Taking care of grounding

[valkyrie]

DaveC,

While I appreciate your epistle to the "unwashed" (myself) I find it rather long on histrionics and rather short on actual information, logic or explanation. I have learned that hand-waving and the expression of deep fears (that I and my loved ones may die - that was great!!!!) do not constitute solid arguments for or against a point. These are the techniques of politicians, preachers (of any stripe) and others wanting to motivate people - for or against an arbitrary point.

So if you have something of actual engineering content and purpose to share? Then by all means do so. Otherwise I will continue to ignore your hyper-ventilation.

But I do thank your for your emotional and content-free post.

 

[Speedskater]

valkyrie, while it's true the neutral and ground are tied together at the service entrance they serve completely different functions and mixing the neutral and ground wires after the service entrance is very dangerous. Also, there is absolutely no good reason to do this. I can tell from what you wrote you misunderstand this point.... just because they are tied together at the service entrance does not make them interchangeable! If you live alone feel free to take your chances but if you live with others please consider the worst possible outcome, their death, may be your fault and if it causes a fire your insurance won't pay.

I also agree with c1, grounding practices vary and are misunderstood. Running power to an AV system from the service entrance is also frequently misunderstood and often done in a way that promotes noise as a result of ground currents. To further the problem even more, most cable designers don't understand the function of the ground wire in their own cables and make poor design choices. The result of poor grounding schemes in components, cables AND the house electrical system opens the door for aftermarket grounding products. If grounding was handled properly I do not believe these devices would be nearly as popular as they are, because their effects would be minimal to none.

It's my opinion that AC power and cables are the backbone of a system, but are also one of the things often done in a way that is nowhere close to optimal. This results in currents flowing in the shields and ground connections of your cables, which couple to the signal and cause noise.

An excellent, accurate post!
Much of the misunderstanding and confusion is caused by the word 'ground' itself. The word has so many meanings and misuse's that confusion runs rampant.

 

[DaveC]

DaveC,

While I appreciate your epistle to the "unwashed" (myself) I find it rather long on histrionics and rather short on actual information, logic or explanation. I have learned that hand-waving and the expression of deep fears (that I and my loved ones may die - that was great!!!!) do not constitute solid arguments for or against a point. These are the techniques of politicians, preachers (of any stripe) and others wanting to motivate people - for or against an arbitrary point.

So if you have something of actual engineering content and purpose to share? Then by all means do so. Otherwise I will continue to ignore your hyper-ventilation.

But I do thank your for your emotional and content-free post.

I certainly could go into detail but from the tone of your post, I'm out. Enjoy your death trap electronics.