction. Then you are creating a feedback mechanism, where your load is altering the field, which pulls more current from the line to stabilise the field, which increases the current on the line, which increases the load of the power plant.
It is like tapping a water line, that reduces the pressure, that increases the load of the pumping station. So no matter how you “tap” the line you are stealing electricity. Practical losses on the line do not compare to tapping the line directly or indirectly.
Was doing photography underneath the 525 kilovolt lines in Pickering Ontario and I had my metals tripod sitting on the ground right underneath and between them and myself was another line at 33 kg. Once I touch the tripod I ended up with a electric shock right down the side of my body. So definitely the lines do give off power. That would be useful. I had the engineers check on it and they said that the height of the lines were quite normal
My father had a farm with an electric fence under some high tension lines. One day we needed to replace some post standoffs courtesy of the local deer population. We turned the power off and headed to the post that needed maintenance. I was quite surprised to receive a tingle when I grabbed the fence. At first I thought it was because of latent capacitance but when I grabbed the line again I got another tingle. We figured it was due to magnetic induction from the power lines above. Not my preferred method of learning though.
This is actually an issue in railway signalling, if the track runs parallel to HV lines. Induction can cause current to flow in the track, and signalling wires running along the track. If not accounted for, this can spontaneously cause signals to turn green, when it should still be showing red.
Not commenting on the right or wrong of getting energy this way, but has anyone ever rode a bicycle near or under those high voltage lines? I have and let me tell you, electromagnetic radiation is no joke! I have gotten mildly shocked any time I took my hand off the rubber handle bar grip and touched the handle bar itself.
I am a retired power company field technologist. Our company had people who physically walked every mile of line and did close inspections of every pole. Poles are physically struck to listen to their sound to detect rot. Crews drive around doing inspections, drones patrol lines, choppers and planes run regular inspections, and circuitry can pinpoint disturbances to a short distance. Power companies are serious and severe about violators of their right of way.
The electric grid quietly has the status of national security to protect it. Arrests lead to convictions and retaliations. I can remember overhearing managers planning to put circuits and equipment in place of a troublemaker’s house. They can do any thing to any property, paying very little in compensation because of domain laws. Our company had the power of the US government for much of its early existance.
Everyone thinks they are smarter than the grid. Several times a year we reviewed the pictures of human ash being removed from electric power facilities because someone made a mistake while tresspassing for some reason. Is your experiment worth the risk? You are dealing with 3-D forces, not just stuff where your hands are. Around high voltage power lines, the concept of “ground” and “shielding” is moot. A few feet of wire can develop enough voltage to damage equipment or produce physical effects. Then there is the shock of the cop asking you what you are doing…
I think the thing that staggers me the most about this story is the sheer number of people reading, and willing to rant on a post, who do not fundamentally understand electricity. What happened in school? AC, radiation, induction, isolation transformers, all this was in high school and college physics. The morality of the stealing is another thing entirely, ironically.
People have been prosecuted for this very things, but there are a lot of people here that don’t know why. It has nothing to do with efficiency of the lines, nothing to do with theft, nothing to do with safety. It’s all about you not paying them money for your power. There have been four free or nearly free energy devices built over the years. They are documented in newspaper archives. Check out what happened to each of those individuals. Warning, Google won’t tell you much, so as much as it burns me to recommend anything of Dr. Steven Greer’s, you can look up his disclosure website to get a leg up in how to research this. He gives you the whole story, but I’m fully aware that some won’t Believe it till they see for themselves, so go research. This is all about money, nothing more, nothing less, period.
If it’s on your property then why not.. This energy is otherwise going to waste.
All I want to know is, was Doc Brown right or wrong when he said we still need a thunder storm, if we get the DeLorean to 85mph and have the Flux compactors working and all the diodes are in line when we want to go back to the future??????
36.3 joules…… well my phone calculator is telling me a half a million joules is equivalent to about 140 watt hours. Sooooo what,…. 100 miles of “fence” to power the light in your shed?
Personally I don’t care if it’s illegal or not. I like the fact that it could be done. Although I may have experimented with it in a few ways just to see differences. Although the capacitor charged up I wonder how long it took? I also wonder what would happen if a bigger value of capacitance was added. Maybe increase the value of voltage it could operate with. Apparently the charge was more than the capacitor rating. Putting capacitors in series gives you a higher voltage rating, as they are dividing them up so to speak. Some of you already know this but there are others who do not. If say you had two capacitors rated at say 1000 V dc and each had a rated capacitance of 100uF and you hooked them up in series it would be the same as one capacitor rated at 50uF at a 2000Vdc operating voltage. If you put the same capacitors in parallel, it would become 200uF at 1000 Vdc. I’m not going to explain ac and dc electrolytic capacitors here just trying to keep with the article. People would wonder what if.
I think you could measure the ac first before you begin your project to know what ac voltages are present on your fence or wire. Then find the point where it is the highest voltage. You could then determine what value of rectifiers you need to be of proper voltage rating etc. I would also add a resistor in series used for measurements and to prevent the inrush current to the capacitors if there is too much. Who knows what that could be, right? We are just experimenting here. You would have to keep in mind that The capacitor could be an old one like what appears in the article, which has more leakage current due to resistance within itself it acquires over time. You may choose one that has so much leakage that it will not charge. So keep that in mind.
Another thought is, after you have found the initial ac voltage as I stated early on you could drop that voltage down, before you run it into a capacitor. I mean what is 1000 volts really useful for? Just using this as an example of course. For me, 13.8- 14.5 Vdc would be ideal for charging a battery where I could put it to use, even use an inverter to get 120vac or whatever your country uses. You would have to determine the maximum power that would be available to you, so you could determine what you could use it for.
Anyhow I would be more interested in hearing everyone’s ideas rather than me reading comment after comment about if it’s illegal or not. I couldn’t believe all the comments I read. I gave up reading them. If you don’t want to experiment because you think it’s illegal, then don’t ! Can’t you just see it for what it is? It’s an experiment! You could use the info to utilize an experiment of sone other sort in a different environment. Experimenters see value in everything they see and determine, “is this useful for me or not”. Yes I’ve built pirate transmitters before when I was a kid. I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it. I spent hours upon hours figuring it out. Then one day I realized the secret. All without the internet! Didn’t have internet when I was a kid. This article here would have inspired me to build this and to experiment. Even Nicola Tesla experimented. This is how we gain knowledge to come up with what we have in todays world of micro chips etc. People experimenting! Argue all you want if it’s illegal or not, but what value does that have with this experiment? I still didn’t see anyone quote any law. But if you did what difference would it make to an experimenter? Can’t anyone grow up and talk about the value of knowing what this author had to offer instead of talking about a cow farting on one side of the fence and wondering if it’s legal to sniff it if the smell comes on your side of the fence. Good grief!
I was studying Electronics in the Navy in 1999.. where I first heard this story where a German was using his fence via induction theory and wire tap to power his for years before he got caught…Not going to lie that might be one of smartest stories I’ve ever heard
Useing magnaminous rectum-friers is the answer!🙄
No balanced line is perfectly balanced. Mtyhbusters showed with big wire loops on the ground you only got a very tiny amout of power. Collecting 35 joules in a few minutes is a very small amount of power. It is because of leakage losses. If you where able to put loops of insulated wire around one of the transmission wires then you could suck out power. But it would not take the power company long to loctate were the power was being sucked out. Of course doing this would be extreemly dangerous. Most of the stories sbout getting power from AC high voltage power lines is just bullshit.
Kinda shows that Nicola Teslas tower of power probably would have worked. Especially if the technology was updated over time up until now. So why has the Government not released all of the records of his works and his property the seized? Could his idea of WiFi like free electricity for the entire planet actually be possible? Rather you think it’s conspiracy theory or not… There’s actually 100% proof out there that a lot of technology to replace oil or gasoline and make cars get 50 to 100 mph was brought up by companies and never released. Or collected by the government and never seen again. As soon as even more proof that large industry tycoons are in bed with government officials. And have been for the last 150 years or more. For instance there was no reason for hemp to be suppressed and not used except for the fact that it could have completely wiped out the cotton industry. It grows faster and more hearty and you can do even more with it than cotton. And why aren’t we using natural gas and automobiles or propane when it burns 100% clean but no emissions? And it makes engines last longer and stay cleaner… And there’s an abundance of natural gas. People could fill up with their own homes and gas stations wouldn’t even be needed. Why are we pushing for electrical when we should be pushing for natural gas? Which is already being used in vehicles and garbage trucks and buses etc. Every forklift you see inside of a building runs on propane or natural gas. This is why there is zero emissions coming from them indoors. Meaning they won’t make anybody sick from breathing noxious exhaust fumes etc. all I’m saying is there is something to be said for electricity harvesting. And I know that Tesla was trying to take it straight out of the ground not from a transmission wires… But if you’ve done any research at all you know there’s something to be said about that as well. Anyway… Have fun people
Hydrogen.