Preinstalled low voltage household wireing

[wildbill hickup]

Since my mighty breakthrough with actually getting a decent output from my little genny I have considered my next problem. How to use the power. I don't really have enough to invert to ac and do anything with so I decided on low voltage abient lighting throughout the house(replace those nightlights and more). How to disperse this without rewireing? Answer: Phone lines!!! Almost every house that has been wired for telephone since (i don't know when) and only has one phone number (or line) has a really cool source of low voltage wire that runs to every room that has a phone jack (I'm sure most of you know this, but please bear with me) but for those who don't here's the deal. Most relitivly new (20 years anyway) phone wires contain 4 wires (two pair) common colors red, green, yellow, black (this is not always true so test your lines first!!!) Of those four wires only two are used for a single line phone service, hence, a second pair that is just sitting there. Find a centrally located phone connection and run a lead from your battery bank to the unused pair and presto low voltage in every room in the house that has a phone connection. Now hook up some LED's and you have nightlights(or more) in all of those rooms. Example: I have a stairway that is currently lit buy a 15 watt economy bulb in a celling fan, it stays on all night. The phone service runs right by the bottom of the stairs. There are twelve steps total, buy drilling a small hole in the stringer for each step I can install 12 amber LED's one on each step. Tap into tthe yellow and black wires that I have hooked to the battery at the other entd of the basement. And what do you know the whole stairway is lit with a nice amber glow and instead of using 15 watts of power from the electric Co I use about 1 watt or less from my battery bank. With the use of phone wires throughout the house I could (and will) build quite a lighting system.

Just an Idea

Wildbill

I'll post a photo of the stairway when completed.

[Demetri]

If you use just led's, you might be ok. Use anything that draws a bit of power(like an incandescent light bulb) and you'll probably burn your house down. Good luck.

Demetri

[Wolvenar]

Your probably losing a lot of power through resistence in that wire. I hope you have like a one amp fuse on that at the batteries. Those wires would be very likely to start a fire since there is less care put into routing them, since they are meant for low voltage. amperage use

[Gordy]

Low voltage ? I thought the phone company ran 90 volts through those line. I do know from personal experience it packs a punch.

Gordy

[RobD]

Hi,

You're confusing voltage and current. Think of current as water in a stream the more current the more water moving. Voltage is electrical pressure and it is the incline of the stream. The greater the incline the greater the flow.

You can put 10,000 volts through your phone lines but only at a very low current. Once you start to bring the current up the wire starts getting hot. Think of it this way how much water can you push through a 1/4" pipe? Now imagine if you could some way force 10 times that through the pipe. It would get hot from the friction and eventually burst. That's what you're trying to do with the thin phone wire.

RobD

[drdongle]

I can't recommend the phone wiring for several reasons ( I'm a phone man and this is something I know a hell of a lot about).1) as was mentioned the gage of most phone wire is 22-24 which will severely limit the currant Ampacity.

2)A cross with the phone service is a real possibility, I have replaced many phone jacks that were damaged, with the little spring contacts shorted together or corroded. 3) if lightning were to come in on either system it could jump to the other and cause more than the usual havok.

Gordy, the nominal voltage on a phone line ( on hook) is 48-52 volts DC and around 75-100 when ringing which is usually 20 or 30 Hz. When a phone is off hook it will sink between 20 and 50 Ma ( depending on the length of the line to the central office or SLIC).

Dr.D

[wildbill hickup]

OK guys you convinced me :-) Phone lines, bad idea, so much for that brain storm. I'm still going to do the stairway, but I guess i'll get some heaver wire.

Wildbill

[kell]

Here's a story for phone aficionados.  I lived in the squats (illegal homesteading in abandoned buildings) in New York City's East Village for years.  Had a phone in the first one I lived in but when I moved the phone company wouldn't install one in the new place.  So I ran a "twisted pair" from the old place to the new one a couple blocks away, through backyards and across a street intersection (stringing it across the stoplight standards).  Twisted pair is the thin copper-coated steel wire with black insulation, two strands twisted together that the phone companies often use for that last run down the block and into a house.  People I talked to thought the ring factor would drop too much with such a long line but the phone worked just fine.  I had to repair it a couple of times when people cut it.  Also working on it in the rain I got some shocks.

Used to carry water upstairs in buckets, used wood burning stoves for heat in some of the squats.  All this in the middle of one of the most concentrated urban areas in the country.

[DRAYCO]

dont know if anyone will see this, as this reply is to an old post, but what the hey

I've got a ID caller display unit that uses 3 AAA bats , thats 4.5volts, i've convertered the unit to be power off unit, so the unit has no batteries in it, its completely empty, i wired up the phone jacks outter contacts, which go to the 2nd phoneline in a house, the 2 inner ones are perfectly fine. Those connections are routed for power from the outer contacts directly into the wires that go to the batteries if there was any and that goes into powering the unit

I have somewhere else in my house a little 3 AAA battery pack holding them and wired up to the houses 2nd line,

so throughout the house on the 2nd line theres 4.5 volts available, is that ok to do that, would that be any risk of fire or warm up of wires ?

some history

long before i had done this, i had played around with, first i connected a 9V to it to see what happens,, then i tried a mono audio signal, that sounded good, then i tried a composite video signal, it had a little noise in it, then i tried sending the TV output coax signal along the wires, noise in that,

then i went to put the whole cable tv signal along it, that was total fuzz for the most partr, but worked more or less

but the caller id offline powering was something i could do with what i had learned, only 4.5 volts didnt seem like much,a nd it appears that the unit doesnt even use that much power anyway

so theres some history for you

is there RISK of fire or any RISK of any kind,

[TomW]

DRAYCO;

I am not a telco tech but it seems to me I measured the telco line once and they have like 90 volts on the "live" line. I seriously doubt that 3 AA batteries could inflict much damage on phone wiring even dead shorted. However, if a higher current source were used you run the very real risk of frying the hair fine wires in the telco wires especially the ones in the device to wall cords. If you got a high current short condition in the wiring it would certainly ruin the insulation and possibly cause a fire. Just my 2 cents worth.

Cheers.

TomW

[Wolvenar]

I meant that to say low amperage and relatively higher voltages. not sure what happened there.. that'll teach me to post without proofreading now wont it..

Cory