Ugh, I just had a "Fields and Waves" flashback.

JUtah, the (only) problem with what you say is that a typical power panel does not drop the voltage all the way from 12 to 1.5 using a load. There is a voltage regulating or step-down circuit of some sort in there. Even my (roughly) 15yr old Tower pannel has a small card of something or the other on the glow driver output, not just a big resister.