Here is a TRUE Battery discharge problem???

JD Seller

Well-known Member
People talk about batteries discharging while setting on concrete and that is a myth. Here is one that is not a myth but I never could figure out why it happened.

At one dealership I worked at the electric lines ran parallel along the road on the dealership side of the road. We parked the used tractors in a line under the power line. All of the batteries would discharge over a relatively short time. Usually about a week. The owner said that had happened ever since they opened in the early 1970s. We changed the lot some so we could move the tractors back about 15 feet and the battery issue stopped. Tractors then could set for months and the batteries would hold charge.

Why did the batteries discharge???? The power line was not anything special. Just a regular line with the three legs. Not the super high voltage type of lines. The lines were not real close in height either, maybe the lowest point would be 20 feet in the air. About fifteen years ago the utility moved the lines across the road and the discharge issue was gone.

I just know it happened. New or used equipment made no difference, both would have discharged batteries if parked under the power lines. Any one know why??
 
Did you watch that video all the way to the end? It is a fake. He is using a small battery to power an LED !!!! No free energy.
 
The only thing I think would be the winding in the generator or any other coil that is actually in a closed circuit would have a current induced via the magnetic field caused by the power lines. Those lines would need to be pretty heavy and be carrying quite a bit of current.
 
We had a farm rented back in the 60s and 70s where they put a large power line diagonally over the farm. These lines would crackle and snap, Our 460 gas when passing under the line would shut off as if you turned the key off. I noticed when picking up bales, etc under these lines I'd get mean and irritable.
 
Well, I "did" say it was cheesy. :lol:

Happened across that video some time back. Forgot about the battery - sorry about that. However, if I'm not mistaken, he was taking about making a secondary-type transformer. If you're close enough to power lines, it is possible for the EMF waves to pass through a secondary coil. Seems these EMF waves have also caused a lot of health scares, especially where power lines are near schools and playgrounds. Anyway, there is a possibility that the EMF field from power lines could cause a drain on a battery.
 
Wolfman: A neighbor's barn had a high voltage cross country line that came close to the barn. When the humidity was high you could not touch the metal siding or metal roof, without getting shocked. I do not mean the static charge type of shock. I mean knock you off your feet type of shock.

The parked tractors where NOT under this type of high current line. Just the regular transmission lines.
 
Not exactly sure what but it had to involve buggers. My granny used to tell us kids about when her and Grandpaw lived near the Mississippi River Swamps.
 
Or a local discontent came by each night (or once in a while) and turned on the ignition or lights. Then when dead, turned them off. Had that happen at a dealer in eastern Ohio. There is no scientific/reasonable method for the electrons to go away. JimJim
 
Nothing was left on. The owner lived 100 feet across the road. Security cameras too. The lines where in a straight line. The lot/road curved further down the road. They actually went between two shops/sheds. If you parked anything down there under the lines the batteries would go down too.
 
Well, if you also got "pop", you"d have had more Rice Krispies than you could handle....wonderful marketing opportunity....
 
If the place is still there, run some experiments! Science is always looking for confirmation of AB normal reality. Jim
 
I had some property up in the woods in the early 80's.
There were some big power lines running along the south end.

Had an electrician friend come by and after a few barley pops he walks over to his truck and got a 500' box of romex and a porcelain out, wired the porcelain to one end and screwed in a 60W bulb.
We went down to the power lines and he stretched the 500' out in coils, maybe 100' or so, the bulb glowed, dim but it glowed.
 
High voltage power lines do throw off electric energy that can be "harvested". Friends moved to northern British Columbia back in the '60's- they had no electricity, but there was a high voltage line running across their place. The guy they bought it from showed them an antenna he had built, and mounted on the power line tower- by trial and error, he found the proper distance from the line to get 110 volt power for his house. Power company people took it down- he offered to pay for a meter so he could pay for the power he used, they said no dice.

Also, we once lived on a place with a high voltage line going across it- I soon learned to carry a wire with a ground spike on one end and an alligator clip on the other when working on fences under the line- they were always "hot".
 
you are wrong some will discharge setting on concrete some will not and I have no idea why but I have seen it many times in 50 years
 
Good question JD, it was fun meeting you at Half Century. FWIW here's the theory involved even if it doesn't answer your question.

The flow of current in a conductor causes the creation of a magnetic field and the greater the current and/or the closer to the wire the stronger the field.

If its alternating current, the magnetic field thus generated is constantly changing its North South magnetic polarity

A changing magnetic field can generate electricity into a nearby coil of wire, that's how a generator works, the armature (a coil of wire) is rotating through a changing electromagnetic field created by the passing of current through the field windings.

If a coil of wire was in proximity to that changing magnetic field a voltage will be induced across the coil

NOWWWWWWWWWW if perhaps an ignition coil or a generator (like in a tractor) or Voltage Regulator relay windings were in that magnetic field and the coil ends where the voltage got induced had a closed circuit enabling current flow, there could "somehow" be a conductive path drawing current causing the battery to discharge BUT IM NOTTTTTTTTTT SAYING ITS POSSIBLE OR IMPOSSIBLE OR HOW OR WHY IF AT ALL IT MIGHT DISCHARGE A BATTERY IE I'm NOT answering your question, but ONLY tossing out some magnetic field theory DO WITH IT AS YOU PLEASE LOL

Its hard to believe how such a weakkkkkkkkkkk magnetic field so farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr away from any tractor coils of wire (ignition coil or generator or coils inside the voltage regulator) could somehow discharge the battery BUT AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS ON HERE I LEARNED NEVER SAY NEVER AND NEVER SAY ALWAYS as someone who loves to play GOTCHA will jump out of the woodwork LOL

Best wishes yall, sorry I cant answer the question, I do try my best when I can

John T Toooooo Longggggggggg retired Electrical Engineer and weak on magnetic field theory
 
I am talking about when I pull a battery out to do a repair like spitting, I have seen a battery that set for months n a tractor and was always up, I take it out and set it on concrete it would be totally dead in a week or so, the next 20 of them would be fine,, I cant explain why they did it,, I assume the tractor tires kept it from "grounding" with the earth and loosing charge,, I seen this with new batteries at the dealership in the 60's and 70's, no rhyme or reason to them if they did I always set them on wood now if they will be there more than a day or two just to be safe lol
 
I agree John that the magnetic lines of flux may induce a current in some of the windings---is there a meter that could actually measure the gauss value at that distance away from the transmission lines?
 

Google the term "Stray Voltage". Lots of interesting reading there. Here is one example:

http://www.tri-countyrec.com/content/stray-voltage

Some friends of ours had a dairy operation that was severely affected. Eventually it went out of business.
 
When a high voltage line was errected that sagged close to ground where sheep always bedded down local fellow started having severely deformed lambs .
 
I'm fairly sure a meter exists to measure such low levels of magnetic field strength, however I just cant see how such a weak field can create some sort of a current load path to discharge a battery so far away ?????? But never say never lol

John T
 
John, may I respectfully interrupt:

Field intensity is exponentially related to frequency and level. Line freq is too low to radiate all that far and JD said it was a low voltage (100's of volts) line so it wouldn't be electrostatics, would have to be current induced inductive coupling, aka electromagnetics.

V (induced, volts) = L (Inductance in Henries) di/dt (rate of change of current influx/period of change, in amp-seconds. Course since the plates are adjacent, the average value of ac electromagnetic coupling attempting to excite the plates and induce a charge change (aka deplete the charge on the cells) is zero so there would be a zero chance of inductive pickup with the plates as I see it. Assuming that coupling was occurring, one half cycle would discharge the plates to a degree and the other half cycle, opposite in phase would charge them back up....net effect = zero change.

I can dig out my McGraw Hill EE handbook and get the field intensity equation but I think it would be a waste of time. Little to no inductance in a thin, flat, plate.....no L no energy transfer, Wl being ? L I (exp.2) and no L on a flat plate and average value of I is 0.

Tossing my hat on answering the concrete thing, you aren't going to discharge 12v in solution through a heavy duty rubber or plastic housing unless it's impregnated with something like lead that has fair conductivity along with the poor concrete conductivity. I was fed that same wives tale when I was young also. I think the tale is more oriented around sulphate doing the dirty work, piling up on the bottom of the case and shorting out the plates. Gotta have a mechanism for something to happen. I don't see one here.

My brain just slapped me with this: Steel battery trays are much higher conductivity than concrete. If leakage through the case were the culprit and there was a mechanism in that concrete shorted out the cells through the case, tell me why you can take the same battery and put it in a vehicle on a steel shelf, painted, rusted, or not and it not discharge?

That's the way I see it. Been away from stuff like this since 2005. Things have gotten a tad rusty.
 

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