Electronics > Beginners
Lab with NO grd, what about gear?
FriedMule:
Great question, I'll try to find out.
station240:
Do you have any exposed metal water pipes you could clamp an earth wire to ?
HB9EVI:
As it was common in the 70' in many european countries, there wasn't installed a separate PE wire to the outlets; installation type was TN-C where the PE pin in the sockets was bound to the N.
Our house dates from the same time and had this type of installation, what made the usage of an RCD impossible - but was my personal requirement. So transferred to whole installation from TN-C/TN-C-S hybrid to all TN-S, what means to add a PE to every outlet; it was quite a work, but it's worth it.
Since you're renting your flat, and you have no PE pin in your outlets, my advice would be installing an outlet with a PE pin and wire it to N - that's still better than running the devices with floating PE. But before, you have to assure that the house installation is a TN-system
0xdeadbeef:
Dunno about Switzerland, but in Germany TN-S (separate PE) is mandatory for new buildings since 1973. And using TN-C (neutral used as PE) in older buildings is only allowed for a diameter of 10mm² (copper) or 16mm² (aluminium).
Again, this is all about safety. Using a device designed for an IEC connector on an outlet without or with lacking PE involves risk of death in case of a failure of this device.
HB9EVI:
Good to know; it seems they slept here, since our house dates from 1974 and all outlets were wired as TN-C, while the installation itself is a TN-C-S with a separed earth rod connected to the PEN
Back to the topic; I read this here:
--- Quote ---In Denmark the high voltage regulation (Stærkstrømsbekendtgørelsen) and Malaysia the Electricity Ordinance 1994 states that all consumers must use TT earthing, though in rare cases TN-C-S may be allowed (used in the same manner as in the United States). Rules are different when it comes to larger companies.
--- End quote ---
This means, you have to add a PE-wire from the house installation to your outlet in the lab; hooking the N to the PE pin in the outlet IS NOT ALLOWED!
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version