The National Electrical Code (NEC) allows ground wire to be either insulated or bare in most applications for EGCs and GECs. Insulation is not explicitly required by the NEC for grounding conductors, but it is an engineer’s/installer’s discretion. Grounding is essential for safety and law compliance, as excess electrical charges can be caused by uninsulated wires.
Grounding is the foundation of a building or structure’s electrical system, carrying current and requiring insulation for any current-carrying conductor. Ground wire and neutral are bonded in one place and one place only, simplifying cable manufacturing and protecting the conductor. Insulation on ground wires is usually for simplifying cable manufacturing or protection.
Whether grounding conductors are bare, insulated, or not depends on the wiring method being used. Bare copper grounding wire is less expensive than insulated grounding wire and works well in many industrial applications. Ground wire can be insulated or bare, and it must be at least 6 AWG when ran exposed in the array, but can be reduced to 10 AWG in the conduit run. The lack of insulation allows for efficient heat dissipation, reducing the risk of wire overheating or melting. Insulation could trap heat and increase the risk of overheating or melting.
For some applications, an insulated ground is required, but it can always be used if desired. Ideally, all ground wires should be bonded together and connected to their earth pin or supplier earth connection. The grounding conductor can be bare or insulated, stranded or solid, and must be securely fastened in place and run in a straight line from the discharge unit.
📹 Ground Wire Explained
Ground wire explained. What is the purpose of the ground wire, what does it connect to, when is it used, why is it used.
Can a grounded conductor be bare?
A grounded neutral conductor may be a bare conductor if isolated from phase conductors and protected from physical damage, provided that it is situated within 3. 0 meters (10 ft) of any building or structure.
What happens if ground wire gets wet?
When electrical wiring gets wet, it can cause short circuits, shocks, and even fires. This dangerous combination can be easily prevented by following these tips. Water and electricity don’t mix, so it’s crucial to ensure that your electrical wiring is properly protected. Additionally, it’s essential to follow safety precautions to prevent water damage to your wiring. By following these tips, you can ensure the safety and longevity of your electrical system.
Can an earth wire be bare?
In the absence of a connection to the hot side of a circuit, a bare ground wire may come into contact with metal. However, it is imperative that the ground wire be linked to the metal breaker box enclosure.
Is it okay for the ground wire to be bare?
Industrial contractors emphasize the importance of properly grounding electrical equipment to prevent serious injuries, potential damage to equipment, and potential fires. Grounding wires connect equipment to the earth, allowing excess electricity to travel through the least resistance path in case of a short circuit or power surge. This prevents damage to nearby equipment or people and ensures workplace safety.
Several grounding systems are commonly used in industrial applications, depending on the power source and the equipment used. All grounding wires use some form of grounding wire, and contractors should determine which is better for their specific needs and circumstances.
What happens if ground wire touches hot?
Ground faults and short circuits can occur when power is not turned off before working on a circuit. Bare wires can touch the wrong places, causing sparks to fly or ground faults and possible shock. To avoid these issues, always turn off the circuit before working on any section. Common causes of ground faults include water leaking into an electrical box, worn hot wires coming into contact with ground wires or grounding devices, and power tools or appliances without proper insulation. When working outdoors or below grade, always plug tools into GFCI outlets or use GFCI-protected extension cords.
Short circuits can occur due to loose connections, incorrect wiring, wire slipping off of a terminal on an electrical device, an appliance encountering internal wiring problems, or insects or rodents chewing wire insulation, causing a short circuit between two wires within a cable bundle. To avoid these problems, always turn off power to the circuit before working on it.
Can you run bare ground wire in a wall?
Grounding conductors, whether bare, insulated, stranded, or solid, must be securely fastened and run in a straight line from the discharge unit to the grounding electrode. If a building has an intersystem bonding termination, the conductor should be connected to it or to a grounding electrode system, grounded interior metal water piping system, power service accessible grounding, metallic power service raceway, service equipment enclosure, or grounding electrode conductor or its metal enclosure.
If installed within a metal raceway, bonding is necessary at both ends. UL-listed PVC (rigid non-metallic conduit) is generally used for extra protection. Grounding conductors must be no smaller than 10 AWG copper.
Can ground wire be uninsulated?
In residential work, ground wires are typically bare and, while insulation is an option, it is not a mandatory requirement.
Does earth wire need to be insulated?
The financial implications of insulating the CPC (earth) represent a significant consideration, given that it is not a live conductor and therefore does not necessitate the same level of insulation as live and neutral conductors. The function of earth sleeving is to act as an insulator, thereby protecting the earth from its surrounding environment, rather than from the cable itself. In the process of wiring up a light switch, socket, or junction box, it is standard practice to insulate the earth wire with a short length of earth sheathing.
Can I leave ground wire bare?
Following the installation process, it is essential to guarantee that no bare wires are left exposed, with the exception of ground wires. Additionally, it is vital to ensure that the stripped ends of joined wires are entirely covered by wire nuts. It is imperative to refrain from cutting, scraping, or otherwise damaging the fixture or house wire insulation.
Does ground wire need insulation?
In accordance with the National Electrical Code, grounding wires are required to be either bare or green with yellow insulation. To register for email notifications or alerts, it is essential to ensure that your email address is accurately entered and that your mobile number is correct and verified. Moreover, users may submit feedback, download reports, request email reports, and edit their accounts in English or Spanish.
Does the grounded conductor need to be insulated?
Equipment grounding conductors can be bare, covered, or insulated. If insulated and No. 6 AWG or smaller, they must have a green or green outer finish with yellow stripes. Insulated conductors larger than No. 6 AWG can be taped at each end and accessible point to identify them as equipment grounding conductors. They can be green, colored green, or the insulation can be stripped for the entire length.
📹 Why is a ground wire used?
Do you want to know what purpose ground wire serves? In this video, we’ll discuss the basics of ground wire and its importance.
I own a engineering business. I went to use my tig welder ( set on 180 amps ), after starting to weld the setting seemed very low on current. I stopped & checked that the machine was set correctly & started welding again. The current was still low but now there was a burning smell & smoke in the workshop. After a bit of investigation, I had left the earth lead for the tig welder on another steel bench, but I was welding on a jig that had a 3 phase drive motor. The earth circuit went through the frame of the jig, the 3 phase motor, out to the earth stake, back to the bench grinder on the other welding bench,into the earth lead on the bench. The smell & smoke was the lead for the bench grinder, as this was the smallest wire in the circuit & couldn’t handle 180 amps it melted .
This reminds me of a terrible incident here in Australia a few years ago where a young girl received a shock from the house’s ground wire. The family had complained to their housing authority for a long time that the electrics in the house were faulty. The girl had gone outside to turn a hose off, barefoot, and received a shock from the ground wire. She survived, but can no longer talk or walk – I’m not sure how much she’s recovered since. I always wondered how one could receive a shock from the ground wire, since I always thought it was the ‘safety feature’ – but I see with a large enough fault they can be carrying dangerous current.
You are correct but it goes further! The “Ground Wire” connects different areas so they are at the same potential. This is most evident at the star point on a transformer. The star point is the source of the Neutral connection AND is bonded down to the body of earth, so if you touch a Neutral whilst standing on the floor there is no potential difference, no Voltage and therefore no current will flow! The services in your home and workplace also have an Earth point where the Gas and Water pipes are connected together (there may also be cross bonding at your hot water tank, boiler and sinks). This means that All “Earthed” points are at a similar potential. This may seem obvious but if you have adjoining properties that are fed from different substations there can be a potential between different lives (even on the same phase) and it is the earth connection down to the body of earth that keeps this to a minimum!
Smashing article. Can you do one on earth leakages caused by chillers, drivers, pumps, pfc, motors etc. we have this problem at work. We had 12amps at the MET. Found a loose PME rod. Rectified it and the earth leakage dropped to 9 amps . Turned the chillers off, the leakage went down to 7 amps. Checked the transformers star point and it’s OK . Check all terminations. Still no answer
0:00-0:09 That’s true for half a cycle (that current flows from the source to the load through the live wire, and from the load to the source through the neutral wire). In the other half cycle, it’s the opposite: current flows from the load to the source through the live wire, and from the source to the load through the neutral wire. I suppose you didn’t say this because you usually use DC for explaining AC circuits. But I thought I’d clarify this because many other people say what you said without specifying that’s true only for half a cycle.
This way of how grounding works (from the grounded component earth wire through the neutral line back to AC transformer) ONLY applies to specific TN-earthing systems (TN-C and TN-CS). It does actually not apply to TN-S and TT earthing systems, used in Europe and Asia (and US at gas stations ect. by exception). In a TT-earthing system (common in Europe) the return fault current actually IS returned by going trough your premise ground rod trough the earth to the distribution AC-transformer ground rod connected to its starpoint or neutral wire. There is here NO link between the neutral line from the supply at your premise to the grounding/earthing wires in your installation. Because of the higher resistance of the earth soil the current will in a lot of cases not be high enough to trip your normal circuit breaker (overcurrent protection) while still being deadly dangerous. Therefore a RCD/GFCI-device covering your entire installation at the supply is mandatory in most countries, as it will trip much faster at a the existence of a ground fault current of 300mA/30mA. When in a TN-C earthing system the neutral gets broken (by heavy weather at power poles for example) you get a dangerous situation because the only return path is trough the soil with higher resistance and the installation does not always have a general RCD covering the entire installation and with the lack of a neutral conductor the devices connected between the 2/3 phases and the in-house neutral are getting connected in serie leading to a dangerous abnormal high voltage on your ‘grounded’ equipment.
Is the central mystery “Electricity always tries to get back to it’s source” ? This always seems to be the final simplex statement that concludes even the most edifying of descriptions of circuits / grounding. Is there no way that equivalent power and application of electricity could be found by something equivalent to a giant over-charged balloon running to a different probably impossibly humongous under-charged balloon?
Sir, with due respect, “path of least resistance” is incorrect. The reason for ground conductor having low resistance is for the ckt breaker to trip faster due to having higher current during fault condition. Everything that is in parallel with the circuit still has current flow but just in proportion with its resistance. Appreciate your very informative presentations, still. 👌
I held my breath through this, waiting for the big fatal mistakes, but I didn’t find any! Good job lol There was one minor one and an oversight. The ground rod isn’t only to dissipate static, it’s what references the entire ground and neutral system to be Equal Potential with the dirt, and also the water pipes, building frame etc. You didn’t mention how the ground rod is also bonded to the water pipes for this reason. And when you said that the fault current will travel back to Source via the ground wire INSTEAD OF through the earth, that’s incorrect, it takes both/all available paths, so some current will flow through the earth all the way back to the power plant itself. It will be very small, and if you hook a wire to a ground rod and connect a hot wire to it, you won’t trip a regular breaker so little current flows, but SOME current does flow. But still, you give a better explanation than most people ever have lol
This explains a US 110V system. This does not normally apply in europe. While the neutral would normally be grounded at the supply authority transformer (which may be several hundred metres away) when it connects to the customer distribution panel there will be no connection between the ground and the neutral so yes any fault current will flow through the earth rod. Usually there only needs to be enough to trip the earth leakage circuit breaker, normally 30mA, in some instances 300mA.
Many thanks for all the articles you do they’re always educational. Question with regards to this one though, when you say the ground fault will takes preference over the path with the least resistance and therefore take the ground – neutral path instead of the ground rod. Surely this is incorrect and it will take both routes back to the transformer? Isn’t it just a parallel path for the current one with high resistance (the earth rod back to earth rod at the transformer) and one with low resistance (ground wire – neutral back to the transformer) and therefore it will take both paths? Many thanks in advance 🙂.
I live in Europe and in my country, for residential installations, we use the TT system and not the TN (with all its variants). So, at the supply, the neutral is obviously grounded, but, at home, in the breaker box, the ground that comes from a local copper rod isn’t bonded to the neutral, like the scheme presented in this article. I think that, in most cases, TT earthing type is better, as long you don’t forget to install a differential circuit breaker.
I know your animation shows otherwise, but that may just be an oversimplification, so question: in a 120V circuit on a 240V split-phase system, does the AC alternate strictly between the two hots (red and black) with the centre-tapped neutral – whose job is to “carry the unbalanced load” (whatever that means) – only carrying the aforementioned unbalanced load (however that arises), thus resulting in half as many cycles in the 120 (and only in one direction) vs the 240? Or is it true as you’ve illustrated, with the current alternating at 60Hz (in North America) between the line and the neutral? I hope I made sense in describing what I am envisioning.
That System really remembers me on the fail-safety systems in my country. We use something called “die Nullung” It’s a modern version of the old Nullung ss it have some math stuff and more preparation What it does: the system builds on breakers. Your electricity must be build, thst the breaker will be for sure cut down the wires. Like: if you want to use a breaker LS-Typ B, then you need to get a currency of I×5 So if the breaker can hold 10A, then your system needs to get in worst cases everywherr 50A or more Too that their are 2 or 3 other rolds, like grounding and so, that needs to work
the rule appears to be that you should never connect ground to neutral anywhere else than at the main panel. The reason for that (from countless individuals/websites online) is that once you do that, you would be a using a device’s ground and neutral returns in parallel, and once the ground in a system is energized, this effectively energizes all other objects connected to ground in the system. But given that ground and neutral are already connected together at the main panel, doesn’t that do exactly what is meant to be prevented with this rule? Once you have conductors (ground/neutral wires) at equal potential somewhere in the system, how does connecting them elsewhere change their relative potential?
Well I love your articles. However this whole topic grounding and earthing seems very confusing to me. As you mentioned that even in event of fault, current goes back via GROUND WIRE>PANEL>NEUTRAL and finally to source with very least resistance causing breaker to trip. Well it sounds good, but the problem why can’t we just tap the same neutral wire and connect it to the third terminal of power socket. FOR WHAT GOOD REASONS WE NEED ENTIRELY FRESH GROUND WIRE. This is rean pain and I’m posting you will try to help me. FYI I’m from India, we have 220V, 50 Hz supply.
How do you make sense of Hot and Neutral wires in an AC circuit. The current is oscillating back and forth. Hot becomes positive and then negative. Same thing for the Neutral line. It always seemed to me that people were describing a DC type circuit operation. AC current, when shorted, is very unpredictable. I guess it’s hard to visualize mentally this explanation.
The resistances of the ground wire at the outlet is no less then the resistance of the neutral wire. The current flowing thru a device and then back on the neutral doesn’t trip the breaker because the device acts as a resistance item, aka resister, and doesn’t allow the current to flow thru the device to over load the breaker. You can remove the neutral and connect the ground wire to the neutral connection and it will not trip because the wire has the same resistance as the neutral. In return you can connect the neutral wire to the case of a device and it will properly function as if it was a ground wire. In either situation if the hot wire touches either the ground wire or the neutral wire with no load connect in between, but a direct connection it will trip the breaker as a direct fault.
If there was no earth cable in a house and no return path to the generator there would be no fault path,like a car battery …..so what is the reason we have an earth system, could you hold a radiator with one hand and a live (hot) wire with the other and get no shock????im a retired electrical technician !
Electricity does NOT take the path of least resistance. It will flow thru ALL paths back to the source, BUT the path WITH least resistance will have more current flow across it over the other path/s with more resistance. It does not pick a path, it goes thru ALL paths … Put 3 bulbs in parralel and see which path it “picks or takes” … and when ALL 3 light up, you tell me which path it took … It took ALL 3 PATHS … and the one with least resistance will have the most current flow of the other 2.
BUT.. BUT… why would you ever mix earth and neutral, this way you have no living chance of figuring out if a device is actually creating an earth fault. Like what is the reasoning for only putting an RCD in the bathroom outlet in US homes? and not in the distribution board? All it takes is a grounding point in the board instead of attaching it to the neutral rail, this way you have no fault currents running secretly through the neutral wire. Like imagine you stand in the shower with a shotty ground on your water heater which heating element is leaking about 70 VAC to the water, when taking a shower you end up grounding yourself to the drain and earth, suddenly without an RCD to compare the current flowing in on L1 and seeing it’s the same on N, you just stand there getting washed in electricity. Don’t get me wrong you can do this system with an RCD too, (using the neutral as a Neutral/earth combined with an RCD, just requires permission from the power company and is called a TN-C-S, is usually only permitted in areas with really dry ground like sand and or rocks)
Current will flow through the earth rod (forgive my use of earth instead of ground, it’s based on where I come from), particularly when there is a fault on the neutral. It’s based on the fact that it’s not just your house and the transformer with an earth rod, but everybody else supplied by that transformer also having an earth rod to create parallel paths back to a neutral. Also don’t forget that it bonds metal parts to one another to reduce a potential difference of voltage being built up between them
Yea I wish you had explained this to Duke energy, would have saved a lot of folks a bunch of money ….failed electronics, lights that keep burning out, just to name a few. Actual listen to two of their linemen acknowledge a bad ground and decide to do nothing about it since it would require transformer replacement. Another crew was sent out and even after being shown, did nothing, then 3 crews latter and months of nonsense a repair was made ..yep two different cases I personally know of . Years of reduced maintenance, using the Boeing plan…run it till you have to replace it …not much comfort to a man with a burning house, or a grieving a loved one electrocuted….
Also…the ground wire is NOT for a ground fault condition…in fact…a GFCI receptacle or breaker are two of the things allowed to be used when using ungrounded receptacles in a structure…as they will trip when current is sensed not returning to its source via the circuit conductors…back to school you go…
I humbly disagree with your explanation. The return current will take all paths to ground. it’s a parallel circuit you can use mathematics to figure this out yourself I know for a fact that there will be current on the ground rod as well as the neutral wire and anything else connected to it whether it’s a fault condition or not. The critical safety aspect to understand is to create an ultra low resistance path which will take the majority of the current leaving only inconsequential milliamps of current on the other paths. There is no such thing as a perfect insulator. Even insulated aerial buckets designed to work on high voltage power lines still leak current back to the ground. If your explanation was true then the current would stay neatly within its wire always returning 100% of the current back on the neutral wire. The second something makes contact with an energized conductor it becomes a parallel path within that circuit. The only variable is resistance. More resistance less current flow but it will never be zero.
the article is not fully factually correct. when the article says electricity follows the path of least resistance that is completely false. electricity follows any and every path available when there is a closed circuit. when the metal case is grounded and happens to have high voltage what is happening is that you touching the metal case are one path in parallel to the source . you and your ground connection might indeed be a path of very high resistance but since you are in parallel with the case grounds connection resistances in parallel are always lower than the smallest resistance of the parallel junction. in terms of and equivalent resistance circuit the path where the human gets electrocuted should actually be a path of super low resistance. that means the voltage drop under the these circumstances is taking place on the load before the metal case. such as the transformer itself. the voltage drop at metal case is tiny due to this low resistance parallel path to ground.
Hot, neutral, ground, a number of viewers to your website are Brits and for them hot = live or line, neutral is the same and ground = earth, their voltage is 240 and not 120 and sockets are vastly different being square pin (prong) with live (hot) to the right, neutral to the left and earth (ground) at the top
This could have benefitted from a longer length article with a slightly slower pace to actually have time to absorb the situations and examples. Now it required a lot of pausing and unpausing to get a proper understanding of the article content. Pausing stops the animations so not such a good of an option, and slowing the article down distorts the voice. Usually skipping the boring stuff or fast forwarding is much better than having to stop/slow down
My mother called me the other day and said her ceiling fan made a noise and then she smelled something burning so she turned it off. I got over there to check it out and the ceiling fan wiring was not done properly. They hooked up the house ground to the chassis ground for the fan mount, but failed to also hook up the motor ground for the fan. I got to looking around and found a bare spot in the hot wire insulation about 1″ back from the wire nut. I cut it back and hook everything up properly. Could this have caused an arcing situation if the bare hot wire touched the metal casing and maybe that’s what she heard and smelled? It worked properly after fixing it.
Ok, so I understand all of this, thank you for taking the time to explain it all in detail! Now my question, that none of my electrician bosses can answer, if the neutrals and grounds are connected to the same bus why does the ground not carry any current if the neutral returns current to the same bus the ground is connected too?
Make one article on a grounded system where a ground fault occurs. I cannot understand why would a properly grounded system ever need a GFCI breaker? Or there would still be a little current (enough to kill) that will flow from human contact to earth despite ground wire carrying current back to the neutral?
If I may offer a bit of feedback: The article starts very abruptly with the ENTIRE THING shown. The whole image is animated, so the viewer has difficulty orienting themselves in it. You do not highlight what you’re talking about with some bright frame or spotlight, and the animations keep switching without being synchronized with what you’re talking about. I’d recommend first establishing what’s on the screen, with several sentences such as “On the left side, you see the electricity producer’s transformer which converts (x) to (y). From there, wires bring electricity inside someone’s house or an office building. On the right is the electrical socket in the wall.” etc.
To sum up. 1. We need a return path or closed circuit for OCPD ( circuit breaker or fuse) to shut off power. 2. All current (normal and fault) returns to origin but earth is not an effective conductor. 3. Instead we install our own path, as a green wire throughout electrical system. 4. That green wire jumps back to the neutral only once: at the service (disconnect). We don’t want fault current going everywhere giving us noise, being a hazard, and parrelling paths which weaken it to not turn off OCPD.
i enjoy your articles, but sadly you only show how it works in USA, like in my country we have Hot, neutral and ground, 230v and the ground wire never going to neutral. Basically the ground wire have a bus bar for ground and go to ground rod, and neutral have a bus bar only for neutral wires… Hope you understand what I’m saying.. xD Have a good day
Why does the low impedance path run up the amperage and trip the breaker? Shouldn’t the loads still draw the same power? Also, does your bodies resistance play a factor in the amperage that trips the breaker? Is it just the instantaneous switching onto the less impedent pathway that causes the spike alone?
How about this scenario, there are no earth’s, just live and neutral. So if a metal casing became live from a broken wire or such, and you touched it, how would you get electrocuted if there was no return path through any earth’s? I’m guessing through ground rods only because they are still needed for dissipation? But still I’ve always wondered this, I know there’ll be some sort of good reason though.
May i ask, why if the person touches live wire, the current diverted into human body to the ground and back to the transformer, it being said that current flows a low resistance path, and you know that ground has high resistance, so why the current won’t go the least resistance path like the neutral wire instead of flowing human body to the ground and back to the transformer?
….These ground rods seem to have multiple uses…..Like extra solar panel electricity returning to the source, for use and storage, maybe lighting electricity is being used the same way….What do you think? Also, there seems to be a more direct electrical path, through the ground rod to the transformer….Why is there more resistance at this seemingly more direct path? Or are you saying, that is the least resistant rod for lighting and static electricity….Maybe there are less area and/or things connected to the house neutral, that gives it less resistance…….
Why is a separate earth wire required at all? Why not simply connect the neutral to the metal cases of all the equipment? After all the neutral and the earth are connected at the bus bar at the fuse box so they are essentially the same wire. Are you note that in the USA the earth wire is a solid copper wire and therefore possibly slightly lower resistance but in Australia where I am the earth wire and the neutral wire are identical
The ground rods at the bonded service and the grounds at the utility transformer does, in fact, provide a path back. Unless you have infinite resistance, there will be current flowing between the two. Electricity doesn’t just take the patch of least resistance, it takes all available paths back. Ohms law is still in effect.
PAUL I’ve a potential interesting topic to explain, in the Philippines they had 110v under American rule but at some point changed to 240v system. Ground wire also seem to be missing much of the time. Here in the uk they are the norm. Anyhow in Manila the capital of the Philippines a friend of mine was investigating a fault in his flat he measure of one load point and the “ground’ wire and got 110v then he measured of the second load line and the same ground and got a second 110v. But he can run all his 240v uk kit using a physical adapter as the are all US type sockets. There a shocking lot of electrical fires in the Philippine but I was wondering if the setup is a safe or standard practice? Really enjoy your explanations so hoping you can explain how this works. Anyone else who knows about this please feel free to educate me.
If you didn’t ground the neutral then you wouldn’t need an earth wire because there would never be a potential between phase and earth, think of an isolating transformer you cant get a shock from the phase because theres no return back to the source unless you touch both phases of the output of the transformer at the same time…
The part I dont get is why the current is going through you if you touch the receptacle. If the resistance through you is higher than the ground wire, shouldn’t it go through the ground wire instead? Is it because you are going straight to the hot wire making you the ground that it does not go through the wire?
Recently I’ve learned about electrode/ion heaters (f.e. Galan). They use one or more phase, but instead of the circuit being closed through Neutral, the manuals say to terminate directly on PE. It sounds very weird to me, but I’ve checked google about that and apparently since they produce heat via electrolysis, there is no current involved but the difference in potentials (voltage) only. The manual also says you can connect it like that only if there’s no more than 4 ohms between N and PE in the installation. I’d love your explanation on how it works.
Funny how the ground wire or 3rd conductor is present on appliances or electronics that have an entire PLASTIC chassis. So if there is no metal chassis to get HOT, why is there a ground wire on the main cord ?? And we have a damn toaster that has a metal chassis and its just a 2 wire lamp cord … when that should have a 3 wire main cord. I get the reason for the ground wire for emergency back path on a device with a metal chassis but when it has a plastic chassis why have a 3 wire cord ??
Suppose there is leakage of little current in the body of electrical Iron . In that case the current over the metal casing of Iron shall pass through ground wire. In case there is no ground wire then person gets a tingling feeling of little current passing though his body but no fatal! Thus the ground wire carry little current leakage over the body of appliances like geyser, electrical iron of refrigerator. Am I correct? ( I am talking about 220 volt AC current prevailing in India) A humorous question : How Aeroplanes or four wheelers manage with or without a ground wire ?
This is why GFCI breakers and receptacles are so important. If you DO get across the hot side wiring the GFCI detects the ground current and trips the breaker almost instantly. GFCI breakers can be problematic in some situations.Exterior Christmas lights are good examples. If they get wet with rain or snow, they can trip GFCI breakers and GFCI outlets.
It’s all about voltage potensial (^.^), ground rod with ground wire is used for to greate equal volatge potensial in all metalic surfaces if your washing machine metalic case is 240V and bathtub is 240V then there is no difference between them and you dont pass any current 240-240=0V 0V/~750ohms=0Amps 😀 and if grounding impendace is low then resitance between bathtub and ground is low like 50mOhm thats why we have local ground rod then voltage between bathtub and ground is low if voltage is low current throu your body is small. Thats how i have understand 🙂 edit: long electrical line create big capitance and even with isolated transformer there is hi risk of getting electricuted. Queston for USA ppl how do uraban areas get 3 phase? if you only have 1phase HV? so 3 phase is only for commertial areas thing?
Why does electricity need to go back to it’s source? How much of it is actually being used? Supposedly, DC circuits, other than batteries, can use a single wire with earth return. Meaning, the charge just dissipates in the earth, it doesn’t really return to the source at all. How does a Solar panel ground electricity? Does the electricity need to go back to the solar panel? If the light is converted into electricity, doesn’t that make it impossible to return to it’s source?
I remember once renting a room where there were only two-prong wall outlets available, i.e. no ground connection. In order to plug my PC into the outlet, I relied upon a “cheater” adapter, which turned a three-prong plug into a two-prong plug by connecting the neutral and the ground wires together. Can you explain to me what the risks of that would have been? Had a live wire in my PC made contact with the metal case, this setup would still have prevented electric shock, right?
Not gonna lie this is simple to understand when you have electrical knowledge but I can assure you if I shown this article to the person whos not, they would not understand this article. The diagrams are unnescesarily overcomplicated and the fact that the title is attracting people who dont know earth function yet, isnt helping.
When electricity tries to “go back to the source” it does not necessarily encounter high resistance in attempt to reach transformer rod. In fact, the material resistance in nearby zone is what matters the most. So, proper grounding not only means proper depth and wire, it also means proper ground. Unfortunately, this is something usually ignored.
Its actually just a helpful way of thinking to say that electricity is trying to get back to the original source. This isnt really the case, electricity is instead trying to even itself out within the system, so it will move from areas of high electrical potential to areas of low electrical potential. When we have a grounding wire the dense generally electrically deficient earth does in fact act as a sink and take the electricity in. For the purpose of understanding house wiring the general concept of thinking of electricity as trying to return to the source works fine but in more detailed physics you would come to a lot of erroneous conclusions using that concept.
There are some mistakes: 1. In Electronics the Ground Wire is more like the neutral line. Even in Electrical Engineering the correct term is PE-Wire (Protective Earth) 2. The PE-Wire is not most of the time a solid copper wire. It depends on the application. When it is not moving (like in house installation it is a solid wire) but most of the time it is not 3. It is insulated with not a green insulation but according to standard it is green-yellow 4. Actually the Ground/Earth has a very low resitance because the cross section is very big 5. When you have a ground fault what you want to trigger is the RCD, your normal circuit breaker is for a short circuit
The main Problem with Smartphone Charger/Adapter is that mostly don’t have Grounding. Even if USB type C or type A have physical Ground pin. I’ve tested charging my Phone with custom modified Adapter so that it has Ground Pin output. It performs way better, and the Fast Charging generates way Less Heat.
No, no, no! The electricity does not “prefer” anything. You are perpetuating the “path of least resistance” myth. It is all proportional. If you have a medium resistance path to ground (you) and a super-low resistance path to ground (a copper wire) a much greater proportion of the current will flow through the copper but some will still flow through you – it’s just resistors in parallel.
A lesser mentioned benefit of the ground wire is it comes in handy endlessly when troubleshooting. For example if a device is acting like it doesnt have power, due to an open neutral situation, if all you had to measure voltage across at the outlet were hot and neutral you may read 0 or very little voltage, even though you DO have the full potential of incoming line power. The full voltage drop is occuring at the point where the neutral is open. Measuring hot to ground at the receptacle in this instance would read ~120 volts
This only covers the bonding of anything conductive that could become energized in the event of a live conductor fault coming into contact with it, such as the metal case, via a low impedance wire, the grounding conductor, back to the breaker so as to quickly cause a fault current causing the breaker to trip clearing the danger. Prior to this “safety” ground bonding via a dedicated grounding conductor, a hot fault to a metal case, or pipe, etc., would wait until someone or something became the path to ground causing electrical shock. It is tied to to, but different in purpose from the grounding electrode/grounding electrode conductor bonded to one live conductor to create the neutral and create a parallel circuit to cap the voltage spikes from induced currents caused by lightning, or inductive load switching via a ground path between the grounding electrode at the transformer and the one at the service entrance. (Note there are other types of utility service provisions that handle this differently in some areas, but this is common in US detached residential electrical service) The voltage spikes from induced currents created the chance of arcing and hence fires. Think all the simulated arcs in the Hollywood depiction of Frankenstein’s laboratory during the electrical storm. The doc needed a good grounding electrode/grounding electrode conductor set up, but he was in a stone castle so fire was less of a risk.
The safety is not the ground wire but the protective devices shutting off at fault (over current and/or residual current protection). But the ground wires make them work. Without ground wire the current will not flow back to the source in case of a fault. This is because the ground wires are connected to the neutral ONLY at main panel. The biggest misconception is earthing/grounding. But this is a different story. Short: Earthing is to protect the electrical system agains high voltage surges. You have to understand very high voltage (electromagnetic fields of lightnings) at high frequencies for this.
you could have explaned that current would not flow to the ground if we would not connet the neutral to the ground and that neutral and ground wire are “””the same””” i think its iportent to understand that there needs to be a potential differenz otherwise the currend would not flow or in other words IF there is NO connecton between neutral and eath you would be able to toucht a bare kable and nothing would happen to you
I’m new to this so bare with me. If there is a ground wire coming out of the Romex wire (that has hot, neutral, and ground) and if im installing a ceiling fan, do I have to wrap the ground wire (from the ceiling fan) to the ground screw of the metal box? Or can I just pigtail the ground wire of the ceiling fan to the ground wire of the romex?
Can you ground an outlet by just running a wire from one grounded outlet to another ungrounded outlet? That’s how I grounded an outlet on the other side of my bedroom, ran a wire from the grounded box into the basement up into the ungrounded box and connected just the ground and cut the unconnected white and black
Seeing the neutral return through the transformer and back into the service through the hot wire, does the smart meter differentiate between newly pulled power to use for other devices and the recycled power, or does it just continue to charge you for electrical usage anyway despite a small portion of the power consumed actually being returned from other devices that are powered at the same time? 🤔
A ground wire is used to provide a safe path for electrical current to follow in the event of a fault or other problem in the electrical circuit. This helps to prevent electrical shocks and other potentially dangerous situations. In most cases, the ground wire is connected to the metal frame of an appliance or electrical device, which provides a low-resistance path to the earth and allows any excess current to be safely dissipated. This can help to prevent electrical fires and other hazards.
“Ideally… Will never be used” That’s not exactly true, during thunderstorms large metal objects like fridges and bridges get charged externally. In those cases the ground wire neutralizes the charge of the metal. — I guess it depends on the context of the word ideal. The ground wire doesn’t get used in contrived on paper ideal conditions, but it does get used in normal conditions several times a month. If you live near Lake Maracaibo, you’ll be using it 160+ days of the year. — This also explains why Japan doesn’t put them on outlets as often. Their appliances are smaller, covered in plastic and they have less nosy children to poke at the outlets.