Question Grounding for ESD pad and wrist strap

[fcar1999ta]

I need to ground my ESD mat. I am also removing an old coax cable that goes outside, so I was thinking of putting a 2ft copper stake in the ground, and using the hole that the coax leaves to connect the ESD mat.

Inputs?

 

[punkncat]

If your home has the standard (US) three pole plugs the mat should have a part for sticking in the ground of an outlet.

Your idea will certainly be effective.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I could be wrong but for years what I've done is to try to touch part of the PC case before touching components. Not to say doing that is foolproof but seems to work if you are just a home user assembling a pc every now and again.

 

[fcar1999ta]

I could be wrong but for years what I've done is to try to touch part of the PC case before touching components. Not to say doing that is foolproof but seems to work if you are just a home user assembling a pc every now and again.

The best is to have the case and wrist strap connected to the mat, and the mat connected to earth ground. If you are playing with individual chips, you should be sitting/standing on a grounded mat as well.

 

[fcar1999ta]

If your home has the standard (US) three pole plugs the mat should have a part for sticking in the ground of an outlet.

Your idea will certainly be effective.

My house was built in the 50's and uses a grounding stake. I know that one outlet has a bad ground, so I don't really trust the grounds on the outlets.

 

[Paperdoc]

A 2-ft copper stake driven into ground may or may NOT be sufficient. It is surprising what is required by electrical power wiring codes to establish a suitable good Ground. IF your house has reasonably modern wiring (I re-wired our house in 1971 and had to ensure this at that time) that system includes a good reliable Ground lead (normally bare twisted stranded copper) from a terminal in the breaker box to a good connection to the earth. Most commonly that is just the cold water supply line entering the house near the breaker panel. That pipe is very long and deeply buried, so it has good electrical contact with the surrounding soil. If that is not how it is done, there should have been a particular long metal rod - probably 6 feet or more - completely buried several feet below grade, with some chemicals added to the soil for conductivity, and a heavy cable running from that to your breaker panel.

In either case, IF you have that kind of electrical system with all your outlets of the three-hole type (two flat slots and a third round hole) connected to your breaker box with the proper cable that includes a bare copper Bonding (Ground) wire, then that round third hole is the best source of good Ground. If your grounding mat came with a small wire that ends in a plug that goes into your wall outlet to make the connection to that hole, use it. If it does not but does have some terminal on it to fasten your own wire, you can make your own simple connection to outlet Ground. Simply connect one end of your wire to that terminal. Get a common 3-prong electrical plug and connect the wire to the ROUND prong in that plug, with NO wires to either of the flat prongs. Plug that into any 3-hole outlet.

Just saw your last post above. Don't know how you know of one faulty Ground. You could get a simple outlet tester like this

Amazon.com

It is not very expensive and this one is not suited for testing GFCI units, apparently (others are), but you could use it to check all your outlets. Then you'd know all the faulty and good ones for immediate use, and for planning to fix.

 

[punkncat]

My house was built in the 50's and uses a grounding stake. I know that one outlet has a bad ground, so I don't really trust the grounds on the outlets.

I know the pain of that situation.

Back some years ago we rented a place out in the country which was built sometime back around the early 1900's like still had the asbestos siding tiles. All of the electrical in the house had originally been that black loomed two conductor with screw in fuses. The AHJ made the homeowner update the breaker panel and the outlets before renting to us. Issue was the plaster and lathing walls. There was no way to get the wire from the plate to the receptacle outside some severe wall damage. The house had also originally only been two circuits. It was an outright mess in relation to using appliances and equipment at the same time.

 

[Paperdoc]

My situation was similar to that of punkncat above when we bought this house in 1971. It had been built about 1910-15 we guessed. Most of the wiring was what is called "knob and tube" with NO ground lines, screw-in fuses (some in odd circuit configurations), and a 60 A capacity fuse panel. I replaced it all, starting from the service entrance mast outside the walls. Since I was an impoverished graduate student then I went for a new fuse panel at 100 A, not a breaker panel. Had to read the code book and learn house wiring and get it all inspected and approved, of course. Based on that knowledge I have done several house wiring style jobs in our own properties over the years. Latest was last year when we upgraded it to increase capacity so we could add central A/C and a new detached garage with a heavy buried 100 A service to the garage. I had a contractor do the upgrade to house main service breaker 200 A panel and exterior mast, and install the buried 100A feed cable out to the garage. I did the 100 A sub-panel and branch wiring inside the garage. All inspected and approved again. We even buried twin (redundant) ethernet CAT6 cables to the garage so we could install WiFi there.

 

[fcar1999ta]

A 2-ft copper stake driven into ground may or may NOT be sufficient. It is surprising what is required by electrical power wiring codes to establish a suitable good Ground. IF your house has reasonably modern wiring (I re-wired our house in 1971 and had to ensure this at that time) that system includes a good reliable Ground lead (normally bare twisted stranded copper) from a terminal in the breaker box to a good connection to the earth. Most commonly that is just the cold water supply line entering the house near the breaker panel. That pipe is very long and deeply buried, so it has good electrical contact with the surrounding soil. If that is not how it is done, there should have been a particular long metal rod - probably 6 feet or more - completely buried several feet below grade, with some chemicals added to the soil for conductivity, and a heavy cable running from that to your breaker panel.

In either case, IF you have that kind of electrical system with all your outlets of the three-hole type (two flat slots and a third round hole) connected to your breaker box with the proper cable that includes a bare copper Bonding (Ground) wire, then that round third hole is the best source of good Ground. If your grounding mat came with a small wire that ends in a plug that goes into your wall outlet to make the connection to that hole, use it. If it does not but does have some terminal on it to fasten your own wire, you can make your own simple connection to outlet Ground. Simply connect one end of your wire to that terminal. Get a common 3-prong electrical plug and connect the wire to the ROUND prong in that plug, with NO wires to either of the flat prongs. Plug that into any 3-hole outlet.

Just saw your last post above. Don't know how you know of one faulty Ground. You could get a simple outlet tester like this

Amazon.com

It is not very expensive and this one is not suited for testing GFCI units, apparently (others are), but you could use it to check all your outlets. Then you'd know all the faulty and good ones for immediate use, and for planning to fix.

Thanks for that Amazon link.

A 2-ft copper stake driven into ground may or may NOT be sufficient. It is surprising what is required by electrical power wiring codes to establish a suitable good Ground. IF your house has reasonably modern wiring (I re-wired our house in 1971 and had to ensure this at that time) that system includes a good reliable Ground lead (normally bare twisted stranded copper) from a terminal in the breaker box to a good connection to the earth. Most commonly that is just the cold water supply line entering the house near the breaker panel. That pipe is very long and deeply buried, so it has good electrical contact with the surrounding soil. If that is not how it is done, there should have been a particular long metal rod - probably 6 feet or more - completely buried several feet below grade, with some chemicals added to the soil for conductivity, and a heavy cable running from that to your breaker panel.

In either case, IF you have that kind of electrical system with all your outlets of the three-hole type (two flat slots and a third round hole) connected to your breaker box with the proper cable that includes a bare copper Bonding (Ground) wire, then that round third hole is the best source of good Ground. If your grounding mat came with a small wire that ends in a plug that goes into your wall outlet to make the connection to that hole, use it. If it does not but does have some terminal on it to fasten your own wire, you can make your own simple connection to outlet Ground. Simply connect one end of your wire to that terminal. Get a common 3-prong electrical plug and connect the wire to the ROUND prong in that plug, with NO wires to either of the flat prongs. Plug that into any 3-hole outlet.

Just saw your last post above. Don't know how you know of one faulty Ground. You could get a simple outlet tester like this

Amazon.com

It is not very expensive and this one is not suited for testing GFCI units, apparently (others are), but you could use it to check all your outlets. Then you'd know all the faulty and good ones for immediate use, and for planning to fix.

Thanks for that link. I got the heater today, and the outlet beside my desk has a good ground.

 

[Paperdoc]

Glad you have a good Ground to use. Makes this much easier.