Experiments

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Adamjamma

Senior Member
but, when you lit it up, was it with chargeable power or waste power? that is the question... I mean, a water company has a leak for a long time, and does nothing to find it. Farmer has no idea it is feeding his pond that he waters his corn from, just knows that he has no problem for a few years with his pond drying up.
Is the farmer responsible for the water that the water company lost by not fixing the leaks in their pipes?

Or, taken another way, you capture rainwater from the storms as much as possible, using it on your property. But, by doing so, some rainwater does not make it into the local rivers and streams, so is not able to be captured by the water company to supply their customers. Are you stealing from them?

I mean, some people have been suing the government claiming solar panels are stealing the suns rays and cause the sun to die..
 

FionaZuppa

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Occupation
Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
No question there. But, that doesn't directly answer my last question.

If i have a simple xfrmer, two coils, one side the primary being driven by a source. There is no load on secondary, so the primary is using power just on self impedance alone. Now add a load to the secondary, what happens to the primary current? Ok, so now keep the load attached to the secondary and then pull the secondary coil away from the primary, what happens to primary current. Now that you have a secondary coil with a load attached (say a 10ohm) and the coil is 20ft away, what's the current on the primary? Ok, now return the secondary back to close proximity of primary, what happens to the current on primary side ?
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Let me ask it a different way, using a real load, not fluorescent:

If I string 100 feet of wire below a transmission line and wire it to a light bulb in my shed, and the bulb lights up, I'm clearly using real electricity that I'm not paying for.

But, when I am using the light, does the transmission line current increase by the amount of my usage, or does the current leaking into the earth decrease by my usage?

In other words, does my interception of a dripping water leak increase the flow of water in the pipe, or merely decrease the amount of water soaking into the ground?
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
If i have a simple xfrmer, two coils, one side the primary being driven by a source. There is no load on secondary, so the primary is using power just on self impedance alone. Now add a load to the secondary, what happens to the primary current? Ok, so now keep the load attached to the secondary and then pull the secondary coil away from the primary, what happens to primary current. Now that you have a secondary coil with a load attached (say a 10ohm) and the coil is 20ft away, what's the current on the primary? Ok, now return the secondary back to close proximity of primary, what happens to the current on primary side ?
Not the same question. I know magnetic coupling affects transfer of power.

I'm asking whether intercepting power increases the line loss or merely uses some of the existing loss.
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
190104-2134 EST

Larry Fine:

An experiment you can perform.

Components: Kill-A-Watt EZ, 30 mfd high quality capacitor, and 5 ohm power resistor.

First, measure capacitor alone with about 120 V 60 Hz applied. I read 1.4 A and about 0.7 W.
Second, add a series 5 ohm power resistor. I read 1.38 A and about 10.4 W.

Be careful. The capacitor retains the voltage of at the time of last turn off. On a high quality capacitor this voltage only dissipates slowly.

The capacitor alone near zero loss.

.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
First, measure capacitor alone with about 120 V 60 Hz applied. I read 1.4 A and about 0.7 W.
Second, add a series 5 ohm power resistor. I read 1.38 A and about 10.4 W.
So the addition of the series resistor increases the power consumption by almost 15 times???

And with no increase in current?


That still doesn't tell us where the intercepted power comes from, or where it otherwise goes.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
My question is whether the energy consumed is additional energy taken from the line or a reduction in the energy otherwise lost.
A very good question. At the simplest, it is a theoretically measurable drain on the energy carried by the transmission line. It may be difficult to distinguish from increased environmental losses.
If you turn the bulb on and off there would either be a change in the real power going into the line or a change in the power coming out the other end, depending on how the line is regulated.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
190104-2453 EST

LarryFine:

In my demonstration experiment there was virtually no power loss before the series resistor was added. The same is true of the power line situation. Add the dissipating load and the power to the load is extracted from the source. It is added load to the source. It is not transferred from from somewhere else.

.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
In my demonstration experiment there was virtually no power loss before the series resistor was added. The same is true of the power line situation. Add the dissipating load and the power to the load is extracted from the source. It is added load to the source. It is not transferred from from somewhere else.
I don't see the correlation between your experiment and my question. Your closed-circuit examples are not the same as a wireless induction interaction.
 

Sahib

Senior Member
Location
India
I don't see the correlation between your experiment and my question. Your closed-circuit examples are not the same as a wireless induction interaction.
The AC transmission line acts as a transformer primary with electromagnetic flux radiating out. The Fluorescent tube acts as a secondary converting part of energy in the electromagnetic flux into light energy.
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
190104-2541 EST

LarryFine:

Whether you collect energy from a power line by capacitive coupling, electric field, or by magnetic induction, magnetic field, the energy to the load is not shifted from somewhere else, but is a new extraction from the power line source. You can change my experiment from capacitive coupling to magnetic and get the same results.

.
 

Sahib

Senior Member
Location
India
The AC transmission line acts as a transformer primary with electromagnetic flux radiating out. The Fluorescent tube acts as a secondary converting part of energy in the electromagnetic flux into light energy.
Continuing the above argument, you may see that that there would be many'' secondaries'' such as metal support tower for the transmission line around the transmission line converting the energy in the electromagnetic flux from the transmission line into other forms of energy (ultimately into heat energy). So it depends on the input energy into the transmission line to supply energy to all these ''secondaries'' including the fluorescent tube light just as in the case of a conventional transformer with multiple secondaries.
 

Adamjamma

Senior Member
So you are saying that the electricity is a radio signal being kept within the cables but that the signal is able to be monitored by the power company for losses or for users... so that unlike the radio station that has no idea who is receiving the signals unless, like in Britain, they drive up and down the road with sniffer vans to see is any reception equipment in your home... they know at the production plant that hey, someone is using power that should not be... and that the meters are just their way of collecting for the production of the signal?
hmm... but, if one has generators and solar on site producing ones own power, how then could they prove the signal theft did or did not come from that site?

Given this is theoretical anyway that one could somehow capture the signal that got out of the cables?
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Or, taken another way, you capture rainwater from the storms as much as possible, using it on your property. But, by doing so, some rainwater does not make it into the local rivers and streams, so is not able to be captured by the water company to supply their customers. Are you stealing from them?

In some jurisdictions under their rules, yes.
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
190105-1233 EST

Eddie_T:

You list yourself as an electrical engineer. So in basic terms thing about your comment of the last post.

Does a pure capacitor dissipate energy as heat? If I add series or parallel resistance to a pure capacitor does that resistance dissipate energy as heat? What does a fluorescent bulb electrically appear as when placed in a large gradient AC electric field? Does the AC electric field between electric power lines and ground dissipate much energy as heat?

.
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Something I used to see but don't anymore for some reason were those red balls on overhead high tension lines that had strobes on them. I assume the strobes were powered by the same mechanism we are discussing.
 

FionaZuppa

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Occupation
Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
Something I used to see but don't anymore for some reason were those red balls on overhead high tension lines that had strobes on them. I assume the strobes were powered by the same mechanism we are discussing.
Aircraft markers, and they have small air cooled nuke power supplies in them ;):lol:
 

FionaZuppa

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Occupation
Part Time Electrician (semi retired, old) - EE retired.
Let me ask it a different way, using a real load, not fluorescent:

If I string 100 feet of wire below a transmission line and wire it to a light bulb in my shed, and the bulb lights up, I'm clearly using real electricity that I'm not paying for.

But, when I am using the light, does the transmission line current increase by the amount of my usage, or does the current leaking into the earth decrease by my usage?

In other words, does my interception of a dripping water leak increase the flow of water in the pipe, or merely decrease the amount of water soaking into the ground?

Ah, i think you have two very different examples.

W/ or w/o your bucket to catch the leak, the source supply remains constant.

Now take my xfrmr example, when you pull a loaded secondary away from primary (or put it back) there's an affect on the source.

Magnetic coupling is way different than electric field coupling. Take for example a FM transmission antenna, it pumps out 1kW of Rf at say 106.1MhZ. All around that transmitting antenna are receiving antenna of just the right size, to get some resonance so that teh receiving gear can "hear" the signal. Now take away all the receiving antenna, does that affect the Transmit load? Nope. Put in close proximity to the transmitting antenna 1mil 1/4wave omni receiving antenna, does that affect the Transmit load? Nope.

Why does the bulb only glow when its near the power line? Where exactly does the bulb have to be? You dont need to have the bulb in the E field that exists between the two mains of the power lines, the bulb is interacting with the mag field from one line, and that mag field interaction creates a e-field inside the bulbs causing excitation of mercury atoms.

The bulbs basically change the impedance as seen by the source ;)

see https://interferencetechnology.com/antenna-fundamentals/
 
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