Hey guys,
I live in an area that is really bad for power. The weather does not have to be severe, and the Hydro goes off quite frequently.

I have seen devices (lamps, radios, etc) that are telephone line powered.
Just curious on how much current can be drawn from the telephone lines?

Basically I want to build a simple power supply that will allow me to run small lamps for reading, or to chargge batteries in the event of a power interruption/failure.

Any LINKS, schematics, information that I can download?

Thanks

 

You can draw very little current off the phone line, and you are likely to get in trouble attempting it! - modern exchanges will detect the fault, and presumably arrange to send an engineer out?.

__________________
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http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

If you live in U.S. don't do it. It's against the law governed by FCC. You can go to jail for it and you would certainly be fined. Not worth it. I doubt you could get enough power anyways. Light an LED, yes, a radio -not a good one.

 

Paul Obrien

You looking at 20mA @ 6 to 9 V and as Nigel said causing a fault condition on your line, your lines not faulty but if you don't dial to a valid number most modern exchanges think its a fault. Or 1-2mA at 48V this is trickle charging from the line, again to much and the exchange thinks you have a fault. Not a big power source even for battery charging, how long to charge a 1000mA/H battery?

 

For sheer convenience it is really hard to beat a deep cycle marine battery and a 400W Inverter from Powerbrite.

 

Or a petrol driven generator? - and before you ask, no I've not repaired it yet!

__________________
PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

Drawing current from a telephone line causes it to appear to be "off hook" to the telephone central. Your telephone line would be busy to the system.

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Uncle $crooge