Stay away

[mikeywith]

This is Russia
These people connected the transformer to a 10kilovolt power line and most likely the line was not disconnected.
It was discussed in Russian forum, it is very dangerous to make such connection, but thieves did it.
Ask your electricians if they can repeat such a trick?

What else would they have connected to? It's not like they had an option; you need to connect to a medium-voltage distribution line, which is 10KV in Russia (11KV in many other countries like mine). you connect a step-down transformer from 10 kV to 400/230V or 380/220 V straight to your miner or home, and by the way, it's very common to connect and maintain medium-voltage lines while energized -- it's called live-line work, they could just pay someone at the grid company and he would set them up in no time, or buy the correct gear to do it them selves.

It's also possible that they found another transformer connection nearby and used insulated hot sticks to pull the fuses and safely connected below the fuse ( this doesn't require much experience, I have personally tried it under the supervision of grid guys, but that stick was too iffing heavy maybe 6-8kg and about 12m long when extended, the pros make it seem like they holding a pen).

With that said, none of the above is safe, not even for the professionals, but these people are risking years in jail -- they probably don't care much about anything else.

[Patikno]

Now the truck is been seized and the two guys ran away, the question now is what is their gain so far? Buying 95 Asic miners isn't cheap, that's a lot of money, yes they escaped now and may be caught later, risking getting imprisoned and they lost every penny spent on mining already.


Stay away from illegal mining operations, it doesn't pay, illegal connections causes disruption on power grid and it's noticeable, it will always be traced back to you, and you will lose everything, your peace of mind included even if you manage to get away.

We have saying where I come from, I don't know if it is popular in other parts of the world but the saying is this, "Everyday for the thief, one day for the owner". Thieves always get caught even though it may take 10 years or more in all of the cases they always end up getting caught. Illegal mining operations cause too much problems and it is just a dumb way to earn money. Doing the right thing always pays.

That saying is similar to what exists in my country, and if translated into English it is "Pleasure for a moment, suffering forever", and words like this actually have a broad meaning, if we relate it to a thief who commits theft to be able to mine Bitcoin, then we can interpret that if someone does that, then the consequences are that he can be imprisoned, have a bad reputation, and even experience a lot of loss of time and money because of it. Therefore, we should avoid this kind of thing, there are still so many good ways to be able to mine Bitcoin, and do it even if you have to build one by one to be able to achieve it, then it will be wise and has less risk than doing it by the illegal way.

[FP91G]

This is Russia
These people connected the transformer to a 10kilovolt power line and most likely the line was not disconnected.
It was discussed in Russian forum, it is very dangerous to make such connection, but thieves did it.
Ask your electricians if they can repeat such a trick?

What else would they have connected to? It's not like they had an option; you need to connect to a medium-voltage distribution line, which is 10KV in Russia (11KV in many other countries like mine). you connect a step-down transformer from 10 kV to 400/230V or 380/220 V straight to your miner or home, and by the way, it's very common to connect and maintain medium-voltage lines while energized -- it's called live-line work, they could just pay someone at the grid company and he would set them up in no time, or buy the correct gear to do it them selves.

It's also possible that they found another transformer connection nearby and used insulated hot sticks to pull the fuses and safely connected below the fuse ( this doesn't require much experience, I have personally tried it under the supervision of grid guys, but that stick was too iffing heavy maybe 6-8kg and about 12m long when extended, the pros make it seem like they holding a pen).

With that said, none of the above is safe, not even for the professionals, but these people are risking years in jail -- they probably don't care much about anything else.

I was interested in this question, live-line work can be done at 220-380 volts. At 10,000 volts, work is only done on a switched-off line. But I read that in other countries people also connect to high-voltage lines to steal electricity. Most likely, in this case, there were no transformers or other connection methods nearby.

[BitBastard]

Tesla meant for that energy to be free and we should liberate it.

[mikeywith]

I was interested in this question, live-line work can be done at 220-380 volts. At 10,000 volts, work is only done on a switched-off line. But I read that in other countries people also connect to high-voltage lines to steal electricity. Most likely, in this case, there were no transformers or other connection methods nearby.

11kv is meduim voltage not high, and as I said, it is very common to perform live-line work on medium voltage lines, not sure why is that not done in Russia, have you confirmed that? anyway still, even if the electric company does not approve it, people with the right tools can still do it and it isn't as 'hard' as you may think.

[FP91G]

I was interested in this question, live-line work can be done at 220-380 volts. At 10,000 volts, work is only done on a switched-off line. But I read that in other countries people also connect to high-voltage lines to steal electricity. Most likely, in this case, there were no transformers or other connection methods nearby.

11kv is meduim voltage not high, and as I said, it is very common to perform live-line work on medium voltage lines, not sure why is that not done in Russia, have you confirmed that? anyway still, even if the electric company does not approve it, people with the right tools can still do it and it isn't as 'hard' as you may think.

You are right, according to Russian GOSTs, this is medium voltage. For me, this is high
Such lines are used to transmit voltage for 30-40 kilometers from powerful substations to small consumers.
There are no suits that would allow a person to work near such live wires. I admit that there are special mechanized means for work so that a person is at a safe distance, but this is very expensive. Sometimes it is very difficult to get to the place of the breakdown.
That is why, when a breakdown occurs, a team of 3-4 people goes to the site in a UAZ with good cross-country ability and an electrician climbs a pole with a ladder and assembly claws and fixes the fault on the de-energized line.
De-energizing a line for 30-40 km and sending a mobile team is much cheaper than delivering specialized equipment to the same place.

In cities there is enough specialized equipment and electricians, but in remote areas problems are usually fixed in this way. If this is not possible, then other specialists go to the site of the breakdown.

Be sure to share your experience of how electricians in your country fix breakdowns on such lines. I would like to see photos of the equipment.