Electronics > Beginners

Lab with NO grd, what about gear?

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FriedMule:
In Denmark, where I live, it is common to have outlets with no ground / earthing.
What does that mean for a electronic lab?
Meaning oscilloscope, psu, dmm, anstatic mat and yes, it all?

ArthurDent:
I live in the U.S. but as I understand it from the following video, there are both grounded and ungrounded outlets available in Denmark for home use but if anyone was wiring a lab or any commercial business they would make sure that all the equipment had ground equipped power cords to plug into ground equipped outlets.

t1d:
I think you are going to need the earth ground, rather quickly... Not just for safety, but for dual (positive and negative voltages) circuit designs.

It is not particularly difficult, or expensive, to add an earth ground, for your lab. In the USA, in my part of the country, the earth ground is simply a long, heavy, copper (or galvanized metal) rod, driven into the ground. A heavy gauge wire is clamped to this rod and it goes into the house, to make the needed connections.

https://www.lowes.com/search?searchTerm=grounding+rod

Ian.M:
Not quite.  The presence or absence of a true Earth ground doesn't affect the ability of a PSU to provide positive and negative rails to a circuit - if it did hand-held electronics that used split supplies would be impossible!  :-DD

However, modern test equipment with SMPSUs, designed to operate with a grounded supply is *UNSAFE* to use without a ground connection, and the risk significantly increases if multiple items have their ground connections tied together, but not grounded, as the permitted leakage currents to ground in their line filters can add up to a dangerous current which will cause any supposedly grounded exposed metalwork to be a serious shock risk.

You either need a proper ground, or equipotential bonding for the whole bench area.   How to do that safely and legally depends on your existing electrical installation and your local electrical regulations, so if in doubt, consult a local electrician.

0xdeadbeef:
Actually what is called "ground" connector here is the protective earthing (PE) conductor. It's not needed for functionality (as the two other connector are phase and neutral) but "only" for safety. Like devices with exposed metal parts usually need this kind of connector so the metal case etc. is connected to the protective earthing conductor to make sure that even in case of a catastrophic short circuit inside the device, touching the metal parts won't be fatal. Devices without any exposed metal parts can use the "Euro" plug which doesn't feature the PE conductor. There are several safety classes and all but in a nutshell it's about exposed metal parts.
So connecting equipment which would need a PE conductor to a Euro plug socket without one is a safety hazard, not so much a functional problem. Of course, stuff like an ESD mat also needs to be grounded (and you'd usually use PE for this) but there you could also use a water faucet or whatever.

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