Engineer Creates "FREE ENERGY" Battery Charger

[Brian-M]

This suggests how you could get free lighting for your home if you built it under high tension wires.

Of course, it's illegal to construct buildings under high tension wires. The area below is always kept clear in case the wires break.

 

[grmcdorman]

Not just that. Wires sag under load (due to heating); that of course reduces clearance margins.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Of course, it's illegal to construct buildings under high tension wires. The area below is always kept clear in case the wires break.

I'm sure the probability of HT wires actually falling on your house is incredibly small. Even if illegal in the USA, I'd imagine there are places in the world where it would be legal.

Does anyone know, technically, if those lamps under the lines actually put a load on the line? I know it may be a very, very small load, but would it really be zero?

Those look like 40 watt fluorescent bulbs. What if there were a thousand of them between each pair of towers, mile after mile, for a hundred miles? No load?

 

[ben m]

I agree that this sort of technology, if it worked, (a) is power theft and (b) isn't a good way even for a wannabe-power-thief to steal power.

There might be some useful edge cases. Think about, say, sensors. Smoke detectors, for example. You need one on your ceiling, but it's overkill (and expensive) to run an electrical circuit to each detector location. Batteries are a stopgap with a finite lifetime. Imagine a smoke detector that could trickle-charge by leeching a few nanowatts from the 60Hz RF noise.

Imagine you were a HVAC engineer and you wanted a thousand temperature-data traces from a large building. Imagine something like an LED throwie that you could stick anywhere, forget about for a year or two, then collect and read out via RFID. (Sure, batteries could do it---but then the sensor/battery/board has to be packaged expensively, plus then you have 1000 batteries to change.)

 

[nathan]

I'm sure the probability of HT wires actually falling on your house is incredibly small. Even if illegal in the USA, I'd imagine there are places in the world where it would be legal.

Yes, and we must publicize the dangers of Heavy Electricity! It falls on their heads, and stops them growing to normal height.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Sam awaits the first mention of "Tesla"...

 

[Mr. Scott]

Sam awaits the first mention of "Tesla"...

Haha it was by you! Tesla proposed filling the air with free energy.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about whether or not the presence of a radio receiver causes a non-zero load on the transmitter. We don't know!

I'll say it does, even if the receiver is on another solar system.

...or the battery charger

 

[Zax63]

A few people have stated that tapping into the EMF field is illegal. Can anyone point to any actual laws about that? If I tune a radio to receive random static am I committing a crime?

 

[TjW]

Haha it was by you! Tesla proposed filling the air with free energy.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about whether or not the presence of a radio receiver causes a non-zero load on the transmitter. We don't know!

I'll say it does, even if the receiver is on another solar system.

...or the battery charger

Yes, it does. This is how passive RFID works. The reader puts out a field. The tag powers up from the field, then modulates the field by changing how much power it pulls.

The percentage of the field it can affect, though, drops off as the cube of the distance.

 

[Cuddles]

A few people have stated that tapping into the EMF field is illegal. Can anyone point to any actual laws about that?

In the UK, there's the Electricity Act 1989 and Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006.
From schedule 6, paragraph 4 of the former:

Where any person takes a supply of electricity which is in the course of being conveyed by an electricity distributor, the distributor shall be entitled to recover from that person the value of the electricity so taken.

and from section 55 of the latter:

the use of the apparatus is likely to cause undue interference with wireless telegraphy

Obviously there's a lot more and the specific parts that could apply in any particular case might be hard to find, but the basic gist is that it's illegal to get any electricity from a power line other than through a normal paid connection, and it's illegal to use any device which is likely to interfere with any wireless communications. The video explicitly shows this device doing both.

It's also worth noting, although I haven't looked up the exact details, that different frequency ranges have different regulations. Some bands are allowed for amateur radio use and you can get away with quite a lot in that area, while the bands reserved for mobile phone networks, TV, and so on, are regulated much more strongly with use of particular frequencies usually restricted to a single company. So a wireless doorbell, for example, is allowed as long as it uses particular frequencies to send its signal, but would be illegal if it used, or even just leaked too much signal into, various other frequencies. And again, note that the developer of this charger says he spent a lot of time deliberately tuning it to interfere with mobile phone signals (although obviously he doesn't use those exact words).

That said, as it stands I suspect it might get away on the interference end of things (but still not the electricity theft end) on the grounds that it's such low power that it doesn't actually produce significant interference, and wouldn't even in large numbers. But the problem there is that, as already noted, that makes it pretty much useless because it would hardly gather any power. Any attempt to make it gather a significant amount of power would of course also make it cause significant interference. So it basically has the choice of being useful or being legal.

If I tune a radio to receive random static am I committing a crime?

No. There are a ton of exemptions, special cases and so on. Earlier versions of these laws existed largely to ensure that you would be able to use your radio at all, so obviously they're written in such a way that normal radio use isn't illegal. They're not, however, written in a way that allows you to remotely drain someone's mobile phone in order to charge your own batteries.

Note that uses such as ben m suggests would likely be OK. If you have a device inside your own building, it's only going to be leeching power from your own power lines, and you'll pay for that just as you would if it was plugged directly into the wall.

 

[Mudcat]

Sam awaits the first mention of "Tesla"...

Cursory research online and I found that Tesla ran into a problem experimenting with the same technology. That problem is that it's unsafe to use at high voltages, and a couple of his assistants were badly electrocuted.

 

[Brian-M]

I was talking to a friend yesterday about whether or not the presence of a radio receiver causes a non-zero load on the transmitter. We don't know!

I'll say it does, even if the receiver is on another solar system.

...or the battery charger

It doesn't. The antenna is transmitting photons, a sort-of like a light bulb. Facing a solar-cell towards a light-bulb doesn't cause the light-bulb to draw any more power. (But it would block the light to anything behind it.)

Yes, it does. This is how passive RFID works. The reader puts out a field. The tag powers up from the field, then modulates the field by changing how much power it pulls.

The percentage of the field it can affect, though, drops off as the cube of the distance.

I think those kind of RFIDs are powered through induction.

 

[Ziggurat]

I was talking to a friend yesterday about whether or not the presence of a radio receiver causes a non-zero load on the transmitter. We don't know!

I'll say it does, even if the receiver is on another solar system.

...or the battery charger

I think that it will only increase the load if the receiver is in the near field of the transmitter. A standard AC voltage converter is essentially the extreme limit of exactly that.

But if the receiver is in the far field region, then it shouldn't make any difference to the transmitter.

 

[JDC]

Kitty Pwer!

View attachment 27503

Frii Energyz!

View attachment 27504

What, not even one "Awwwwee!"

Not even Mudcat!


You people are heartless! Heartless!

That's it, you asked for it!

Triple-A battery!
AAA

 

[Mudcat]

Sorry JDC, I didn't go aww because I was too busy laughing, your pictures you posted reminded me of this:

 

[phunk]

I think that it will only increase the load if the receiver is in the near field of the transmitter. A standard AC voltage converter is essentially the extreme limit of exactly that.

But if the receiver is in the far field region, then it shouldn't make any difference to the transmitter.

It will create load if it's drawing energy from it inductively, like a transformer. It will not if it is just capturing radiated photons, like a solar cell.

 

[Mr. Scott]

It will create load if it's drawing energy from it inductively, like a transformer. It will not if it is just capturing radiated photons, like a solar cell.

How about the fluorescent tubes near the high tension wires? Inductive load?

 

[Mr. Scott]

I think that it will only increase the load if the receiver is in the near field of the transmitter. A standard AC voltage converter is essentially the extreme limit of exactly that.

But if the receiver is in the far field region, then it shouldn't make any difference to the transmitter.

Is there are hard boundary between the near and far field regions? If there isn't then the load should never hit zero, I'd think.

 

[Ziggurat]

Is there are hard boundary between the near and far field regions? If there isn't then the load should never hit zero, I'd think.

No, there's no hard edge, but the falloff rate should be very fast.

 

[Brian-M]

How about the fluorescent tubes near the high tension wires? Inductive load?

That's a good question. My initial thought is no, not inductive. But there may be factors at play I haven't considered.