i want to use the grounding pin of an outlet to keep myself grounded. does anyone know if this is safe to do? my biggest worry is that a power surge will go through that pin and shock me
i want to use the grounding pin of an outlet to keep myself grounded. does anyone know if this is safe to do?
Why do you think you need to be grounded?
it's good for your health
> good for you
Stop watching wranglerstar
Becoming the ground source for 230 volts (even 120 Shart-in-mart volts) would massively negate any schizo health benefits.
I work in the electricity industry, loose neutral wires are remarkably common. If your house is one of those with a loose or broken neutral, your ground will be hot.
See
>loose neutral wires are remarkably common
Shit. I am already afraid of PEN breakage. My electricity comes from a pole. I don't think my house has a ground rod but I always discharge electrostatic buildup a lot on any grounded metal device, maybe it does? Or does that mean absolutely nothing?
>If your house is one of those with a loose or broken neutral, your ground will be hot.
The houses in this street as well as mine are from the 70s and most were never really renovated so all of them are TNCS or even TNC which was the standard back in those days. I guess I could add a ground rod in the yard but then if the entire street loses PEN I'll be the sole ground of the street and probably end up getting set on fire. I can see why TT is now recommended here.
wtf are you talking about. if nothing is plugged into to the outlet, it doesn't matter, there is no current flowing since there is no load.
>, loose neutral wires are remarkably common.
maybe in your shithole. if ground becomes hot then every grounded appliance will become hot. fricking 3rd worlders i swear.
he's a naughty boy
>Why do you think you need to be grounded?
Mom caught him looking at Dad's dirty magazines.
If you want to be grounded go outside and touch grass
Most electrical shock hazard is a result of a fault to ground - meaning the current flows from voltage source through conductive materials or path to the grounding electrode. If your body is constantly grounded you are essentially turning yourself into a 200' tall lightning rod for any fault, electrical storm etc.
I suggest if you really feel the need to ground your body (say during sleep or a meditative phase of the day) you drive your own grounding rod in somewhere far away from voltage sources and tether yourself with an anti static wristband or similar device. And if there is threat of electrical storm, detach yourself and find something else to do.
so surges get felt on every grounding pin on every outlet in that circuit?
I think it's easier to explain this way
>your body is conductive, but does not always have a path to ground, in which case, no current can pass through it
>lethal electroshock is when a lot of current passes through your heart
so if you touch a very powerful voltage source you might ordinarily survive it, but if you touch a very powerful voltage source while grounded then there will be a path for the current across your body which is very bad
yeah but i am not going to be working on any voltage sources, i am simply attaching myself to the ground without doing anything else. my question is if a surge from somewhere else will make its way into me through the grounding pin of my outlet because i will be grounded to that pin
If lightning strikes somewhere nearby, and you are grounded, then yes it’s possible you will feel it and/or die from it.
>yeah but i am not going to be working on any voltage sources
Most people who get shocked in their house aren't.
>so if you touch a very powerful voltage source you might ordinarily survive it,
You will, in fact, feel nothing. You'll get energized to the same voltage, but with no path for the current to flow, nothing happens.
Source: am electrician
even if there is a ground fault, why would the current flow through you if there is a low resistance return path.
same question, why?
you are at the same potential and there is a low resistance return path through the ground wire. unless we are talking about earthing, i.e. the earth is the return path which is dangerous and ground fault can indeed shock you and a relatively low current won't trip the circuit breaker.
>my biggest worry is ... a power surge
you can use a resistor in series with ground, say 10K to 1meg, and still be grounded.
with 1meg you wont even feel a tingle.
>does anyone know if this is safe to do?
If your house has a ground "pin" as well but you gotta know to find that.
>my biggest worry is that a power surge will go through that pin and shock me
You want a resistor between you and ground, most ground straps have one in them.
If your house does not have a ground and your PEN cable breaks you maybe kinda fricked though but that rarely happens.
Do not voluntarily and willingly connect yourself to any part of the electrical system of a house.
>willingly connect yourself
you're doing it every time you take a bath, shower, wash dishes, flush the toilet, touch your computer, hold a metal stair railing, change a light-bulb, walk barefoot on the grass.
I have never wanted to do any of those things
You really are not doing any of that. The external part of fixtures and appliances is not part of your dwelling's electrical system. They are connected to protective earth. You are not an appliance therefore you are not grounded (except when your parents tell you so).
OP if anything, being grounded will cause you to absorb a lot more radiation, while floating you will blend in with the surrounding space. You are approaching the problem from the wrong angle — you need to eliminate sources of radiation first.
>The external part of fixtures and appliances is not part of your dwelling's electrical system.
oh, but it is.
they're connected via 2 ground spikes in the (somewhat conductive) earth.
and also, all the pipes are grounded, and they end up in buried sections, adding 2 extra connections.
>what-is-the-ground-wire-for.jpg
Absolutely nothing. It's a load of shit.
OK, boomer.
Huge difference. The appliance is normally connected to neutral, so if it also uses the neutral as chassis bonding (fairly common on dryer outlets from before 1990), you will almost invariably get shocked from touching metal parts, even if the appliance is perfectly fine. Only components running purely on 240V (no neutral) will not have a chance to shock you, provided no other fault like chafed insulation.
It turns out that this house pictured in the video has a b***hin earth rod, original from the mid 70s. Fricking surprising.
>video
?????? I'm moronic? It's a photo and it's my place and I removed the bullshit.
midwit the post
both of you are moronic. you are confusing earthing and grounding. appliances are not connected to "protective earth" (a rod in the dirt). they are connected to "ground" : a very low resistance return path to trip the circuit breaker in case of a ground fault. the return path via earth is high resistance so if the appliance was earthed and a ground fault occurred, a relatively low current would flow via the earth return and it would not trip the circuit breaker and would kill ya. unless you live in some rural shithole with a SWER. then you have no choice and have to use earth return.
also note that the earth (soil) is actually very low resistance despite having high resistivity. the only part that is high resistance is the grounding electrode insertion point. after that the current flows in all directions so the earth acts as a very thick hemispherical wire with a huge cross sectional area. hence two ground points miles away are considered the same potential except for the high resistance insertion points on the order of a few ohms.
>the return path via earth is high resistance so if the appliance was earthed and a ground fault occurred, a relatively low current would flow via the earth return and it would not trip the circuit breaker and would kill ya
It would trip the RCD and not kill ya
Until about 25 years ago, building code in the US didn't require sperate ground and neutral bars in the breaker box. Prior to that, the ground pins on your outlets would go to the neutral bar in your breaker panel. That bar is then attached to a ground. Even so, that ground isn't for handling everyday current flowing on your system. It only carries current when something majorly wrong happens. Like a lightning strike hits a transformer and sends voltage down the power lines into your breaker panel.
If your house is even older, or badly wired, those grounds might not be grounds at all. I've seen plenty of examples where they just put in three-prong outlets even though no ground was present at all. I've also seen these same dumbshits that say "Well, the ground prong just goes to the neutral in the breaker box so I can just tie it to the neutral on the outlet and its the same thing!" Never assume anything was done right until you've personally checked it or its not your ass on the line if it is fricked up.
Very much this.
If you are dead set on doing this, a better solution would just to run a bit of wire out a window or something into the dirt. It could even be extremely narrow gauge. Your body isn't going to hold much of a charge so it won't take much to ground it. Old telephone line, coax cable, or speaker wire would work. Anything really. A single strand out of an ethernet cable would do. Shit, go to a thrift store, find a 10 ft./3m length of ethernet cable, cut the ends off, pull the wires out, splice them together, and you've now got about 80 ft./24m of wire to work with. It will be so narrow you could run it under a door or close a window on it and it wouldn't even bother the weather stripping.
>"Well, the ground prong just goes to the neutral in the breaker box so I can just tie it to the neutral on the outlet and its the same thing!"
Well, is it not? Only problem then is if you want to mount an RCD, oh wait, Americans don't even do that, they have them part of the bathroom outlet.
>Never assume anything was done right until you've personally checked it
I found neutral and ground swapped on outlets in my house after a "renovation" that was handled by some family asswipe.
The only difference is the grounds and neutrals are on separate bars. The neutral bar is bonded to ground in the main panel. Subpanels keep the neutral bar unbonded / separate from the earth.
> Americans don't do RCD's
They do. They have GFCI (RCD) units that fit in the panel with the breakers. They have ones too rated for a higher leak current, GFEP I think... Equipment protection. Too many electronics on a circuit will cause phantom trips.
Since much older wiring styles happen on the States, e.g. you'll have a bathroom with an outlet, and it's on a circuit that mostly supplies dry areas. In that case, the outlet style GFCI work better: you can turn off the panel breaker so there's no power, too. Therefore it's safer to DIY the swap. The GFCI can be wired just for that outlet, or to protect all downstream outlets.
You can verify the protection easy, and reset it, directly at the outlet.
They do them in the outlet, not in the panel. So it doesn't matter.
WTF is this half-ass reply?
> they do them in the outlet not the panel
Do you have reading comprehension of a Redditor? It was already described how they can be in either place.
You didn't have to be mean to me. 🙁
Yes but they rarely do that, at least from what I've heard. It's fine as far as I am concerned, long as it is TN. TT is for homosexuals who want to sell their soul to GFCI manufacturers.
You ain't me, homosexual.
You heard wrong. They're very common in new construction.
Your brazilian shower won't work if you're grounded.
I do it when I work on electronics.
I use a wrist strap that plugs into an outlet's ground pin.
You don't connect yourself directly; your antistatic wristband is supposed to be in series to Ground with a1MΩ resistor.
>put dirt in pocket
>Tie wire around wrist and tuck into pocket
>Portable and fully grounded according to science
That's a floating ground anon.
Electrical engineering degree here who works with ESD sensitive components regularly. You are only at risk of being shocked if there is a potential difference between ground and something else that you are touching. This means you don't want to strap yourself to ground if you are working on anything with active or stored power.
If you are working on something with no active or stored power, then grounding yourself is safe and will ensure that you do not generate static electricity when working on sensitive components. in this case, you should also make sure that you are not in an environment with dry air. Use a humidifier. Also you ideally want the ground connection to be as close to your hands as possible, and do not wear any loose clothing that may touch the component that you are working on. Your body may be grounded but your clothing won't be.
Electrical enginerd always chiming in with unsound, potentially dangerous advice. Electrical outlets are for appliances, not humans. Don't connect your body to an outlet, whichever hole in the outlet you pick.
Unless you can get OP to explain the difference between TN-C, TN-S, TN-CS... systems, then you can't just give him the OK to mess with grounds.
You know nothing.
These guys know.
Also if you are concerned about a hot ground like some of the posters in this thread, buy a voltmeter and check voltage from hot to ground. If it's around 110V or higher then you're good.
find some plumbing or heating system pipe wrap a wire around that it should be grounded locally
otherwise drive a pig into soil and run a wire to that
Happy to help *oinks*
🙂
Grounding is useful for stopping static electricity, because you zap the ground instead of whatever computer parts or whatever you touch. Grounding is NOT useful for actual electricity, because then the zaps go through you on their way to the ground and that is exactly how electricity kills you.
I used to do this, in the old days, when life was still good and full of hope
I just removed one of these from near my shed of the place I recently bought. I had no idea what it was.. Have I fricked up? I don't think it was attached to anything but I vaguely remember removing a cable attached to it when I first moved in.. I'm new at DIY stuff and thought it was a lightning rod for the huge antenna attached to the shed which I've already removed.. Frick?
yeah, call an electrician
Why are we discussing EE instead of how absolutely moronic OP is? He should be encouraged to put a fork in there.
i have a grounding rod just for grounding myself
14 gauge cable between that rod and one outlet in my bedroom for use with conductive mattress cover
>i want to use the grounding pin of an outlet to keep myself grounded.
Great bait since not even PrepHole is that stupid.
>Great bait
shut up, dumb Black person.
millions of electronics workers do this all day.
does anyone know if the grounding outlets at electronics factories are connected to the same ground that electric outlets use?
What?
>does anyone know
yes, everyone knows but you.
to eliminate static, you have to have a common point to drain it off into.
you can either create a whole new ground plane to cover the entire facility at the cost of millions.
or you can use the already-present electrical ground, at zero cost.
but people in this thread said that it is dangerous to be connected to the same ground that voltage is connected to
see
anon, pls.
i need another anon to confirm is a resistor is enough to stop a deadly power surge
are you trolling or just an idiot. I can't tell.
If you are handling sensitive electronics you might want to wear a wrist strap which typically has a large resistance to ground, to make sure you don't have a static electricity issue that can damage the electronics. Older electronic components were more susceptible to this, but some people still wear them.
Where exactly is this deadly power surge coming from, anon? Are you stupidly grabbing a live mains wire? Even then the 1 meg or whatever resistance of the wrist strap is not going to hurt you, but if you have your feet in a puddle of water you might die.
Are you the idiot above who thinks deadly power surges come in via the ground wire? I suppose with the right type of lightning strike that might happen, and in that case the wrist strap might be detrimental if you still have your feet in that puddle of water. Or a missile from the USSR might lock in on your wrist strap radar signature and that could be detrimental. I suggest you forego the wrist strap and just work out with your training sword to relieve your stress.
IIRC HP laptop power bricks have a 1Mohm resistor to ground connected to the output barrel jack negative
also see
now get grounded and get gud
you do this all the time when you open your refrigerator or a microwave or touch any other appliance. they are all intentionally grounded so you are "connecting" yourself to ground. don't fall for this bullshit.
p.s. except for toasters. toasters are never grounded since you could accidentally touch the hot heating element while fishing out your toast with a fork and holding onto the metal case with your left hand. if the case was grounded the current would flow across your chest through the heart. but since it is not grounded, it will instead flow through your right hand down, therefore bypassing the heart.
>toasters are never grounded since you could accidentally touch the hot heating element while fishing out your toast with a fork and holding onto the metal case with your left hand. if the case was grounded the current would flow across your chest through the heart.
RCD would react to this, no? 30mA isn't enough to kill you, right?
yes it would protect you regardless if the appliance is grounded or not since it compares currents in the hot and the neutral wires.
>30mA
why 30mA? GFCI trip current is about 5mA. 30mA might actually kill you. 5mA won't. I don't know what RCD is. Is it kind of a poor man's GFCI?
>GFCI trip current is about 5mA. 30mA might actually kill you.
We have 10mA too but they are rare as frick. 5mA is for the Americans outlet cope.
>I don't know what RCD is.
Residual Current Device. Eurobabble for GFCI.
>Is it kind of a poor man's GFCI?
Rich man's GFCI. Whole house protection. Outlet GFCI is copium along with TN systems.
if you really want to be a hippie homosexual just touch the earth itself. or shove a separate grounding rod a few into the earth and touch that
Is ESD a real thing? like if I'm holding a new video card, or sound card or something, am I really gonna fry it by touching it without wearing a wrist strap
maybe if your skating in your socks on carpet while doing it? just ground yourself on the case occasionally if you're worried about it. I've built and rebuilt my computer a dozen times without a gaystrap and had zero issues
I made one from an old pc power cable.
Forgot pic. I pulled the hot pin out and used a length of ground wire as a bracelet. I think it helps and in the end isnt that all that matters?
you can buy an esd bracelet with safety bleed resistor and a plug that plugs into the wall in your house for a few bucks from amazon
i would not use one in america nobody there knows how to wire electrical systems nor has a brain
you can very easily get a small mains shock from capacitive coupling
this entire thread is full of morons btw to a scary degree.
>i would not use one in america nobody there knows how to wire electrical systems nor has a brain
american houses are required to have earth rods, my fellow eurofrick
literally touch grass