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"Bat Hook" military power line tapping, those wonderful toys

Catwell
Tapping electricity from power lines seems to be all the rage these days. Read here.

U.S. Airforce engineers were asked to design "something like Batman has on his belt" for a power line energy siphoning device. They did just that. They invented RAPS, Remote Auxiliary Power System. It's fairly clever. A spike/razor cuts into the power line making one connection, and the rest of the hook touches the exposed tension wire, and a complete AC circuit is established. Somewhat like spike probes for VOMs and O-Scopes. The power is then sent to a power supply connected to the hook and converted into whatever you need to use. It doesn't appear that it'll be easy to grapple throw the hook onto power lines, but that is easily remedied.

So, power lines in all sorts of war zones are soon to have cuts and holes all over them, that is, if there is power in those areas. I see this being used by homeless and similar people without power. In fact, it may just be an epidemic. Much like shoes on power lines in California.

It's funny how top brass in the military used the word 'Batman' to describe technical requirements.


Requirement Analysis:
1. Something like Batman [check]

Cabe
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  • Hi There,

     

    Well what can I say. Clever guys, but in practice the use of such devices will cause lot's of problems. First of all the construction of the cables is not standardized. Apparently the house connection in the US uses 1 blank wire and 1 insulated. This is not common around the world. The diameter is also not standardized, as is the voltage. Lot's of parameters which will cause problems. Anyway, it was probably a lot of fun building a prototype. Would it be useful to investigate if the magnetic field could be tapped to avoid the actual connection? Like a current transformer clamp around a separate cable.

     

    Best regards, Enrico Migchels

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  • Hi There,

     

    Well what can I say. Clever guys, but in practice the use of such devices will cause lot's of problems. First of all the construction of the cables is not standardized. Apparently the house connection in the US uses 1 blank wire and 1 insulated. This is not common around the world. The diameter is also not standardized, as is the voltage. Lot's of parameters which will cause problems. Anyway, it was probably a lot of fun building a prototype. Would it be useful to investigate if the magnetic field could be tapped to avoid the actual connection? Like a current transformer clamp around a separate cable.

     

    Best regards, Enrico Migchels

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