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AUDIO FORUMS >> General Discussion and Support >> Is there an electrician in the house?
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Message started by Burgermeester on 01/21/22 at 06:27:23

Title: Is there an electrician in the house?
Post by Burgermeester on 01/21/22 at 06:27:23

Sorry for posting this slightly off-Decware question.

I've lived in Japan for decades. The mains power is 100V (and oddly, 50Hz from Tokyo north, the other half of the country is 60Hz).

I've never seen residential wiring that is grounded, even in new buildings. They just don't do it here. If you want grounded outlets you have to have someone come in and run a huge wire out the wall of your house and into the ground. While they're installing it, they'll ask you what in the world you need it for -- are you going to mine bitcoin or something?

In fact, my wife's father (unfortunately no longer around) was an electrician. I asked him about this once and his reply was more or less, "Sure, if you think you need it. Do you really?"

I could my landlord to put something in, I guess, but my equipment isn't in a convenient location to run a wire outside. I googled "portable electrical ground," hoping I could equipment-buy my way out, but got nothing.

I have surge protectors on all my equipment. Do I really need everything grounded or is this something non-Japanese manufacturers say to cover themselves? For example, I just bought a big refrigerator -- it came with a regular old 2-prong plug. Makes me wonder. Maybe the voltage is too low to make it necessary?

Title: Re: Is there an electrician in the house?
Post by EdwardT on 01/21/22 at 14:47:24

The ground wire is an extra path for electricity in case the neutral line fails so that makes it a safety item, assuming that the neutral will fail. Extra because the neutral and ground (to earth) are bonded somewhere in the circuit; in my house ( continental US) that’s at the service entrance meter but it's also at the utility pole, too. It’s a redundant element in the overall scheme of things and the US did pretty well with two wire systems for close to a century.
One could argue that it acts as an effective drain for noise but I’ve had to lift grounds to eliminate noise so many times that I’m not a consumer of that idea.

Title: Re: Is there an electrician in the house?
Post by CAJames on 01/21/22 at 16:00:13

It's funny that when I took a class in circuit theory in college the professor was very clear that neutral return and ground are very different things. (Earth) Ground goes to the grounding rod in your house and neutral return goes back to the center tap of the utility transformer and from there back to the power plant, to complete the circuit. When I tell this story to anyone who actually does (practical) electrical they look at me like I'm crazy because of course neutral return gets grounded somewhere, either at the house or utility pole. This doesn't help the OP at all but it is the usual cause of ground loops, because the neutral return of all the different circuits are connected to (the same) earth ground.

Title: Re: Is there an electrician in the house?
Post by EdwardT on 01/21/22 at 20:12:03

I hear you but I didn’t think a discussion of star or delta 3 phase would do anything but muddy the waters when answering about a single phase issue.

Title: Re: Is there an electrician in the house?
Post by JBzen on 01/22/22 at 10:30:21

50 percent of my life's work has been electrical appliance industrial/consumer repair/diagnostics. I for one am glad that(and probably still alive to enjoy retirement) there is a ground wire in US electric code. That extra wire will take an errant current caused by a faulty appliance straight to ground rather than thru my working body or the users! It will keep blowing the breaker until until the fault is found.

John

Title: Re: Is there an electrician in the house?
Post by Burgermeester on 01/23/22 at 07:27:28

Many thanks everyone for these insights. Very interesting.

Just to confirm, if there is a ground wire at the point where power enters the house, does that provide the needed protection? I always thought grounding was outlet by outlet (laugh, go ahead).

Title: Re: Is there an electrician in the house?
Post by JBzen on 01/23/22 at 12:26:28

Depends. Here in the US a properly grounded service should have 2 rods driven into the ground attaching the rods in the service panel with a single continious solid copper wire.

The codes change yearly so things may be slighty different now but back in a day the rods were driven 6' in the ground, 6 feet apart and copper was 4 gauge. Most electricians did not like that part of a service installation and I am positive some did not get those rods 6' in the ground!

One more note: The neutral wires and ground wires from all circuits are usally attached to the same buss in a residential service panel.

John