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Do you guys use an isolation transformer for your lab/workbench?

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bigfoot22:
deleted

tooki:
Let’s put it this way: if you don’t thoroughly understand why and when you’d want an isolation transformer, and what it does and doesn’t protect you from, then you shouldn’t work on mains-powered stuff yet, specifically, things with a live chassis.

If you get one, make sure you don’t let it lull you into a sense of false security, such that you actually let your guard down around mains voltages.

As for the specific question of using one to isolate all of your test equipment: an emphatic no!!!!

If you want to add safety to your bench, install a sensitive GFCI (more sensitive than the one your home may already have installed).

bdunham7:

--- Quote from: bigfoot22 on February 01, 2023, 06:31:13 pm ---Just asking because I'm fitting out my workbench and wondered if I shouldn't isolate all of the equipment from the mains with the aid of an isolation transformer then do noise filtering on it.

Why no grounding on isolation transformers?

--- End quote ---

There's probably not a good reason to do so and most test equipment will isolate their innards from the mains anyway via the power supply transformer or whatever.  Y-cap leakage can still be an issue in some cases though.

Isolation transformers typically pass through the ground connection but that is a separate issue.  You typically would not want to break that ground, certainly not by default.

AVGresponding:

--- Quote from: tooki on February 01, 2023, 06:46:35 pm ---Let’s put it this way: if you don’t thoroughly understand why and when you’d want an isolation transformer, and what it does and doesn’t protect you from, then you shouldn’t work on mains-powered stuff yet, specifically, things with a live chassis.

If you get one, make sure you don’t let it lull you into a sense of false security, such that you actually let your guard down around mains voltages.

As for the specific question of using one to isolate all of your test equipment: an emphatic no!!!!

If you want to add safety to your bench, install a sensitive GFCI (more sensitive than the one your home may already have installed).

--- End quote ---

This  ^  100%

Simple quotepost because it bears repeating.

AVGresponding:
I don't know how things go in the US, but here in the UK, that would NOT MEET electrical safety standards, and would be technically be illegal to sell.

@bigfoot22 sorry, forgot you're an Aussie. I can't imagine it would pass safety regs there either.

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