Smart electrical meters and the gov telling you what/when you are allowed to use grid power. - Privacy in use of grid based power OR if society collpases I don't think you need to pay your power bill next month even if the lights are still on.

[Troon_Patrol]

To preface if you don't know what you are doing you will die,

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU WILL DIE.
IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU WILL DIE.
or just set the house on fire.

Good, now that we got that out of the way. I was reading about certain models tracking tons of user data which is always bad and being able to shut themselves off as commanded by the government for "natuaral disaster reasons". I have played with the idea of running a set of 100 AMP bypass lines on a 4 gauge cable for emergency bypassing. I'm reading and some of these things are smart smart enough to know if they have been unplugged and for how long given there is no power outage during this time I'd imagine that would cause a red flag, some allegedly have tilt switches . Unless a radio jammer or faraday cage were used during the process this could be an issue. the Locks and tamper tags mean nothing to me I can pick almost any lock and forge just damn near about anything without leaving a trace. I'm sure my power contract allows entry to my property but good lock getting within 10 feet of that meter the way I secure my home. ALso last time I checked not illegal to add additional hinged 1/8" steel barrier lockable plate to my homes electrical meter/panel. So if you want to inspect your meter installed on my property you're gonna have schedule and appointment and ask nicely.

So Anyone work for a power company wanna chime in?

 

[Pretend To Imagine]

If you are trying to bypass the device, you would want to do it somewhere else besides in the meter box. Although in the meter box would be the easiest, it would also be very obvious.

If you have an underground drop from the pole to your house, you could intercept it there. If you have an overhead drop you could possibly intercept it above the meter box if the conduit from the weather head is concealed.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

If you are trying to bypass the device, you would want to do it somewhere else besides in the meter box. Although in the meter box would be the easiest, it would also be very obvious.

If you have an underground drop from the pole to your house, you could intercept it there. If you have an overhead drop you could possibly intercept it above the meter box if the conduit from the weather head is concealed.

Obvious? IDK about that. Power company takes a drone and flys it over and sees extra wiring on their hardware? I think that would be the first thing they'd look for. Not to mention running a few feet of 4 gauge wire holding 240VAC @ 100AMPs? No way, not the safest method. best method is short wires running inside box 100% hidden forcing them to open the thing. There are some countries that have no 4th amendment, as in the police can kick down your door for simply lying and saying you own firearms and your IP comes back to a loser country with no rights for guns or front doors. Unless it's an emergency that isn't the case in the U.S. . So if your home is fortified properly they can't get a visual inspection on the box without a drone and when they see the tamper tag and lock in place that might be good enough to call you up ask for a an appointment to enter the property line double check your meter by then you just remove the 4 wires and tell them to come by.

Crude drawing of what I'm talking about. The white box is obviously a double pole 100AMP breaker from any hardware store.


everything would be hidden in the main box, we're only talking 5-6 feet of 4 gauge wire and proper couplers the bypass main would even blend in with the rest of the breakers.

 

[Pretend To Imagine]

Obvious? IDK about that. Power company takes a drone and flys it over and sees extra wiring on their hardware? I think that would be the first thing they'd look for. Not to mention running a few feet of 4 gauge wire holding 240VAC @ 100AMPs? No way, not the safest method. best method is short wires running inside box 100% hidden forcing them to open the thing. There are some countries that have no 4th amendment, as in the police can kick down your door for simply lying and saying you own firearms and your IP comes back to a loser country with no rights for guns or front doors. Unless it's an emergency that isn't the case in the U.S. . So if your home is fortified properly they can't get a visual inspection on the box without a drone and when they see the tamper tag and lock in place that might be good enough to call you up ask for a an appointment to enter the property line double check your meter by then you just remove the 4 wires and tell them to come by.

Crude drawing of what I'm talking about. The white box is obviously a double pole 100AMP breaker from any hardware store.View attachment 6228664


everything would be hidden in the main box, we're only talking 5-6 feet of 4 gauge wire and proper couplers the bypass main would even blend in with the rest of the breakers.

If your weather head is like the picture below, you can intercept the wires in the attic or wall before it gets to the meter.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

If your weather head is like the picture below, you can intercept the wires in the attic or wall before it gets to the meter.

Yeah, I'm not seeing it here please explain in detail, you are saying to cut/ dismantle the weather-head and tap in there? Anything in outside that pipe assembly they will see immediately no on-property inspection required, they'll just take a drone and see extra wiring coming off that. That's literally the fist thing they look for if power is coming off the lines. If it's all safely done inside the box behind the meter now they need to call up request an appointment unless the really love jumping fences and dogs, as I said previously it's their meter, but it's my electrical panel, if I want to put a extra steel 1/8" plate on-top my box with a really good padlock have fun dealing with that shit. They're electrical workers not locksmiths. Not to mention their special little "electrical worker only" lock, I can make a key for that in about 90 mins, all you have to do is put a small piece of anything preferably magnetic steel like 1018 low carbon rod, in there to stop their key from working, you want to remove it you just use a small magnet then the key. I'm making this very long but they would have to spend 2 hours opening that fucking thing and have a cordless angle grinder on hand. So at that point it's just easier to just ask me to enter the property for an inspection set an appointment and that would give a person days if not weeks to undo anything they've done.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

You'd wanna shunt your power meter, or be very careful how much you take.
if your bill says 0 kwh, you're gettin cut off.
if your bill drops to 1/2 the kwh of last month, you're just energy conscious.

you can't just steal power for 8 hours a day, the meters measure power consumption by the minute.
The bypass you posted needs to be smarter- The meter's tamper protection can detect these simple bypasses.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

You'd wanna shunt your power meter, or be very careful how much you take.
if your bill says 0 kwh, you're gettin cut off.
if your bill drops to 1/2 the kwh of last month, you're just energy conscious.

you can't just steal power for 8 hours a day, the meters measure power consumption by the minute.
The bypass you posted needs to be smarter- The meter's tamper protection can detect these simple bypasses.

Who said anything about stealing? And yes you make an excellent point if the meter drops to literally zero KWH for 8 hours they are going to assume the entire main breaker is shut off every day manually or someone is cutting their power bill in half the "easy way". I know the little things technically "OFF" are still drawing current like the cable box, the modem the ovens digital control module is still taking some juice, zero would imply someone is shutting it all off at the main when the leave the house then running around the house resetting clocks and waiting 5 minutes every time they need an internet connection, not realistic if they are in fact getting live data. Having the shunt bypass connected to constant low energy draw would make more sense if someone were looking at a chart of live data energy consumption. Something like weather rated external LED lighting and maybe a motion sensor would create a natural sporadic pattern of use even at extremely low consumption, so even when shunted it's the meter runs in natural fashion just simply far far lower consumption. At that point you could in theory run the HVAC for free or mine XMR for free but that would be illegal and wrong.

 

[Boggy B]

A friend of mine knows a suspiciously large amount about the energy industry in a country with sky-high energy prices and lots of attempts to evade and will do their best to assist.

I'd imagine that would cause a red flag, some allegedly have tilt switches . Unless a radio jammer or faraday cage were used during the process this could be an issue.

All, and (my friend) means all meters have tamper protections. The newer the meter, the smarter they are about this. In my friend's country of residence, tampering with a meter would produce a red flag (Either physical or digital) on the meter. This, in combination with some old and draconian laws and contracts you accepted by receiving power, gives the energy company free reign to rip your meter out of the wall and investigate it as theft, with a bare minimum of 90 days before it can be reinstalled.

Smart meters do not use radio, they use mobile networks. They send a signal disclosing your usage anywhere from half-hourly to weekly. This communication being disrupted isn't particularly odd, mind you. In addition, they're built to be magnet/faraday/zeusaphone/microwave/whatever resistant. Non-smart meters do not send any signals. A signal is manually sent when the meter is manually read by a tech, which might be outsourced to your city's utility dept or done by their own subcontracted techs, depending. Both may well take a bribe, depending. But having a visible dog is enough to put off manual meter readers. Power companies will estimate your meter reads if they can't get one and these estimates may be lower or higher than your actual usage.

if your bill says 0 kwh, you're gettin cut off.
if your bill drops to 1/2 the kwh of last month, you're just energy conscious.

This. Any more than the 1/2 and you run the risk of your reads being 'quarantined'. This happening repeatedly on a smart meter with no previous issues is a great way to make the power company suspicious. But my friend says you could do this and say you're moving out of the property. Or you own it but the house is empty (holiday let?). Then they'd expect next to no usage regardless.

They're electrical workers not locksmiths.

This same friend tells me that electrical guys are used to seeing this shit and you're right. They won't open it. But if the company has reason to believe the meter (their property) has been tampered with, they can and will get a warrant to saw it open. Obviously varies by jurisdiction but they're just going by experience.

OTOH, if your shit is locked down and you don't give your local authority or the power company any reason to suspect anything, they're far too laden down and bureaucratic to start a witch hunt just because your meter has a perfectly legal steel door on it.

 

[Pretend To Imagine]

Yeah, I'm not seeing it here please explain in detail, you are saying to cut/ dismantle the weather-head and tap in there? Anything in outside that pipe assembly they will see immediately no on-property inspection required, they'll just take a drone and see extra wiring coming off that. That's literally the fist thing they look for if power is coming off the lines. If it's all safely done inside the box behind the meter now they need to call up request an appointment unless the really love jumping fences and dogs, as I said previously it's their meter, but it's my electrical panel, if I want to put a extra steel 1/8" plate on-top my box with a really good padlock have fun dealing with that shit. They're electrical workers not locksmiths. Not to mention their special little "electrical worker only" lock, I can make a key for that in about 90 mins, all you have to do is put a small piece of anything preferably magnetic steel like 1018 low carbon rod, in there to stop their key from working, you want to remove it you just use a small magnet then the key. I'm making this very long but they would have to spend 2 hours opening that fucking thing and have a cordless angle grinder on hand. So at that point it's just easier to just ask me to enter the property for an inspection set an appointment and that would give a person days if not weeks to undo anything they've done.

I don’t know why the pic didn’t upload.

Some drops go to a weather head that goes through the roof and attic before coming back out to the meter. You could add a junction box in the attic and attac

 

[potato in mah painus]

You are absolutely insane even considering messing with the meter, that shit remains live unless you pop it at the pole and that's just as crazy to attempt. I can't stress enough do not attempt any of the shit in this thread.

With that said, dual fuel generator and a 500 gallon (or two) propane tank is a weeks worth of emergency power if you don't ration it. Two tanks will last any disaster that you will ride out in your own home, anything past that you won't be getting anything to run generators let alone a vehicle anyway.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

OTOH, if your shit is locked down and you don't give your local authority or the power company any reason to suspect anything, they're far too laden down and bureaucratic to start a witch hunt just because your meter has a perfectly legal steel door on it.

Without going into the detail you pretty much nailed it, the pure bureaucratic nature of the people I'm dealing with I could call them up and tell them up and make claim I'm fucking them in the ass daily and it would take 6 weeks for them to even send a field tech to ask permission. Don't even get me started on the specific legal system jurisdiction unless someone it taking 5K a month in electricity from them they won't even bother. Honestly that gives me an idea, there is a guy down the street the entire block hates because he treats his front lawn like a junkyard. Fucking disgusting, we all want him to sell the property. Fucking asshole has as about 15,000lbs of shit mostly car parts rotting in broad daylight meanwhile the rest of us are making sure there are no brown spots on our front lawn. Fucking nigger leaves his trashcan on the curb all week long, I'm walking my dog one day and he shits on the sidewalk as all dogs do, I play the responsible dog owner and I scoop it up in a bag , knot it and toss it in the trash can nearest to me, happens to be his. This POS starts mouthing off to me about he doesn't want his trash can to smell bad, the trash can that sits on the fucking sidewalk all week long in-front of the junkyard lawn. I wonder what would happen if I put a piece of masking tape on his meter/box and made an anonymous tip. I'd know their response time and if he isn't doing anything wrong he won't be bothered.

I don’t know why the pic didn’t upload.

Some drops go to a weather head that goes through the roof and attic before coming back out to the meter. You could add a junction box in the attic and attac

No I get it, two high gauge lines carrying 120VAC 60Hz (It is 60 isn't it?) meet at the meter sooner or later, then they immediately meet inches away from the meter to the breaker box. No matter how you go about it a field tech is going to see extra wires running to the breaker box and start scratching his head. The wires have to lead to the individual breakers or the system doesn't work. It makes no sense to try and tap any further than the connection at the meter itself.

You are absolutely insane even considering messing with the meter, that shit remains live unless you pop it at the pole and that's just as crazy to attempt. I can't stress enough do not attempt any of the shit in this thread.

With that said, dual fuel generator and a 500 gallon (or two) propane tank is a weeks worth of emergency power if you don't ration it. Two tanks will last any disaster that you will ride out in your own home, anything past that you won't be getting anything to run generators let alone a vehicle anyway.

Yeah I get that a lot, you don't even wanna hear the other shit I have actually done and gotten away with, I don't think you'd believe me. IIRC I did mention you if don't know what you are doing you will die 3 times. Old man I used to work for would swap 480 VAC fuses with his naked hand, I've worked on live household voltage a dozen times never been "bit" when simply flipping the breaker was not an option.

500 gallons? seems very excessive to me for a week even full power, I've never done the math on it. A true SHTF disaster I'd probably be running the generator to keep the fridge perishables cold and keep the radio charged for contact with the outside world. As far as gasoline I know how to siphon gas and hot wire approximately %75 of the vehicles on the road without any need for an internet connection. There was a now retired an hopefully still alive police officer who made it to Lieutenant I knew years ago, I considered this man a mentor almost a father figure. He talked about this hypothetical situation where the power went out in his neighborhood and kicks on the generator and half the block can hear it. They know his fridge is going to be cold 3 days without power, the power comes back on after a few hours as expected. In this hypothetical he talked about his neighbors probably assumed he had milk in his fridge, he went on further to say 3 days without power a family with a 6 month old child who needs milk to live knocks on his door asks for help their child needs refrigerated milk to live, at the same time the Lieutenant needs the milk because he has no idea how long this shit is going to hit the fan for and he has a family as well. He looked me right in the eyes and said "If you had a 6 month old son, how many people would you kill to ensure his survival? How about knowing them dialing 911 won't do any good when you kill them?"

 

[Pretend To Imagine]

Take a seperate route to the breaker box

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Take a seperate route to the breaker box

It's the same box as the meter box.

I did come up with an interesting idea if I go your way. I could run power to a decoy box, with some basic devices requiring low some but low KW hours on paper a reduction but not dropping power completely. things that need power 24/7 like the timer based porch light, when I need high power like power tools or heavy equipment, or HVAC I just run it off the real grid. Total cost for a second breaker box some conduit and wire/wire ends would be about $200 USD If so if I'm paying $250 USD monthly it pays for itself within 60 days saving about 1,500 per year. After 5 years that's over $7,000 saved in electricity costs. Not to mention mining XMR for free if I want to go that way.

 

[Pretend To Imagine]

It's the same box as the meter box.

I did come up with an interesting idea if I go your way. I could run power to a decoy box, with some basic devices requiring low some but low KW hours on paper a reduction but not dropping power completely. things that need power 24/7 like the timer based porch light, when I need high power like power tools or heavy equipment, or HVAC I just run it off the real grid. Total cost for a second breaker box some conduit and wire/wire ends would be about $200 USD If so if I'm paying $250 USD monthly it pays for itself within 60 days saving about 1,500 per year. After 5 years that's over $7,000 saved in electricity costs. Not to mention mining XMR for free if I want to go that way.

You run it back into the meter box from the house so it looks like it’s feeding something in the house. A 100 amp breaker that’s labeled “sub panel” won’t be suspicious

 

[DavidS877]

You are absolutely insane even considering messing with the meter, that shit remains live unless you pop it at the pole and that's just as crazy to attempt. I can't stress enough do not attempt any of the shit in this thread.

Also, once you're on the provider side of your main breaker you go from a nice 200 amp limit to something possibly in the kilo-amp range, that's the kind of stuff that simply melts large gauge wires.

 

[Pretend To Imagine]

Also, once you're on the provider side of your main breaker you go from a nice 200 amp limit to something possibly in the kilo-amp range, that's the kind of stuff that simply melts large gauge wires.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DJOX0c60wQE&pp=ygUZcGhvdG9uaWNpbmR1Y3Rpb24gc3Bhbm5lcg%3D%3D

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Also, once you're on the provider side of your main breaker you go from a nice 200 amp limit to something possibly in the kilo-amp range, that's the kind of stuff that simply melts large gauge wires.

Anyone who's browsed the "video of people dying thread" knows unless you have a decade working for he power company on the lines up the pole itself there is nothing mounted to electrical pole that will not kill instantly and also it will not ever provide you power you can use if the whole grid is down. In an emergency, If the power company were to cut power to the location for natural "disaster reasons" my understanding is they would just trip a relay in the meter. Making the idea of a quick safe bypass of he meter very valuable. I would even touch a power line transformer for any reason if there is no power coming off it to the meter at al, what chance in the world do I have fixing it from there? I'll just haul my spare industrial grade transformer up 40 feet in the air surely that will fix he problem without me dying in a horrific painful and dramatic fashion.


Anyone recall that video of the homeless black guy? I think he was in a NYC subway, he decided to leave the platform he bridged the 3 rail with his body and started mildly convulsing probably dead in 2 seconds and then the really interesting part, his body starts smoking literally being coooked hoprgfully slready dead an unconcios but gruseome all the same.

 

[Lou Sassle]

They measure the total power out on the transformer at the road in a lot of areas in the U.S. now. So if you have 10 homes on the transformer and 12 kw of power out and all 10 homes are reporting 1 kw of power being used they'll come out and start looking. They can measure your homes current usage at the road and figure out who is stealing power. It's a very serious crime in most places in the U.S. Paying back whatever they think you used and being banned from ever using them aka no power in that state for you again.

The real pro tip is stealing power from your neighbors. When they leave town on vacation if they have an exterior panel add a breaker and bury a line to you home. They'll pay for part of your electrical and probably won't look for a 15% increase in their bill.

 

[Cowboy Kim]

All I know about electrical meters is that old analog ones are awesome. When I was little, my family's house had an analog one with a tiny hole that you'd shove a stick into and get free power (no idea how.) I think it looked like this, but memories spotty:

 

[Troon_Patrol]

All I know about electrical meters is that old analog ones are awesome. When I was little, my family's house had an analog one with a tiny hole that you'd shove a stick into and get free power (no idea how.) I think it looked like this, but memories spotty:
View attachment 6253423

If you go back about 10 years you see all kinds of stories of people fighting like rabid dogs to stop the power company from upgrading. They claim the extra background radiation being very unhealthy, the meter being able to track when you are home, what devices you use when. I was extremely bothered when I found out some of them had a high amp relay built in, they can just cut power remotely without physical access. Given the TOS contract are fucking brutal on everything these days I'm sure than can cut power for any reason they feel like, one of the reasons for this thread.

Back in the day a large magnet would stop the disk from rotating. You simply just needed to know what day the meter reader was coming by and remove the magnet. Not to mention go from %100 to %20 power usage inducing a red flag situation.