AW: To earth, or not to earth...

[Don Tillman]

   From: media at mail1.nai.net
   Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 03:42:07 -0500

   >Is there any regulation (VDE or so) that says circuit ground has to be
   >connected to Protective Earth? 

No, of course not.

   > This connection is made in many devices and it causes trouble
   > again and again.  

There are many pieces of equipment out there with bogus grounding.
The right thing to do is to get someone who knows what they're doing
to fix them.

The exact same thing applies to building wiring; many cases have
bogus grounding and should be fixed.

The best approach for most equipment is to have the chasis grounded to
Earth, the signal grounds brought to one point, and that should be
connected to the chasis ground through a resistor.

   I've heard some of these laws can be very silly, as the law isn't written
   by engineers.  It is better to check with your local codes than get shut
   down by the fire marshall.

Huh?  The National Electrical Code is certainly written by engineers.
I don't think this is a case of lawyers writing electrical codes --
Hell if that were the case we'd all be dead or running kerosene-
powered equipment.

  -- Don