Can You Use the Power Coming Through a Phone Jack?

If you keep a landline around, you know that you don't need to plug a standard, corded phone into an outlet because the phone jack gives up the few volts your phone needs to work, on the telephone company's dime...

But can you use the 40 to 70 Volts of power that comes through a telephone socket for anything else?

As it turns out... Yeah, you can—

Wired posted a write-up of a less-than-gorgeous pink plastic 8-led table lamp that juices up on nothing but jack (pictured on the left, available for purchase here for $4.69). The idea seems silly until you realize that the lamp will stay on even when electricity isn't flowing. Put that one in your emergency kit!

We also found a video that shows anyone with a little electrical know-how exactly how to wire up your own low-power tech to the phone socket. Check it out here.

(Image: Flickr user Jason Nicholls under license from Creative Commons.)

Comments (4)

This comes in handy during hurricane season here in Texas. The lights go out and you can still a fairly lit house to walk around

posted by tcleaves on November 6th 2009 at 7:05pm
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more interesting would be how much ampere you could draw from this.

posted by drug on November 6th 2009 at 8:20pm
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Well, it would seem to be a good emergency option assuming that somehow only power lines get knocked out and not phone lines.

posted by wunami on November 9th 2009 at 3:59pm
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if there is 40 volts coming in then you can power your house with it.

first you need to build a electronics device that will bring that 40 volts dc down to 12 volts dc

then you run the 12 volts into a 12 volt to 110 volt power inverter.

a decent power inverter that will ring 12 volts dc to 110 volts at 3000 watts or more.

you will also have to pull the meter from your house so the power coming in does not smash into the power from the phone line or there will e a fire.

posted by bowlan on December 29th 2009 at 4:00pm
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