I'm skeptical, but it'd be neat for micropower apps if it pans out.

 

I'm skeptical, but it'd be neat for micropower apps if it pans out.

I got more power with solar panels and moon light.
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/super-moon-shine.100322/post-90477

1.2 uW power from a 240W array, I could charge a capacitor and use it to run my cell phone

 

I got more power with solar panels and moon light.
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/super-moon-shine.100322/post-90477

1.2 uW power from a 240W array, I could charge a capacitor and use it to run my cell phone

So... what about moonless and/or overcast nights, or underground?

 

So... what about moonless and/or overcast nights, or underground?

Moonless and/or overcast nights, then you use the energy stored from the previous days sunlight. Underground and depending on a nano-watt power source, you are screwed.

 

For moonless, sunless, micropower numbers, lithium-free and less than 50 year;
----> https://www.techspot.com/news/107357-coin-sized-nuclear-3v-battery-50-year-lifespan.html

 

For moonless, sunless, micropower numbers, lithium-free and less than 50 year;
----> https://www.techspot.com/news/107357-coin-sized-nuclear-3v-battery-50-year-lifespan.html

So, what about moonless, sunless, underground, lithium free, and more than 50 years?

Damn this is a tough room. I'm talking free electricity here!

 

This old farmer figured it out...

 

This old farmer figured it out...

How can your run your electric whiskey still with just mW?
https://moonshinestills.com/collect...gallon-moonshine-still-complete-unit-hotplate

 

Build a better "fence" and trickle charge a LOT of batteries for a long time of course.

 

Trickle charge a LOT of batteries for a long time of course.

About a thousand years should do one batch.

 

Of course there are totally legal ways to capture FREE electrical energy: For a QUALITATIVE demonstration all you need is access to the high impedance input of an audio amplifier.. Carefully connect an insulated wire to the no-grounded sid of an input, and turn up the gain. THAT HUM indicates that the wire is collecting un-metered energy.
For a QUANTITATIVE measurement you will need a digital multimeter with a high impedance AC input. Connect the meter common side to your local "green wire" safety "ground", and connect the AC input side to the "long insulated wire. Read the AC voltage on the meter's AC Volts scale.
These same tests can be done outside to verify that you are not using metered power.
Of course, the reality is that the legal free power is not enough to be useful. That is a small problem.

 

The problem with all of these tiny energy level capture contraptions is the pay back in parts and construction costs to energy captured value. Solar panels for the house might take 10 or more years to break-even capturing tens of KWH of energy per day. With a 25 year system life, that's >8% IRR, not bad.

None of the capture FREE electrical energy gizmos will ever break-even in yours or your great-grand kids lifetimes.

 

THAT HUM indicates that the wire is collecting un-metered energy.

Not likely. If you are indoors, the power is coming from the current used for devices in your home, and any power it receives is removed from those other devices.

If you are outdoors and it is coming from power lines, yes, you are getting power you did not pay for.

 

Maaaany years ago I tried to harvest at least 1 Watt from under Gwatt transmission lines in the foggy Andes mountains to keep a battery charged for a radio repeater operation. Did not happen. Could hear the 60Hz buzzing overhead ! Tried a barbed wire fence, tried with a tuned LC circuit to 60 Hz; did not happen .

 

Post #12 makes explicit what I stated, which is that the power captured is not enough to be useful.
AND, to answer post #13, the hum pickup is from the radiated VOLTAGE, not from the current. And most of us only pay for the power received, except for that service charge for having the voltage present.

 

AND, to answer post #13, the hum pickup is from the radiated VOLTAGE, not from the current. And most of us only pay for the power received, except for that service charge for having the voltage present.

So you think a current carrying wire can radiate energy with no loss? Sorry, it is basic physics.

 

a while ago i was reading tip to power garden lights (couple of incandescent bulbs) with energy stolen from nearby broadcast station. they suggested using long antenna (clothing line) and GND, or if access to GND is not practical to use another antenna parallel but close to ground. incandescent bulbs lighting up a backyard. i fell on the floor laughing and crying.

 

The current to produce an electric field from normal home wiring is not likely to be enough to register on the watt-hour meter. The ELECTRIC field is independent from the current generated magnetic field.

 

The current to produce an electric field from normal home wiring is not likely to be enough to register on the watt-hour meter. The ELECTRIC field is independent from the current generated magnetic field.

There is a dependency, as the electric and magnetic fields are just components of one EM field. This idea that they are separated is obsolete HS level physics from long ago. It's an outdated idea long replaced by SR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field

Over time, it was realized that the electric and magnetic fields are better thought of as two parts of a greater whole—the electromagnetic field. In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted showed that an electric current can deflect a nearby compass needle, establishing that electricity and magnetism are closely related phenomena.[8] Faraday then made the seminal observation that time-varying magnetic fields could induce electric currents in 1831.

Whether a physical effect is attributable to an electric field or to a magnetic field is dependent upon the observer, in a way that special relativity makes mathematically precise. For example, suppose that a laboratory contains a long straight wire that carries an electrical current. In the frame of reference where the laboratory is at rest, the wire is motionless and electrically neutral: the current, composed of negatively charged electrons, moves against a background of positively charged ions, and the densities of positive and negative charges cancel each other out. A test charge near the wire would feel no electrical force from the wire. However, if the test charge is in motion parallel to the current, the situation changes. In the rest frame of the test charge, the positive and negative charges in the wire are moving at different speeds, and so the positive and negative charge distributions are Lorentz-contracted by different amounts. Consequently, the wire has a nonzero net charge density, and the test charge must experience a nonzero electric field and thus a nonzero force. In the rest frame of the laboratory, there is no electric field to explain the test charge being pulled towards or pushed away from the wire. So, an observer in the laboratory rest frame concludes that a magnetic field must be present.[12][13]

In general, a situation that one observer describes using only an electric field will be described by an observer in a different inertial frame using a combination of electric and magnetic fields. Analogously, a phenomenon that one observer describes using only a magnetic field will be, in a relatively moving reference frame, described by a combination of fields. The rules for relating the fields required in different reference frames are the Lorentz transformations of the fields.[14]

Thus, electrostatics and magnetostatics are now seen as studies of the static EM field when a particular frame has been selected to suppress the other type of field, and since an EM field with both electric and magnetic will appear in any other frame, these "simpler" effects are merely a consequence of different frames of measurement. The fact that the two field variations can be reproduced just by changing the motion of the observer is further evidence that there is only a single actual field involved which is simply being observed differently.

 

I can pick up a voltage signal with a single open-ended wire quite well. Given that the open end of the wire is two feet from anything, any possible current is much less than I can measure. And yet the voltage at the amplifier input is at least 25 millivolts to produce that level of hum, which is comparable to the output of a dynamic microphone producing a similar sound level. 25 millivolts into a 50,000 ohm load is not a very useful amount of power.