Ground lifting, just how "dangerous" is it?
- Thread starter chava
- Start date
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
Nice but this wasn't modern audio ghear ....... this was a late 60's Ampeg. Two of my other Ampegs of that age don't even have grounds ...... just two prong power cords. I honestly don't remember whether that one did or not. But with 110 going directly to the bass as if it were hard wired to it, I fail to see how anything would have stopped it from biting me except a GFI outlet.
And once again, nowhere did I say that you shouldn't try to get grounding situations corrected.
All I said was it's not as dangerous as people make it to be and I stand by that.
If it's so dangerous lets see the news reports of people being killed by it.
Go ahead ....... do your search and find some.
You really won't ....... that guy with the Black Crows got killed like 35 years ago and he was using an SVT if I'm not mistaken.
You might find one or two others but that's about it.
I never see anyone saying don't drive and we have like 40,000 people a year killed doing that.
Lifting a ground isn't desirable but it's also not deadly in virtually all cases. I bet they have more poeple choke to death on sandwiches than electrocuted by lifting a ground.
I'm certainly not gonna rewire my house so let's take bets as to whether I get killed by it.
I'll pretty much give ya'll whatever odds you want because it's simply not gonna happen.
Hell ....... just to be reckless, I'll even open up one of my tube amps and stick a hand in there!
I suppose newbies best follow the rules strictly but you're never gonna convince me that lifting a ground is deadly dangerous when there's simply no one being killed by that.
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
I understand that most guitar/bass amps can be retrofitted with grounded power.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
yeah they can.
But don't forget ..... the instance I'm talking about occurred in 1971. This wasn't something that happened recently.
I can promise you ...... NO regular musicians were talking about adding grounds to amps that didn't have them back then.
But it was a very different time ..... here's one for ya'. Back then you could go into ANY convenience store and buy tubes on your way to a gig. They all had tube testers and a supply of tubes. Drugstores too ...... run into Walgreens and grab a couple of 6550's!
wow ........ that's pretty different huh?
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
yeah they can.
But don't forget ..... the instance I'm talking about occurred in 1971. This wasn't something that happened recently.
I can promise you ...... NO regular musicians were talking about adding grounds to amps that didn't have them back then.
But it was a very different time ..... here's one for ya'. Back then you could go into ANY convenience store and buy tubes on your way to a gig. They all had tube testers and a supply of tubes. Drugstores too ...... run into Walgreens and grab a couple of 6550's!
wow ........ that's pretty different huh?
Well, 1971 is a whole different thing. I remember the days of tube testers in drugstores. You'd first go down and pick up a set of numbered stickers to put on tubes and sockets before you pulled the tubes from your TV, so you could remember which went where.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
yep ....... it was so radically different back then when it came to electronics.
VERY often fixing your TV meant changing some tubes.
Nowadays fixing your TV means throwing it away!
guido #2
New member
You guys are high.
Sure, you can make a lifelong career out of sticking your head into a lion's mouth. You might even make it to retirement. But YOU have to be lucky EVERY time. The lion only needs to get lucky ONCE.
I've run sound for years. And I've been blasted on my ass a couple times. It's nothing to fool with, especially live, and especially with a tube amp.
Sure, you can make a lifelong career out of sticking your head into a lion's mouth. You might even make it to retirement. But YOU have to be lucky EVERY time. The lion only needs to get lucky ONCE.
I've run sound for years. And I've been blasted on my ass a couple times. It's nothing to fool with, especially live, and especially with a tube amp.
D
dintymoore
Guest
There were a number of people using those adapters but they're all dead.
I have been using cables made like this https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=294090 for a long time and believe that they offer the biggest chance of a quiet signal.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
And me too ...... specifically since 1969 full time as a musician/sound guy. Somewhere around 14,000 gigs best as I can determine so I'm not just talking out my ass here.
I still say that you can't point to more than a couple of serious injuries from lifting grounds in the last 30 years ....... that means people have been lucky every single time for millions and millions of times.
OR .... that the danger is exxagerated.
And once again I point out that NO freakin' where have I said to disregard grounding issues.
ALL I'm saying is that it's not the deadly danger that some make it out to be and the fact that basically no one is ever seriously harmed by it backs this up.
I bet some of ya'll that are so concerned with the danger of lifting grounds are smokers or drinkers.
MUCH higher chance of you getting hurt from that. Or that fatty cheeseburger you had for lunch.
Hey newbies ....... don't mess with grounds ....... just be safe m'kay?
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
LOL!There were a number of people using those adapters but they're all dead.
.
I was killed several times!
mshilarious
Banned
That was my point, it wouldn't have happened with a grounded chassis. The fault to chassis would have returned to the panel via the safety ground and tripped either the amp's fuse or the breaker on the circuit due to an overcurrent condition (short circuit) as soon as the amp was plugged in or turned on, depending on which side of the switch shorted. So unless your lips were grounded when you plugged in the amp, you wouldn't have gotten shocked. GFI not required, although those are nice to have.
I've seen relatively new amps without a chassis safety ground and the signal ground floated above chassis. Somehow I don't think a 47 ohm resistor would be quite enough though . . . needless to say I don't build stuff like that
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
There are about 550 fatalities per year in the U.S., or about 2 per million people. Medical treatment of all kinds, malpractice excepted, probably kills more in a year.
guido #2
New member
Found two in two minutes.
1- Leslie Harvey
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/onstage.asp
2- Hot Hot Heat guitarist Luke Paquin recovering from onstage electrocution (video footage) http://www.examiner.com/music-in-ho...ring-from-onstage-electrocution-video-footage
Another...
Yardbirds Keith Relf
He had fitted out the basement of his house as a recording studio and this is where he was found on the floor by his son. His guitar was not properly earthed
And yet another
John Henry Rostill
After The Shadows break up at the end of the 1960s, Rostill toured with Tom Jones. Although he was not involved in the Marvin, Welch & Farrar project (he was with Tom Jones at the time - 1970-72), he would have been a part of subsequent Shadows projects had he not died in November 1973, when he was electrocuted in his home recording studio
Maybe doesn't happen a lot, but it happens
1- Leslie Harvey
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/onstage.asp
2- Hot Hot Heat guitarist Luke Paquin recovering from onstage electrocution (video footage) http://www.examiner.com/music-in-ho...ring-from-onstage-electrocution-video-footage
Another...
Yardbirds Keith Relf
He had fitted out the basement of his house as a recording studio and this is where he was found on the floor by his son. His guitar was not properly earthed
And yet another
John Henry Rostill
After The Shadows break up at the end of the 1960s, Rostill toured with Tom Jones. Although he was not involved in the Marvin, Welch & Farrar project (he was with Tom Jones at the time - 1970-72), he would have been a part of subsequent Shadows projects had he not died in November 1973, when he was electrocuted in his home recording studio
Maybe doesn't happen a lot, but it happens
...
I'm a HAM radio guy.
Signal to noise ratio, and quiet grounds? We HAMs go thru the same thing, and we desire quiet equipment too. Its not only musicians that have 100 or 200 watt "tube amps", you know. Ask any HAM if he has a 1000 watt tube amp, and a surprising amunt of us do have a kilowatt amp!
Its just not an audio amp, its for the radio signal...
But the electric circuit inside is lethal in spots, and not just the main capacitors in the power supply, and heck, thats on a 100 watt tube amp, you dont wanna know some of the values in a kilowatt tube amp !!
grounding equipment properly, and avoiding a hot-chassis situation is a number one safety issue to us. It gets PREACHED to newbs in our field. Can you "do it a thousand times, or even 14,000 times and be fine?" *SURE* But sooner or later, Mr. Myurphy will rear his head... Most of our big tube amps are 220v and have much more amperage available on the line. Good grounding habits will already have you in a good mode when you finally get bigger equipment... like a tube amp running on 40 amps of 220v !!
But quiet grounds, and SAFETY grounds, are not mutually exclusive.
WE want signal to noise ratio so we can make out a signal thats just a half a blonde pube hair above the background noise on the antenna. We ground FANATICALLY. Typical setup for even a newcomer is a 6 foot copper stake driven as far into the ground as possible. This master ground reference will ground the antenna, all our shielded cables are electrically grounded to it, and all of our chasis grounds go to it too... its not just safety (many of us are just practical chums too, you know) its for quiet equiment, that has a chance of workin close to specs of S-N ratio...
the "ground" in most houses and older ccommercial buildings is a piece of wire goin from the power box to the entry of a copper water pipe in the basement... hardly a real ground. WE will tie all of our equipment and antebnna grounds to a ground line coming from that big copper stake driven deep into the earth, and let everythin reference THAT ground.
The similarities between HAM equipment, and what our home shacks come to resemble after 20 years in the hobby... and what musicians that get into home studios end up with... well, its incredibly similar in many ways.
we BOTH have old and new solid state and tube equipment, we both desire a good signal to noise ratio, and we both have expensive cabling, and we both develop goofy ground noise problems... and we both end up with a room chock full of rack mount equipment that looks pretty darn cool, heh heh.
HAMs and sound technicians go together like chocolate and peanut butter... the electronics and math skills overlap considerably... but do consider what I said about a giant ground copper stake, as a "true ground" for ALL equipment to sink a good earth (ground) from. Not only do you have safety, you will get quiet ground and lowered S/N ratios...
once I DID this, one piece of "problem" equipment (noisy) just POOF! disappeared all on its own, and became one of my favorite old rigs!
I'm a HAM radio guy.
Signal to noise ratio, and quiet grounds? We HAMs go thru the same thing, and we desire quiet equipment too. Its not only musicians that have 100 or 200 watt "tube amps", you know. Ask any HAM if he has a 1000 watt tube amp, and a surprising amunt of us do have a kilowatt amp!
Its just not an audio amp, its for the radio signal...
But the electric circuit inside is lethal in spots, and not just the main capacitors in the power supply, and heck, thats on a 100 watt tube amp, you dont wanna know some of the values in a kilowatt tube amp !!
grounding equipment properly, and avoiding a hot-chassis situation is a number one safety issue to us. It gets PREACHED to newbs in our field. Can you "do it a thousand times, or even 14,000 times and be fine?" *SURE* But sooner or later, Mr. Myurphy will rear his head... Most of our big tube amps are 220v and have much more amperage available on the line. Good grounding habits will already have you in a good mode when you finally get bigger equipment... like a tube amp running on 40 amps of 220v !!
But quiet grounds, and SAFETY grounds, are not mutually exclusive.
WE want signal to noise ratio so we can make out a signal thats just a half a blonde pube hair above the background noise on the antenna. We ground FANATICALLY. Typical setup for even a newcomer is a 6 foot copper stake driven as far into the ground as possible. This master ground reference will ground the antenna, all our shielded cables are electrically grounded to it, and all of our chasis grounds go to it too... its not just safety (many of us are just practical chums too, you know) its for quiet equiment, that has a chance of workin close to specs of S-N ratio...
the "ground" in most houses and older ccommercial buildings is a piece of wire goin from the power box to the entry of a copper water pipe in the basement... hardly a real ground. WE will tie all of our equipment and antebnna grounds to a ground line coming from that big copper stake driven deep into the earth, and let everythin reference THAT ground.
The similarities between HAM equipment, and what our home shacks come to resemble after 20 years in the hobby... and what musicians that get into home studios end up with... well, its incredibly similar in many ways.
we BOTH have old and new solid state and tube equipment, we both desire a good signal to noise ratio, and we both have expensive cabling, and we both develop goofy ground noise problems... and we both end up with a room chock full of rack mount equipment that looks pretty darn cool, heh heh.
HAMs and sound technicians go together like chocolate and peanut butter... the electronics and math skills overlap considerably... but do consider what I said about a giant ground copper stake, as a "true ground" for ALL equipment to sink a good earth (ground) from. Not only do you have safety, you will get quiet ground and lowered S/N ratios...
once I DID this, one piece of "problem" equipment (noisy) just POOF! disappeared all on its own, and became one of my favorite old rigs!
mshilarious
Banned
For those who don't know about technical grounds, please note this article:
http://www.equitech.com/support/techgrnd.html
The technical ground MUST be bonded to the building's main grounding electrode by a run of #6 outside the structure. I'm sure SEDstar knows that and assumed it, but people here won't all know and we had a joker a few months back (claiming to be an electrician) stating otherwise . . .
http://www.equitech.com/support/techgrnd.html
The technical ground MUST be bonded to the building's main grounding electrode by a run of #6 outside the structure. I'm sure SEDstar knows that and assumed it, but people here won't all know and we had a joker a few months back (claiming to be an electrician) stating otherwise . . .
D
dintymoore
Guest
I put a 6' (or was it longer?) copper post in the ground right below my fuse panel. Where I live, if you go down 6' you hit Pacific Ocean and if that's not grounded... Houston we have a problem.
Here's one of my cheapo inventions, sorry for the cheap camera:
This is where the ground wire from the fuse box, which is solid 1/4" copper "wire" attaches to the top of the buried ground post. I used a plastic jar with a screw-on cap, and I goobered a bunch of automotive wheel bearing grease on the connections. I did this maybe 10 years ago and the connection is still corrosion free.
Here's one of my cheapo inventions, sorry for the cheap camera:
This is where the ground wire from the fuse box, which is solid 1/4" copper "wire" attaches to the top of the buried ground post. I used a plastic jar with a screw-on cap, and I goobered a bunch of automotive wheel bearing grease on the connections. I did this maybe 10 years ago and the connection is still corrosion free.
...
"SEDstar" isnt an electrician, I just do electronics and house wiring and i'm a HAM too... lol...
I just mention this from a practical point of view, lol. MAN, around here? There's a lot of old houses and old buildings, you have no idea what passes for wiring around here, LMAO... You'll buy a house, see all new drywall, all new outlets and switches, all new plumbing...
but when you really go and LOOK, you notice ancient 2-wire BX cable running around, rats nested to the "new stuff" you see when you look at the pretty new outlets and switches. THATS where you see the famous thin bare wire going over to the water pipe, and its just held on by a hose clamp, and the connection is all corroded.
I ONE TIME had a perplexing problem. A computer suddenly quit working. No other power supplies worked. Everything else in the house worked though... BUT, I remembered back toa dorm fridge I ran in a one room apartment that only had "2-wire" wiring in the room... I got a 3 prong to 2-prong connector, and it still didnt run... when I ran a wire from the groundin tab on the adaptor to the radiator... disco! I plugged THAT sucker in, and it wouldnt run either... heh heh... ran downstairs and scraped off the green stuff on the water pipe, and bang, computers worked again (and the dorm fridge, too)
THATS what made me go nuts and put in a "proper" ground, not some electrical code, LMAO... just practical thinking... A lot of high end electronics are made to not run if the ground is lost. I had been WONDERING why my computer had an intermittent fault before that, LMAO...
"noise" for me as a HAM, and I can only assume its some of the potential noise for home recording too... comes from some unlikely sources. Computers can be very noisy devices. Some of my more sensitive HAM receivers can pick up my computer noise. Flourescrent lights are another fantastic source of low background noise. really, I sometimes charge up several car batteries and run my receiver off of THAT... after I go down the basement and shut the main off. If there's not a bad transformer outside the house, that quiets things down considerably.
I have a very sensitive electronic scale I use for precision rifle cartridge reloading... i have to remember to make sure the clothes dryer is off before I use it, or it weighs consistently light, but, only when the electricity to the electrical heating element is on...
the various chokes and filters can drive you nuts chasing that down, eh... in the end, when I need things really "electrically quiet", I have no real choice but to run things of of a bank of car batteries... which may not really be an option for a home studio with a lot of big-draw items...
"SEDstar" isnt an electrician, I just do electronics and house wiring and i'm a HAM too... lol...
I just mention this from a practical point of view, lol. MAN, around here? There's a lot of old houses and old buildings, you have no idea what passes for wiring around here, LMAO... You'll buy a house, see all new drywall, all new outlets and switches, all new plumbing...
but when you really go and LOOK, you notice ancient 2-wire BX cable running around, rats nested to the "new stuff" you see when you look at the pretty new outlets and switches. THATS where you see the famous thin bare wire going over to the water pipe, and its just held on by a hose clamp, and the connection is all corroded.
I ONE TIME had a perplexing problem. A computer suddenly quit working. No other power supplies worked. Everything else in the house worked though... BUT, I remembered back toa dorm fridge I ran in a one room apartment that only had "2-wire" wiring in the room... I got a 3 prong to 2-prong connector, and it still didnt run... when I ran a wire from the groundin tab on the adaptor to the radiator... disco! I plugged THAT sucker in, and it wouldnt run either... heh heh... ran downstairs and scraped off the green stuff on the water pipe, and bang, computers worked again (and the dorm fridge, too)
THATS what made me go nuts and put in a "proper" ground, not some electrical code, LMAO... just practical thinking... A lot of high end electronics are made to not run if the ground is lost. I had been WONDERING why my computer had an intermittent fault before that, LMAO...
"noise" for me as a HAM, and I can only assume its some of the potential noise for home recording too... comes from some unlikely sources. Computers can be very noisy devices. Some of my more sensitive HAM receivers can pick up my computer noise. Flourescrent lights are another fantastic source of low background noise. really, I sometimes charge up several car batteries and run my receiver off of THAT... after I go down the basement and shut the main off. If there's not a bad transformer outside the house, that quiets things down considerably.
I have a very sensitive electronic scale I use for precision rifle cartridge reloading... i have to remember to make sure the clothes dryer is off before I use it, or it weighs consistently light, but, only when the electricity to the electrical heating element is on...
the various chokes and filters can drive you nuts chasing that down, eh... in the end, when I need things really "electrically quiet", I have no real choice but to run things of of a bank of car batteries... which may not really be an option for a home studio with a lot of big-draw items...
D
dintymoore
Guest
That's why, after the ground connection is clean, I coat it it with wheel bearing grease. Without it mine corrodes in a few weeks. The one I put in that plastic tub covered in grease has no corrosion at the 10 year mark.
GB makes a product called Ox-Guard specifically to prevent corrosion. It's a grease and I use it in electrical connections in electrical outlets and light switches.
haha ..... well, when it came thru my lips it was a bit more than a tickle!
It was more like someone hit me in the face with a bat! I remember it well ...... blue fire and I was on the floor! LOL
Lt. you just described my first kiss to the little red headed girl that lived down the street from me, at age 8 there were even a few fireworks going off at the same time!
Ah young love and electricity who would have thought .........
