DIY filling up batteries

[roland elsdon]

There were ducks on the cooling pondage but they flapped off after some ejit turned the heat off

[Tony Brooks]

Stick a load of solar cells along the bottom of maybe  florescent tube, about 2 dozen should do, and mount said tubes in a pole a few feet away from the wires. Take the output of cells and put into batteries. Think I must have been drinking with Biz!

[Jen-in-Wellies]

18 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

You are a bit pessimistic there Mike, the highest voltage used on the National Grid is 400,000 volts, lowest is 11,000 volts.

Use a 11kV pylon for charging a 1.5V battery, a 400kV for 24V boat house batteries, or lots of 1.5V batts in series. Obvious really. Are there any 400kV lines near canals?

 

Jen

Edited September 9, 2018 by Jen-in-Wellies

[alan_fincher]

7 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Are there any 400kV lines near canals?

Jen

Yes!

 

The highest voltages (the "Supergrid") are in the transmission lines where each of the 6 lines are themselves made up of 4 cables, separated by spacers.
 

Lots of these near, and crossing canal

 

 

EDIT:

 

Bugger!

 

Laptop reporting only 4% charge.

 

I'm not usually prepared to climb National Grid pylons to get power (too dangerous!) preferring to fly my trusty kite into nearest thunderstorm, (which avoids the dangerous climbing, oviously).

 

However lack of recent thunderstorms means all on board devices either have totally flat batteries, or rapidly failing ones.

 

We are  moored at end of Blisworth tunnel so looking at options for tubine powered generator, powered by water cascading down the air shafts.....

Edited September 9, 2018 by alan_fincher

[matty40s]

3 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Use a 11kV pylon for charging a 1.5V battery, a 400kV for 24V boat house batteries, or lots of 1.5V batts in series. Obvious really. Are there any 400kV lines near canals?

 

Jen

You forgot to credit the London Boaters facebook help page where your question was quoted from........

 

 

When I was down there the easiest and cheapest charging method was to get to Regents Park and knock mooring pins through the cracks in the concrete. Using jump start cables to moor up with and a couple more cables from the dollies to the batteries I could watch Sat TV as well as run the washing machine, iron and dry the clothes with a hair dryer for free.

[Mike Todd]

4 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Stick a load of solar cells along the bottom of maybe  florescent tube, about 2 dozen should do, and mount said tubes in a pole a few feet away from the wires. Take the output of cells and put into batteries. Think I must have been drinking with Biz!

Whilst it may be possible, theft is still (unless Boris has changed the law again) a crime. Induction is just as much theft as connection.