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Date: 01/25/02 at 9:49 PM
Posted by: John Dunn - Consultant
E-mail: ambertec@ieee.org

In Reply to: Re: NEW easy question? posted by Russ Kincaid on 01/25/02 at 7:26 PM:

Hi, Mike and Russ.

I've been a bit overwhelmed with stuff these last few days so I missed a bit, but let me speak about the ground versus neutral matter.

If the two wires for ground (green) and neutral (white) were simply connected together at some point, I believe that there is a violation of the National Electrical Code (NEC) there.

I recently went through a whole situation about this in Boston where the outlets in my son's dormitory room had no ground connection at all, only a hot and a neutral. The immediate consequence was that his PC chassis sat at half-line voltage and yes, he did feel some electical shocks from it.

The ground wire is not supposed to carry any operating current. It is meant to be a safety path against accidents such as a short from hot to chassis or an opening of the neutral wire.

The distiction between ground and neutral isn't a case of government irrationality; it is a very well justified code requirement.

John D.
ambertec@ieee.org

Follow Ups:

  Re: Old easy question? Russ Kincaid   Posted at: 01/26/02 (5)

  Re: Old easy question? tom   Posted at: 01/28/02 (4)

  Re: Old easy question? Mike   Posted at: 01/30/02 (3)

  Re: Old easy question? tom   Posted at: 01/31/02 (1)

  Re: Old easy question? Mike   Posted at: 01/31/02 (0)

  Re: Old easy question? John Collins   Posted at: 01/30/02 (0)

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