[time-nuts] White LED's

[Dr. David Kirkby]

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