2. misc-audio
  3. 172453-20253

Star Grounding and the Home

This comes up a bit so I wanted to talk about it.

 

You may not, for safety reasons, create a separate grounding scheme for appliances fed from the same service. May. Not. Ever. That means that at the service entrance all the grounds and the neutrals must connect, preferably with zero Ohms between them and zero Ohms to the ground rod(s). I say preferably because, corrossion, splices, etc. These are rarely perfect.

 

However, you MAY run an insulated separate ground wire to the ground rods which feed the rest of the home. This is like a star grounding scheme in a piece of audio gear. You meet the code criteria, and you hopefully dissipate noise in the ground wiring of your home at the rod before it can reach your gear. You can achieve a very good version of this by running a sub panel to your audio room.

 

One interesting possibility that I’ve seen some power conditioners hint at is to use a coil with appropriate gauge wiring and low DCR to isolate the gear. This meets the code requirements that it can carry 100% of the current in the event of a short, and the coil blocks noise from the rest of the home. Pricey, cause it requires heavy coils, and because.... audiophiles.

erik_squires

Showing 1 response by oldhvymec

oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 

In the mid west and Sierra's where there a lot of lightning strikes you can have 20 ground rods hooked to lightning rods they just all have to be bonded together, same for your stereo system.

This is on the principal of marine grounding. We called it a star marine ground but it is pure marine tech.. Try fixing noise issues on a houseboat plugged into a dock AC supply..It's ALL marine ground (star). The boat is fiberglass, but you still have to share a common ground with an onboard generator, appliances and DC water pump motors.

Everything has to run it's own ground wire and it cannot be broken or spliced unless it's in an explosion proof box. You can use a common block but it needs to be bonded also to the hull if it metal.  In brackish water (the ocean is a hugh battery) You need something for the electrolysis to EAT other than the metal on the boat. Grounding bars!! AWAY from your onboard star points. ALL threads have to use Never-sieze.

I worked on sea going rescue Tugs and fishing boats every now and then for Cat.. They can't break and they can't catch on fire.. What puke buckets.. Working in rolling seas in a foot of bilgewater and friggin' rats askin for something to eat. YUP I miss that job.

I hate seals too, they are mean.. Look at the cute seal, sea going squirrels if you ask me.. Fisherman hate um..

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