Homestead_World

This is an interesting item for people who are off-grid, yet have a phone line, or for people who just want to save power. It's an 8 LED reading desk lamp powered by a phone line. They are priced at $5.69 with free shipping. I ordered two.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0314493144

They're coming from Hong Kong, so they will take 2-3 weeks to arrive in America, but at that price it's worth the wait.

That is so cool. How can they ship it free at that price from China?

I've got no idea. I'll see if I can study the postage when it gets here.

The telco powered lamps arrived from Hong Kong. I can't tell much about the postage. It is a rubber stamp that just says that the postage has been paid.

Anyway, the lamps work as promised. Just plug it into the phone line and press the on/off switch, and there's light. I would hardly call it a reading light, but the 8 LEDs seem to be burning at full power.

night light?

I wonder if you can read by it once your eyes get used to the dark. Probably too much eye strain. That's too bad.

A few years ago I met a guy who lived in a small log cabin he built, and he had no electric except solar (and not a lot of that). His house was lit up with a tiny string of leds around the ceiling. I could not live with such low lighting.

Oh oh Nevada. How long do you think the phone co is going to put up with that? I can see it now the phone police coming out and checking if we are stealing their power. Also, I don't know what voltage the line carries, but what happens when the phone rings? Tip and ring voltages go to almost 100 volts.