Powering a Light With a Fence Post & Scrap Wire - SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) Demonstration

In this video we connect a light by using a single wire to send power to a light bulb and use a fence post for return current back to the source.

0:00 - Single Wire Earth Return Intro
0:33 - Setting Up The Experiment
1:25 - SWER Explanation–How It Works
2:21 - Breaker We Need To Use
3:38 - Connections To The Post
5:24 - Diagram With Explanation
7:30 - Ready To Test
8:12 - No Hidden Wires Or Strings
9:09 - We Have Light!
9:47 - Let's Measure The Voltage
12:00 - Voltage Gradient
14:30 - 15,000 Lumen Bulb On SWER Test
15:18 - Voltage & Power Draw
16:23 - What If We Wanted More Power?
18:00 - Sorry NEC
19:50 - SUBSCRIBE!!!

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Blessings,

Ben

[jkbrown]

This is essentially the way the first telegraphs worked. Single wire, earth return. They discovered that with two low-resistance wires, they could transmit using a lower voltage, original required a couple hundred volts from the batteries of the time, and further before needing a relay to boost the voltage.

You might also look at testing the gradient beneath the path of the hot wire. The return current tends to follow the path of the hot even in a conductive plane.

[adamjamison]

Ur content is so informational and useful im an electrical apprentice and i have learned so much from you. Thank you sir

[AKULA]

That's how my electric fence works, I use a bucket of salt water poured at my ground post!

[ricklee]

For a remote ranch in Cochise County Arizona, Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative ran a SWER line for many miles to provide service, the ranch previously only had generators. I do not recall the grounding methods at each end but I believe the primary and secondary at the customer’s supply transformer were grounded separately. The fact that the single wire was probably in excess of 10 KV would put the earth current quite low especially for loads of around 3 - 5 KW.

The fun part was the AZ Corporate Commission would not allow Sulphur Springs to run power lines through APS designated territory even though APS would not provide a line to the ranch. So the SWER ran along rural roads in a long rectangular path going east then south making the line many miles longer than it needed to be had it run diagonally!

[jim]

Benjamin, you've touched on something that can be very useful for outdoor lighting that's 100% safe and legal SWER. You can easily install LED lighting at your mailbox if you make your own led lamp(s) with a few LED's wired in series and/or parallel.
One important thing to know is that the National Electrical Code is in force only when you use more than 50 Volts to power a circuit. Since resistance of damp earth is only around 3 to 5 Ohms per foot, give or take, the point is you can easily implement a low voltage (much lower than 50 Volts) LED lamp installation using, say, 12 Volts or so. You can also use very small and cheap insulated wire with mA levels of current. 20-gauge solid copper wire is only 1-Ohm per 100 ft. and it can easily carry a couple of Amps, more if it's buried in the ground. You'll want to drive a copper clad ground rod into the ground next to your mailbox so as to get down into permanently damp earth for the return line.
A common 3mm white LED will light to full brilliance at a max of 3 Volts DC with a max current of 20 mA. Use Ohm's law to work out a lamp with several LEDs inside a Mason jar. You just have to work out what total voltage is required to light up the LEDs in series, and how much current to supply with a maximum of 20 mA of current for each series string of LED's. For example, 3 white LEDs in series needs 9VDC and a string of 3 white LEDs uses a max of 20 mA of current for full brilliance. Less current = less brightness. If you make a lamp with 5 strings of 3 LED's, you'll need 9V at 100 mA. You can use a common wall wart 12VDC power supply with a minimum current rating of 150 mA or so (never run a power supply at more than 80% of its capacity). Measure the DC voltage at the end of the wires at your mailbox and it should be more than 9 VDC. Thus, the last thing to do is use Ohm's law and work out the extra resistance required for each string to limit current to 20 mA or less. For example, if you have 10.5 VDC at the lamp post, you need to insert a resistor in series with each string to reduce the voltage a minimum of 1.5 VDC per string to get 9VDC. Using Ohms law (Voltage = Amps times Resistance), the extra resistance is found by dividing Voltage by Amps = 1.5V/0.020A = 75 Ohms. The closest standard resistance value is 82 Ohms, so the LED's will be just a little less bright than maximum. If you have less than 9VDC, you can make series LED strings of 2 LEDs, thus needing onl 6 VDC per string. Or, change out the wall wart to, say, 15 VDC. Play with it on a breadboard and decide how much light you want from those LEDs, but never go above 3V and 20 mA per LED cuz they will soon burn out if you do.
Enjoy!

[jasonparkinson]

Youtube is the new classroom. Quite interesting.👍

[cjb]

The resistance of the soil depends on two main factors, mineral content and moisture - that setup will work better in rainy weather. I've used a ground stake and a long wire to measure soil resistance in conjunction with ham radio antennas, less resistance means better ground plane and more efficient transmission. If the ground was too dry, turn on a lawn sprinkler and dampen the area under the antenna, it helped make more distant contacts.

[Tom_older_than_dirt]

A very good example of: Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[jackmeyers]

Back in the sixties I had a service call in a older house that had gas lights at one time. When they converted to electric, they only ran one wire to each fixture and used the old gas pipes all through the house as a neutral. one wire from each fixture was connected to the old pipe with a hose clamp. The old gas line was connected in the basement to the meter. All was well until the plumber decided to clean up that mess when he installed a new water heater that morning.

[jeremie]

Hey thanks Bejamer for coming back I’m proud of you 👍

[fillg]

My grandfather had a similar setup to power the electric fence wire around his pig pen. He took a single wire from his shed to a light bulb then ran a bare wire from there around the pig pen on fence insulators so there was no path to ground, but when a pig would try to get out, it would touch the wire while standing on the ground and that would complete the circuit. Pig got shocked, squealed, stayed in the pen. The purpose of the light bulb was so that if some grass grew up and leaned on the fence or something else was on the wire, the light bulb would be lit and he would know the fence needed attention. A side benefit was that the electric fence used no power whatsoever unless it was shocking something or needed attention.

[jimprice]

The Pacific Intertie is a 1 million volt (line-to-line) 3000 Megawatt DC transmission line that runs from The Dalles, in Oregon down to Sylmar in Southern California. They have a linkage to ground in fields in Oregon and one in Santa Monica Bay in Southern California. If one of the transmission wires breaks they can still transmit 1500 MW of power using a ground return but only for a limited time as that amount of current would damage underground infrastructure.

[jackmcclure]

Several years ago I was asked by my brother in law to help diagnose a leak problem. His waterline to the dishwasher leaked water onto kitchen floor. I was testing in basement and was getting electrical readings on the incoming waterline from the well. Long story short was the sheep barn by the well had a bad connection on the overhead neutral line. When he ran an electrical heater in the sheep barn, the current was following the water line back to the house and through the stainless braided water line to the dishwasher, which was grounded. It created an arcing that melted the line. I recalled that I was getting 86 volts coming in on the water pipes. Weirdest thing I have ever encountered.

[douglaswindsor]

About 55 years I went with my brother in-law to look at an old generator in an old service station garage it was massive it supplied the whole town and farm out ten miles away running power out by the old barbwire fencing the old gentle man who showed us this massive single piston motor told how the owner of the plant would leave work at the service station at 900 leaving the generator running unattended overnight if the generator was overloaded it would power out and die and the owner didn't get out of bed to restart it so no power until he got to work at eight in the morning since you could hear it from every where it serviced if they heard it laboring every body rushed to shut down all power they could otherwise no power till morning so pumps and anything else would be turned off until the generator was running properly again that's something people wouldn't put up with and safety regulations wouldn't allow now can you imagine the noise and the danger of those barbwire fencing power run through them back then people were grateful just to have the convenience of having power you could have hot and cold running water a toilet tub and sink a coal Stoker for the furnace get up to a nice warm house convenience those in big cities took for granted

[WordofAdviceTV]

Very nice video! I like the zoomed out shots with the sunset in the background. You tell a good story in your videos as you go through the "how to" and are good with the various filming perspectives. Well done man! I haven't been to your channel in a while, looks like you had a few videos that took off as well! Keep 'em coming Ben! 💪💪 God bless you and family, hope you had a wonderful Christmas that will be followed up by an even better New Years! 🎄🎄🎄

[alec]

When I was 14 we built a cabin about a mile and a half into the woods behind my parents house. After lots of Google searches we ended up grabbing two microwaves and used one transformer to boost the voltage and one to step it back down. We kept the transformers in 5 gallon buckets of mineral oil to keep them cool. With a quite a bit of patched together Romex in the trees on electric fence insulators we ran the hot through the trees and took care of the neutral with ground path return. It worked well but it terrifies me to think about now 😂

[MarkDenovich]

We used to use this principle to collect earthworms for fishing. Basically a ground rod (usually scrap steel) connected to hot, with an insulated handle. Stick it in the ground and any worms in within a few feet of the rod would be driven to the surface. If you were on your hands and knees to pick up the worms you’d feel the tingle, especially if the grass was wet.

[cmr]

As an Electrical trainee, thank you very much for your videos

[Dr-wheel-barrow-opperator]

What a fun and interesting test. I have always wondered what would happen in this instance. Thank you for this video, I learned a lot.

[TrehanCreekOutdoors]

I'm convinced by this video, Benjamin, that you are most definitely the brightest bulb in the box!