NATURAL EARTH GROUNDING ??

[befnme]

My stream is behind my house about 200yds. I really can't afford to run 14 guage solid strand wire all the way down there. I found some single 14 guage at lowes and I can afford to run 1 wire there. My question is can I ground my generator with a 8' copper grounding rod at the stream bank and only run a hot wire to my home , then use another 8' ground rod at my home and attach to my battery bank ? will that make a complete circuit ? Will I loose all of my power in the ground ?

[Flux]

"Will I loose all of my power in the ground ?"

No not all of it, but most likely most of it. Depends on the voltage and local ground conditions. In reality is a pretty antisocial thing to try even if you get a fair bit of power transferred with a high voltage scheme. There will be stray leakage everywhere and it will not make life too easy for anyone. This sort of thing was accepted in the early days of telegraphy but it's not acceptable for power circuits.

If you can't afford a cable to use with free power then save the cables and run a gas engine closer, strange idea of economics.

Flux

[wooferhound]

I thought it would be a good idea too

But nobody else did . . .

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/9/3/22483/29925

[scottsAI]

Hello befnme,

If you have any doubt about it, put two rods down 6 feet apart or so and measure the resistance or put some current or voltage across it and see, then realize the ground is not good for what you need.

Have fun,

Scott.

[TomW]

befnme;

I actually tried this a long time ago to get battery power across my yard with just one wire.

It had plenty of voltage from ground to + wire from the battery but as soon as I added any load it dropped to nothing. Basically once you draw any current [amps] the earth resistance eats the power.

Thats why it "works" for fencers to use the earth as that application uses high voltage pulses that do not draw any current.

Just a real world experience in case you are not convinced it is not going to work.

You can do the rods in the ground test someone mentioned to see for yourself.

We have all struggled with the cabling costs and installation hassles and the true bottom line is "you need copper wire".

One trick many do not realize you can use is that you can parallel multiple cables to increase the apparent size.

As in you install the #10 you can afford today and this works but is lossy. Later you can install another cable run and parallel it with the first to increase the apparent cable size.

Good luck with it.

TomW

[befnme]

Thanks guys. I will take your advice and try to run another line for my ground.

[TomW]

Ohh, I would add:

If it is buried, install conduit [2" is nice] so you can upgrade the cable without excavating another trench.

I run my inverter and batteries in my shed / garage / shop area which is in between my turbines and the house.

I know, PVC isn't cheap, either.

I buried 2" PVC everywhere I might need cable run last summer when I rented a machine to bury cable.

2 100 foot runs across the driveway to the house from my shed. A 300 foot run to the turbines next to a #6 -3 armored cable direct buried, and one run to my well head.

Just another idea.

TomW

[ghurd]

Might look into aluminum cable too.  Needs to be a bit larger, but it is cheap!

G-

[fungus]

Just a random thought .. if you're going to put conduit in anyway then maybe use metal conduit and use the case as a conductor? .. probably much more expensive and need special connection hardware but ..

[wiredwrong]

I would add to this, and recommend a pull string  being left in the pipe, a good way to do that is a shop vac at one end and someone feeding the string at the other. Thn when you are ready to add wire tie on to the wire and pull with the string pulling another string to leave for later use until the pipe is full.

[terry5732]

This is how all power companies distribute their electricity.

[terry5732]

This will only work well for AC. The higher the voltage and frequency, the less the loss. Rectify for charging at the battery end of the run.

[DamonHD]

Well, not all, AFAIK.

Typically a large pylon will carry three phases with large cables, and a small/thin neutral/ground return wire.  They can do that since it only has to carry the current representing how out of balance the three phases are, which should be relatively small if the power company is doing things right.  They're not relying on the grounding at either end to actually carry much current if any, just to stop earthed people being fried when they touch metal-cased equipment for example.

There is single-wire distribution, but it seems to be a minority sport:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_wire_earth_return

And it seems like such huge ground spikes are needed that you might as well put the metal into the return wire instead!  But I've never tried, so I don't know.

Rgds

Damon

[terry5732]

In the US nearly all power transmission uses earth for one leg. In some places they run a neutral as well. Anything above 220v or so is run with one conductor per phase. I don't know why they add the neutral after they drop to household voltage. Maybe the lower voltage is more lossy. With 2500 cycle 750 volt I don't measures any loss through 5 feet of dry concrete for a conductor.

[joestue]

Alright, we know that in the US, most power transmission is 3 phase, and you don't need much of a neutral for anything above 200KW, due to the inherent characteristics of such a load. Lets also ignore the third harmonic, and assume that the electrical load is 70% resistive & balanced.

But to extend this to 220V? They add the neutral so you can get ~117volts at your home, an inherently chaotic, changing load. I don't want 160 volts frying my electronics.

Where did 2500Hz 750 volts come from?

[TomW]

Joe;

Over the years, Terry has shown he holds some very, uh, interesting ideas. I stopped calling him on them long ago as long as its not dangerous advice, anyway.

Might be interesting to read back through his history of comments and see for yourself he seldom [if ever] explains before you get too involved trying to get clarification from him.

Just one thought.

TomW

[Gog]

Hi Fungus , I like random thoughts , here's mine.

Your conduit would have to be low resistance material like copper or aluminum.

But there would be big issues with electrolysis.

Put it all in a plastic pipe then......Homemade coax :-)

Noise suppression, pulse charging ?

Cheers