ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area What harm in no grounding electrode?

I tend to disagree about the ground having no affect on electronic equipment.

Often (but not always) in electronic equipment, the gound is used as a referenced 0 point for the rectified DC, especially when the power supply is creating a +/- DC supply. The AC is rectified, filtered, and, with a coulple of voltager regulators, resisters and capacitors, centered to a 0 point. The zero point is essential in reproducing a sinewave, and some systems still use the provided system ground to stabilize that zero. Even if only one of the devices in an A/V system use this as a reference, and it's not there, then you will see a problem.

Sure, my AA in Sound Engineering is 14 years old, but I'm pretty sure I'm still right on this.

Often (but not always) in electronic equipment, the gound is used as a referenced 0 point for the rectified DC, especially when the power supply is creating a +/- DC supply.

You seem to be confusing the equipment internal or chassis ground with the power line ground. One has nothing to do with the other, other than possibly causing ground loops. If the chassis grounds are interconnected and AC current is caused to flow through the line cord grounds and back around through the chassis grounds that can cause problems.

Exactly what sort of problem is the owner talking about with his electronic equipment?

-Hal

Thank you for all your responses. It seems there are some conflicting views.

Hal- the issue the owner is having is that his DVD player is "locking" up. Beutler Digital has replaced the DVD 4 times. In addition I believe they had to replace the Reciever once. Not sure why that was.

Thanks,
Byron

Zapped, the audio equipment shouldn't care what voltage the signal ground is with relation to the earth, just so long as it's all consistant between the equipment and all components are using it as a ground reference. That "ground" might be 120VDC from the actual earth, but you'd never know unless you happened to touch it...

If that ground happened to fluctuate with the AC signal though, as I'd expect to see with a bad earth ground, yeah, there would be an annoying hum.

[This message has been edited by SteveFehr (edited 11-21-2006).]

Just Googled Beutler Digital. Wow, talk about a jack of all trades. HVAC, central vac, home warranty service, structured wiring, security and entertainment systems. Makes me wonder if they know what they are talking about.

At any rate I really don't think there is any problem other than with the DVD player. Have they tried a different brand? These things are so cheap (yeah I know they charged him a bundle for it) that bugs are quite common. If tried other types and there are still problems then I would be suspicious.

-Hal

jon,
Give me some examples of problems in the house caused by a poor or missing grounding electrode system.
Don

Nope, not going to try

I was trying to emphasize the _bonding_ part of grounding and bonding.

I've personally seen the results of having the phone system lightning protector 'grounded' to one electrode, and the electrical system 'grounded' to another electrode, with no bond in between....system would probably have been better off with no grounding electrodes at all.

-Jon

Don, personal experience, I had enough voltage to knock the snot out of me from the frame of everything to my terazzo floor. Cause, bad ground electrode. Remember you still have voltage drop on the neutral, even if everything is tight. You need to be sure it is the same potential as the slab

gfretwell,
If you had that much voltage drop on the grounded conductor, then there was problem with the grounded conductor and a ground rod would not have solved the problem. If the grounding electrode was metal underground water piping system, then that grounding rod could have masked the symptoms of the problem, but would not have solved the problem. A ground rod would have masked the symptoms for only a few feet around the rod. If you had connected to the slab rebar, then that too would have masked the problem.
Don