Tap into the phone company's current... if you dare

Ever wonder if you could tap the electrical current on your phone company's landlines (does anyone still use those anymore?) to supply low-powered household gadgets with juice in an emergency (or financial pinch)? Turns out that apparently it ain't too hard to get between 40 and 70 volts (no word on wattage) with a few components and a little time spent soldering. Now comes the second, more PSA-style half of this post. How ridiculously guilty might you feel if a power outage occurred and people couldn't call for help because enough nerds trying to save a buck by charging their gadgets via landline took out the phone company. Sure, it's a dramatic scenario, but we're just saying it's also potentially dangerous, so use this technique wisely. Embedded video after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, via Instructables]

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Oct 14th 2007 7:28PM]

You cannot "pull volts from a wall". Volts are a measure of potential, volts don't flow, they just are. Amps flow and Watts sort of flow, since they incorporate current as part of their measure.

And you really shouldn't have posted this article, there's little that can be accomplished by doing this except screwing things up.

[Ryan @ Oct 14th 2007 7:39PM]

Watts is a measurement of power. P = VI, so do watts flow? Not really, it is just a measurement.

It really is no secret that phone lines come with 40ish volts to on them. That is how old pay phones works, they were supplied their own power and also the old school telephones that you just simply plugged into the wall, the power was just there.

The only secret about it, is the fact that it is more lost knowledge among average people now. But yeah, definitely could be easily caught when the phone company gets complaints of DSL speeds sucking, they come out and easily trace it to you.

[kaztm @ Oct 15th 2007 7:07PM]

Hackers used to recharge batteries using phone lines at least in the 80s. It was suitable source of power for trickle charge (low current).

But modern (90s) switches have mechanism to detect such abuse or faulty phone line/equipment. People get billed/sued for damages from the phone company, and arrested/prosecuted for violating relevant laws.

[Joe @ Oct 14th 2007 7:34PM]

Yeah this would be great if it wasn't totally illegal, easily traced and if it didn't drain DSL internet speed.

[nizzy1115 @ Oct 14th 2007 7:35PM]

yeah this was a stupid article that got a lot of attention on digg yesterday so engadget thought they would post it because it is a boring sunday night. this is such a stupid idea.

[Kris S. @ Oct 14th 2007 7:37PM]

I'm going to go try it RIGHT NOW.

[Shane @ Oct 14th 2007 7:43PM]

This really is a BAD idea...

The amount of current that can be drawn from the phone line is very small. In addition, the electronics at the phone company monitor the current consumption to determine the status of a line. You might soon find yourself without phone service if you draw too much current from the line for any length of time...

[atrain @ Oct 14th 2007 7:46PM]

Voltage changes a lot while the phone is both ringing and in use. Be very careful with this, if you pull too much power, your line will sound bad / not work at all, and if you don't have the right equipment , you could do damage to your phones or whatever you are powering.

Specifically, phone lines used to be completely responsible for providing the power to make all the phones in the house ring at once. Now, many phones usually draw power from the wall as well (eg: for the lcd). Some phone companies will still be putting tons of current through the line at that point, so watch out!

If you don't want it to flash when it rings, try putting a capacitor somewhere in the circuit. And, do a dsl speedtest before and after trying this to see if it makes a significant difference.

[metal @ Oct 14th 2007 7:46PM]

So ... this means people didnt know that phones ran on electricity? I mean seriously did they think it was powered by magic?

And I mean, yeah, I guess, sure you power some of your appliances with that power, but all this psuedo legal activity and hardware tinkering to save something around the range of less than a buck a month? We might as well be showcasing you tube videos of lemon batteries powering flashlights.

[Scooter @ Oct 15th 2007 7:25AM]

My laptop's a lemon, would be a good match!

[Tachikomatic @ Oct 14th 2007 7:50PM]

I can see the 11 0'clock news headline already...
"Man starts electrical fire while stealing electricity from phone company, simultaneously knocks out all area landlines and is unable to phone for help."

Having played with power over some extra phone patch cables, they get pretty hot when you are pulling more than a couple amps. I wouldn't try this one.

[Shane @ Oct 14th 2007 7:51PM]

It really is nothing new...Some phones have "extra" features that run solely from the current provided by the phone line but most of these devices have their own AC power brick in addition to the phone line connection.

[Alexander @ Oct 14th 2007 7:57PM]

I do like that it flashes when the phone rings...

[girch @ Oct 22nd 2007 3:19PM]

you can buy strobe lights that are made to plug into the phone line, getting the same result.

[Alexander @ Oct 22nd 2007 3:55PM]

yes, and while realizing this is Engadget, I am much more of the hands-on type. I would rather spend a month making something than buying it.

Yes. I am that guy.

All of the circuits I have seen use a battery to power a light. That's stupid--we have +50v right there! Why rely on something that will die, when we could just vampire off some of that excess voltage? Not to mention most of the circuits I have seen use 1M to 22Mohm resistors--What a waste!

[Phillip Black @ Oct 14th 2007 7:58PM]

"All you need to do is get this hidden source of electricity is.....press the Easy button next to the phone."
Would of been a lot better if it went like that.

[JohnTitor @ Oct 14th 2007 8:09PM]

Oh wow, you guys only heard of KipKay
he can do everything, this is small time

[dj-kenpo @ Oct 14th 2007 8:11PM]

to the people saying it's stupid. it's not. I;ve had this setup for a few months now. I get power outages on occasion, and 3 white leds hooked in don't tap any more juice than a normal phone, and they are far better than "where are the candles" or what can I trip over to find the flashlight.

[Josh L @ Oct 14th 2007 10:44PM]

Indeed, here in Florida, storms knock out the power quite often. The power companies here are used to it (mostly) and it's usually back on again within a few hours at the very most, but having a source of light that isn't a candle or a flashlight (which probably has dead batteries anyway) is a godsend.

That said, having a setup like the one shown in the picture and video up there, or using this regularly or for some high-powered gadgets IS a really terrible idea. Also, does Engadget really think that there would be enough DIYer geeks per capita in any one place to seriously affect phone service or bring down the system? I am sure there are failsafes in place, and if there aren't then we have a much bigger problem than some geeks who decided to try out an ill-advised project they found on the internet.

[johnzilla @ Oct 14th 2007 11:11PM]

How about just buying some wind-up flashlights? You can get 2 of them for under $9 at Costco or eBay.

That's the best source of light there is...if you're alive, you'll have light anywhere you like without being tied to a wall jack. If you aren't alive and can't turn the crank, you don't need the light.

Amazing, isn't it?

[dj-kenpo @ Oct 14th 2007 11:15PM]

I love how all the internet is is one big place where people come in to try to tell soemone else how there way is better. a never ending pattern.

I have a wind up flashlight, my ferret ate the button off it.

the material usage and space requirment of a wind up flashlight is higher than converting the voltage and a couple leds.

some people prefer to do thing son their own rather than just go the wal-mart route. neither route is better, just a preference.

[GameboyRMH @ Oct 14th 2007 11:52PM]

@Josh L

No there may not be enough DIYer geeks in one area, but the geeks start it and then eventually the whole ignorant world catches on and abuses it.

See: All technology throughout the history of mankind.

[ed @ Oct 15th 2007 12:15AM]

Anybody that does this is a fucking idiot. I remember dumb ideas like this from "publications" like the Jolly Roger's Cookbook. First off, it is NOT designed for it. The voltages on the line were specifically designed to run the phone only. Not only is is illegal, but it's even unethical (not everything illegal is unethical). You affect not only the phone company doing stupid crap like this, but other users as well. You could not get that much energy of it anyways. Not enough to justify screwing with these systems.

You can get FAR more power underneath a powerline straight from the air. Google that. That is NOT unethical in anyway, shape, or form and affects NOBODY, INCLUDING the power company. They could not sell all those little extra "bits" of power escaping the line right?

This will soon be irrelevent anyways, as everything will going digital and fiber.

P.S - They DO monitor this type of activity, since power usage logs are kept.....

[bryan @ Oct 15th 2007 12:39AM]

Ed- can you share a link to getting electricity under a powerline through the air? Sounds interesting, but I couldn't find anything...

[Ed @ Oct 15th 2007 3:46AM]

Hard to remember. There was a lawsuit against an individual from the power company for "stealing" power. They had power lines running across his backyard. It works on the same principle of holding up a fluorescent light to a strong power line and watching it light up "magically".

You can look at http://stopgeek.com/richard-boxs-light-field.html

A really good picture actually. The gentleman that was sued by the power company was converting this waste energy emanating of the power lines into power for his whole house. That really demonstrates how inefficient the power distribution methods are.

I am not an electrical engineer, but from what I remember it has something to do with the Tesla effect.

P.S - The guy won the lawsuit. The power company cannot own the air over his house and cannot sue for something they are "throwing away".

[spam_from_engadget @ Oct 15th 2007 5:18AM]

> You can get FAR more power underneath a powerline
> straight from the air. Google that. That is NOT
> unethical in anyway, shape, or form and affects NOBODY,
> INCLUDING the power company.

It sounds like you think that the power you extract would otherwise have been "lost" somehow (e.g. heating up the atmosphere or something). This is not true: you have built a transformer with the power line as the primary. So the impedance of the power line in the vicinity of your pickup coil has increased, and energy is lost from it.

[WedgeTalon @ Oct 15th 2007 7:42AM]

"It is possible to get free energy by using a coil of baling wire positioned under a power line."
Verdict: partly plausible

For this myth the MythBusters created a large coil of wire, and wrapped it around a PVC pipe box. They then hoisted it underneath powerlines in order to "catch" some electricity. They were able to obtain about eight millivolts of electricity. They determined that siphoning a practically useful amount of electricity in such a manner would require thousands of pounds of wire, and would be extremely impractical and dangerous, as well as being illegal.

Source: http://mythbustersresults.com/special4

[Ed @ Oct 15th 2007 8:07AM]

I realize the power is not in fact "lost". I am not saying it is destroyed, magically removed from existence itself, etc. That would violate the law of conservation of energy.

What I meant was the power company is "losing" that power. They cannot sell it. It is a byproduct of the inherent inefficiency of the design.

A good analogy would be a company transferring water via an open aqua duct and then suing somebody for extracting the water out of the air around it.

The fluorescent lights are not causing the energy loss in the line itself. That energy would of been "lost", dissipated, emanated, etc. Use whatever appropriate scientific term you wish to use to describe that effect.

Now, the gentleman that was was getting power from those power lines may have been using a different method with no physical contact to the power line itself (that is the important part) but actually caused the power "loss" in the line itself above and beyond the normal losses that would occur. That is an interesting argument that I would like to know the answer to. I do remember that his device was pretty far from the line itself. It was only a few feet off the ground.

[Ed @ Oct 15th 2007 9:01AM]

Forgive me, but getting the power from the power lines in this fashion is 100% LEGAL. All the stories all bullshit propaganda from the power companies. Somebody actually needs to cite precedence on this.

If it was illegal, it would be referred to the DA for prosecution as a *crime*. It never has in my knowledge been done. Why? The DA does not have time to waste on stupid shit. In front of a jury it would be so easy to explain how it is not stealing, but merely picking up something that somebody else threw away. Any city or state laws lobbied by the power company can easily be defeated. The DA probably would not touch it. In many of the cases that do get settled, it involves trespass. Easements, and lines across private properties do not apply in the cases of people passively "absorbing" the power on their own property.

The specific case I heard about (and I cannot quote the exact case) was, in fact, a *civil* case. That means, the power company had to claim that a contract was breached, or that the defendant was causing them harm and loss of profits.

When the power company uses "eminent domain" like powers to drape power lines across your property or even next to it, the resultant "emanations", as I will refer to them, cannot be feasibly stopped by the power company, and bathe your property whether you like it or not. It is very much like the FCC disclaimer on nearly everything that states that your electronic device must not cause interference, but must also accept it.

The power company is "losing" that power and essentially, "throwing it in the garbage". See California Vs. Greenwood in the Supreme Court. No reasonable person could expect that the power company could ever "reclaim" that power and by "abandoning" it in public (essentially spewing onto private properties in many cases) they lose all rights, claims, etc. to that power. It becomes salvageable by any entity willing to invest the time to reclaim it. Granted in this case, that time is extremely short, but the principles apply nonetheless.

Can the power company be pissed off that it is happening? Sure. Can they blame anybody else but themselves? No. Can they hold anybody else liable for the power distribution design that loses some power over distance? NO.

Disclaimer -- The logic and principles here certainly apply to fluorescent tubes, and from everything I have ever heard, the methods used by those people were not stealing. They were not trespassing and were not causing an energy loss more then what would normally occur on the line itself. If somebody were to use a device that would go farther than that, and cause a energy loss that was greater than normal, that would be interference. That may not be a crime, but could certainly be actionable in a court of law.

[treetrunk @ Oct 15th 2007 10:46AM]

Ed:

I don't think you quite understand the physics involved here. If you extract energy from the field around a power line then by conservation of energy at least that amount more energy must be lost from the line. This means what you are doing is effectively exactly the same as if you directly connected a wire to the line, all that has changed is the transmission medium. You are taking energy from the line and hence the power company.

This applies to your analogies also. If you extract water from the air around a duct then you will affect the equilibrium between water vapour in the air and liquid water, and in doing so cause more water to evaporate. This is an application of Le Chatelier's principle- a system at equilibrium will shift in order to counteract an externally imposed change. So, again, you're still taking water from the duct, whether it evaporated first or not.

The same goes for a fluorescent light or coil. If you hold a fluorescent tube in the field near a line (thus providing a path to ground through your body) or a coil, then the current flowing in the tube/coil will induce an equivalent current in the line, opposing normal current flow, and thus whatever energy you extract comes straight from the line.

[James @ Oct 15th 2007 5:52PM]

Just to make sure this is crystal clear to everyone: if you take "leaking" energy from a power line, you are in fact stealing electricity (albeit not very efficiently). Transformers work by coupling the magnetic field produced by alternating current in one conductor (in this case, the power line) to another conductor nearby (in this case, your baling wire or whatever). Normally, you'd do this with a material that transmits magnetic fields well, like a ferrite core. In this case, you're just transmitting the fields through air, which is of course a poor conductor, but it still works (per the Mythbusters link above). Given enough time to design it, and if you could get as close to the lines as you wanted, you could probably sap a "useful" amount of power, but as somebody else has already said, transformers aren't magic, and loading down the secondary coil (your "receiver") raises the impedance (like resistance, but for AC only) of the transmission wire that is acting as the primary coil.

Long story short: it's not "free" energy, nor is it "lost" if you don't "tap into it".



In response to the phone company thing: this is a lot like stealing cable, only worse, because as a previous commenter noted, it degrades phone line quality for everybody else. If you doubt that it's illegal, maybe we can get Nilay Patel to weigh in....

[Ed @ Oct 18th 2007 2:28AM]

I guess what this really comes down to is the physics. I don't claim to understand it 100%.

I think it is real simple.

1) If the power was going to be "lost" no matter what, then collecting that power CANNOT be illegal. If you throw something away, then you have no legal rights to it. This is what I understand it to be and have always heard that this is true and incidentally is what many people say is why power lines cause cancer and other ailments. I am sure human beings do not have transformers and secondary coils inside their bodies.

2) If the power was NOT going to be "lost" under ideal conditions and the act of placing your device near it (even if it is on your property) does in fact cause the power loss, then that may be illegal. You would be interfering in the normal operation of the power line and would be causing harm to that business.

[Ashraf @ Oct 14th 2007 8:18PM]

wowowow

no wonder the corded phones required no batteries and worked when there was a blackout in 2003.

[Dan @ Oct 15th 2007 5:08AM]

Seriously - you're telling me you didn't know there was electricity in a phone line? What did you think these things ran on? Will power?

[HyperHacker @ Nov 17th 2007 4:34AM]

Actually, I recall the phone lines going down pretty quickly on that day. I picked up a payphone, started dialing, and the entire system went dead. Whoops!

[LukeA @ Oct 14th 2007 8:22PM]

I accidentally zapped myself with a phone wire once. The very old 3-separate-wire kind.

[3rdsun @ Oct 14th 2007 9:30PM]

try getting zapped almost everyday repairing them

[Darkest Daze @ Oct 15th 2007 4:17AM]

Yep, I get zapped by them. While mildly annoying, it's not enough to hurt me, which makes me think it's not really enough to charge your PDA.

[Ratchet the Lombax @ Oct 14th 2007 8:24PM]

This reminds me of a friend of mine who kept having to use her cell phone every time the power went out because her cordless phones wouldn't work. I told her just to get a regular corded phone to use in an emergency since it will work even though the main house power is out. She was surprised that it would work I guess it just goes to show that not everyone knows that the phone company has its own power source.

[zzebi @ Oct 14th 2007 8:28PM]

Actually, tapping into phone landlines is illegal. Just read the fine print in your phone contract.
First of all, it is dangerous because the voltage gets much higher (over 100V if I'm not mistaken) when the phone is ringing, and in the same time tampering with it may disrupt the phone network in the vicinity which can cause serious danger in case of emergency.
Phone companies supply power from high capacity battery arrays so that it is not effected by blackouts of the electrical network. In order not to drain the batteries, all the phone appliances that are legally sold in the US have to use their own power source for anything else than wired voice communication. Since most modern phones have other features/functions too, they need to be powered from the electrical outlet or from their own battery instead.

[David @ Oct 15th 2007 7:32PM]

But what happens with people like me who have phone jacks, but have never had phone service. The phone company is required to have power going to the lines by the government so that I can dial 911. I have no contract with the phone company, I do like the idea of having it power emergency LEDs though for when the power goes out.

[CRH @ Oct 14th 2007 8:48PM]

People still have landlines?

[ethana2 @ Oct 15th 2007 5:09AM]

Well, cell phone companies are incompetent, and so is, uh, Skype.

Once everyone has wireless internet, a la clearwire, and a good GNU SIP phone, landlines won't stand a chance. Right now its bulky and rare. With the gPhone, OpenMoko, and 700 MHz auction, hopefully things change drastically.

With our patent system, the best indicator of progress is entire business models getting screwed out of existence... messed up I guess, but if that's what it takes (and it is) so be it. RIAA, Microsoft, and Verizon? *smirks* Goodbye.

[ubrf @ Oct 15th 2007 6:46PM]

I'm sorry but I couldn't get past "good GNU" because I was too busy taking a dump in my pants from laughing so hard.

[Noah @ Oct 14th 2007 8:55PM]

We still keep our land line in case the power goes out. We (A) hacked old laptop batteries into a power source that charges until the power goes out, and then the phone runs on it to keep numbers and service. This lasts ~14 hours, including ~2 hours of phone usage (so a normal power outage). We also (B) have a non-powered phone that just uses current from the phone lines. It's definitely a good idea in areas where power is frequently out (summer blackouts, wind blowing down trees because we're on a mountain, that sort of thing).

[HyperHacker @ Nov 17th 2007 4:36AM]

You use the phone for 2 hours every time the power goes out? WTF?

[Joey Geraci @ Oct 14th 2007 9:25PM]

Uhm, I don't know if somebody has said this already, but how is this illegal? The power is already running into your home, you are just having to do a little work to access it.

[Dave @ Oct 15th 2007 7:03AM]

It's illegal because it is stealing the electricity. You pay the phone company for their service on a per call basis not on power used, so any power used is not accounted for, so using the power on the phone line like this is theft plain and simple.
You may think it is a trivial amount, just a few watts here and there, but in a country of 300,000,000 it can soon add up.
If you were to put a meter on it and pay the phone company for the power at the going rate, it would probably still be illegal but you might get away with it.

[Joey Geraci @ Oct 15th 2007 10:30AM]

Dave, I really don't think you can just assume that it is illegal. That power is coming into your home, and you never signed any contract with the phone company saying you can only use that power with corded phones. Remember, you are innocent until proven guilty, and I think it would be impossible for the phone company to prove that you knew it was somehow illegal.

[Tracy in Cary @ Oct 15th 2007 1:37PM]

Leeching power from the phone line seems to me the equivalent of getting a company car you can only use for work, and siphoning the gas out of the tank to put in your lawnmower.

But just food for thought, can I leech power out of the cable TV wire?