line powered telephone devices

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johnsmith123

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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?.
 

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

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