Marklar
06-07-2004, 10:35 PM
How To Install Isolated Ground plugs
Disclaimer:
THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS AND DOING THIS YOU ARE RISKING SERIOUS INJURY
OR DEATH DO AT YOUR OWN RISK I AM NOT REPSONSABLE IF YOU GET HURT
OR BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!!!!!
I can’t say it enough electricity is no toy and can do many strange things if you do this be very careful, When your working with your house wiring be sure to turn the power OFF don’t ask someone to do it for you go do it yourself and do yourself a favor and buy a nice fluke tester it will help keep you from getting hurt. If you live with parents ask them to help you with this, a kid has no business messing with the wiring of their house. If you don’t do this right it can cause an electrical fire as with any other electrical work, I will go over every thing you need to know to do this please do not skip any part of this article. All parts you need can be bought at home depot or most hardware stores.
You should have an expert do this for you, you can call most companies out and they will give you a free estimate (don’t ask for a free estimate ask how much does an estimate cost) but for you DIY's out there I'll show you how its done and don’t whine to me if you screw this up I told you not to do it!!
When installing isolated grounds it is easy to cause more problems lets say you have a computer on an isolated ground circuit and it plugs into a network hub and the hub is on that same isolated circuit. If you have another computer that is plugged into a regular NON isolated plug and that computer is plugged into that hub the ground wire that runs in the network cable carries the dirty ground circuit to your isolated circuit and defeats the purpose of having an isolated ground. This goes with printers, scanners, monitors, joysticks, UPS ECT. Also there is 1 rule about electricity that you see all the time in lightning storms, electricity always follows the path of least resistance so if what ever you have plugged into the non isolated circuit shorts out the electricity will flow through the ground and it can use the ground in the network cable and cause your cable to melt or burn and can cause a fire.
What an isolated ground does is remove your computer equipment or what ever you have plugged in to that plug from the ground loop in your house. All the grounds in your house are tied together in your breaker box. Noise from fans, A/C, dryer, or anything that has a motor can cause noise on the grounding conductor. Ballasts low voltage lighting an anything that uses a transformer can have an effect also. So by doing this the only noise on the ground will be from your equipment, make sure any printers, cable modems, monitors, network hubs, ect ect are plugged into the isolated circuit.
Step 1 Wiring type
First you need to see what kind of wiring your house has, houses built from around the 50's to current use romex wiring most of you know what this is, romex is a wire that contains 1 black wire (hot) 1 white wire (neutral) and 1 ground bare copper all these are wrapped in a usually white insulation. Most of your houses will have this type of wiring. There is also another type of romex used before the 50's that’s is cloth wrapped and usually this wire has no grounding conductor and then there’s knob and tube which is very old and if you have this in your house please call an electrician to rewire your house. Also mostly found on the west and east coast is bx this is like romex but instead of having plastic insulation the wires are wrapped in metal flex some of these have grounds and some don't. You can take the cover off your breaker box and determine what kind of wiring you have and if you have grounds.
Step 2 Grounded service
There are 2 types of grounds cold water ground and earth ground all new houses require both, some older houses only have a cold water ground and some don’t have any ground. To check if you have a ground you need to take the front cover off your breaker box and look on the ground and neutral bars these will look like a long metal bar with a lot of screws in it, usually main ground wires will be a solid copper wire almost the size of a pencil. One wire will go to the cold water side of the plumbing sometimes an outside water faucet or the cold pipe on the water heater. The other ground goes to a ground rod this is an 8 foot long copper rod driven straight into the ground usually right below the panel or meter on the outside of the house. If you do not have a ground rod you need to drive a new ground rod under your panel or you will not be able to have an isolated ground.
Step 3 Finding the plug circuit
This is where a tester comes in handy and a helper to flip breakers for you. Find the plug or plugs you want to install an isolated ground on put your tester leads in the 2 slots next to each other and start flipping breakers till that plug goes off (mark the breaker the plug is on). After it’s off remove the plug from the wall it may look like Figure 1 below or it might only have 1 romex coming in. If your wires are cloth covered you may not be able to tell what wire is white and what is black. As you can see the slots on the front are different sizes the short slot is the black (hot) side and the long slot is the white (neutral) side if you cant tell what color they are get some white and black electrical tape and wrap tape around them before you remove the wire from the plug so you know where they go when you hook them up to the new plug. Now take the wires off the plug usually you just loosen the screws on the side but newer houses have quick connects and the wire is stabbed into the back of the plug just use a pair of side cutters to cut the plug off. If you have a metal box the grounds from the romex needs to be connected to the box most should be like this already if you have a plastic box just make sure the ground wires are tied together and put a wire cap on them.
Step 4 Running an isolated ground
You will need a roll of #12 wire you can get a spool in 50', 100', 250', and 500’ at your local hardware store you want solid wire not stranded. You want to run this wire from the plug you want to isolate to the ground rod you found or drove in step 2. This is the hard part and why I hate my job so much, there are many ways you can do this if your plug is in an interior wall of your house you can go into the attic find where the wire for the plug goes down and push it down there or drill a new hole if there is no room. If you have someone helping you have them at the plug trying to fish the wire through the box with a piece of wire with a hook on the end of it. If you have a crawl space under your house you can run it down there. If the plug is on an exterior wall you might have to run a piece of pipe or just staple the wire to the outside of the wall and drill a hole through the wall into the back of the box. Be very careful doing this its easy to fall through the sheetrock if you miss a step in the attic. After you get the ground wire in the box you need to run the other end to the ground rod BEFORE DISCONNECTING THE LUG ON THE GROUND ROD TURN OFF ALL THE BREAKERS INCLUDING THE MAIN BREAKER because if you have something in your house shorting out or a broken neutral somewhere when you take the lug off the main grounding electrode conductor will shock you this is why ground rods are 8 feet long so people don’t try to steal them and kill their self in the process. When you get the wire to the ground rod clamp it on as shown in figure 2.
Step 5 Hooking up the plug
You will need an isolated ground plug it is an orange plug and has a green triangle on the front of it they look a lot like a regular plug but the difference is an IG plugs yoke is not connected to the ground the yoke is the metal part of the plug on the top and bottom where the screws go to hold it into the box. The ground wire in the romex in your house wiring will not hook up to this plug Only the isolated ground you ran will hook up to the green screw the black wires hook to the gold screws and the white wires hook to the silver screws as in Figure 3 Don’t hook it up backwards reverse polarity is bad ju ju and make sure the screws are tight loose connections are bad ju ju to loose electrical connections cause more house fires than anything else. After you got it hooked back up it’s not a bad idea to wrap tape around the plug to keep the screws from hitting the sides of the box and shorting out. Now reinstall the plug put the cover back on and turn the power on put your tester in the plug make sure its working also put 1 lead in the short slot and put 1 lead in the round ground hole if its says you have 120 volts then your all set.
Final note
Remember what I said about the network, printer and any other cables I don’t want to hear about any of you on the news or the [H] front page that your house burned down if you don’t think you can do this please call a professional they will do it right for you and in most cases its not real expensive.
Figure 1
http://www.hommie.net/forum/plug.jpg
Figure 2
http://www.hommie.net/forum/grod.jpg
Figure 3
http://www.hommie.net/forum/igplug.jpg
Disclaimer:
THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS AND DOING THIS YOU ARE RISKING SERIOUS INJURY
OR DEATH DO AT YOUR OWN RISK I AM NOT REPSONSABLE IF YOU GET HURT
OR BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!!!!!
I can’t say it enough electricity is no toy and can do many strange things if you do this be very careful, When your working with your house wiring be sure to turn the power OFF don’t ask someone to do it for you go do it yourself and do yourself a favor and buy a nice fluke tester it will help keep you from getting hurt. If you live with parents ask them to help you with this, a kid has no business messing with the wiring of their house. If you don’t do this right it can cause an electrical fire as with any other electrical work, I will go over every thing you need to know to do this please do not skip any part of this article. All parts you need can be bought at home depot or most hardware stores.
You should have an expert do this for you, you can call most companies out and they will give you a free estimate (don’t ask for a free estimate ask how much does an estimate cost) but for you DIY's out there I'll show you how its done and don’t whine to me if you screw this up I told you not to do it!!
When installing isolated grounds it is easy to cause more problems lets say you have a computer on an isolated ground circuit and it plugs into a network hub and the hub is on that same isolated circuit. If you have another computer that is plugged into a regular NON isolated plug and that computer is plugged into that hub the ground wire that runs in the network cable carries the dirty ground circuit to your isolated circuit and defeats the purpose of having an isolated ground. This goes with printers, scanners, monitors, joysticks, UPS ECT. Also there is 1 rule about electricity that you see all the time in lightning storms, electricity always follows the path of least resistance so if what ever you have plugged into the non isolated circuit shorts out the electricity will flow through the ground and it can use the ground in the network cable and cause your cable to melt or burn and can cause a fire.
What an isolated ground does is remove your computer equipment or what ever you have plugged in to that plug from the ground loop in your house. All the grounds in your house are tied together in your breaker box. Noise from fans, A/C, dryer, or anything that has a motor can cause noise on the grounding conductor. Ballasts low voltage lighting an anything that uses a transformer can have an effect also. So by doing this the only noise on the ground will be from your equipment, make sure any printers, cable modems, monitors, network hubs, ect ect are plugged into the isolated circuit.
Step 1 Wiring type
First you need to see what kind of wiring your house has, houses built from around the 50's to current use romex wiring most of you know what this is, romex is a wire that contains 1 black wire (hot) 1 white wire (neutral) and 1 ground bare copper all these are wrapped in a usually white insulation. Most of your houses will have this type of wiring. There is also another type of romex used before the 50's that’s is cloth wrapped and usually this wire has no grounding conductor and then there’s knob and tube which is very old and if you have this in your house please call an electrician to rewire your house. Also mostly found on the west and east coast is bx this is like romex but instead of having plastic insulation the wires are wrapped in metal flex some of these have grounds and some don't. You can take the cover off your breaker box and determine what kind of wiring you have and if you have grounds.
Step 2 Grounded service
There are 2 types of grounds cold water ground and earth ground all new houses require both, some older houses only have a cold water ground and some don’t have any ground. To check if you have a ground you need to take the front cover off your breaker box and look on the ground and neutral bars these will look like a long metal bar with a lot of screws in it, usually main ground wires will be a solid copper wire almost the size of a pencil. One wire will go to the cold water side of the plumbing sometimes an outside water faucet or the cold pipe on the water heater. The other ground goes to a ground rod this is an 8 foot long copper rod driven straight into the ground usually right below the panel or meter on the outside of the house. If you do not have a ground rod you need to drive a new ground rod under your panel or you will not be able to have an isolated ground.
Step 3 Finding the plug circuit
This is where a tester comes in handy and a helper to flip breakers for you. Find the plug or plugs you want to install an isolated ground on put your tester leads in the 2 slots next to each other and start flipping breakers till that plug goes off (mark the breaker the plug is on). After it’s off remove the plug from the wall it may look like Figure 1 below or it might only have 1 romex coming in. If your wires are cloth covered you may not be able to tell what wire is white and what is black. As you can see the slots on the front are different sizes the short slot is the black (hot) side and the long slot is the white (neutral) side if you cant tell what color they are get some white and black electrical tape and wrap tape around them before you remove the wire from the plug so you know where they go when you hook them up to the new plug. Now take the wires off the plug usually you just loosen the screws on the side but newer houses have quick connects and the wire is stabbed into the back of the plug just use a pair of side cutters to cut the plug off. If you have a metal box the grounds from the romex needs to be connected to the box most should be like this already if you have a plastic box just make sure the ground wires are tied together and put a wire cap on them.
Step 4 Running an isolated ground
You will need a roll of #12 wire you can get a spool in 50', 100', 250', and 500’ at your local hardware store you want solid wire not stranded. You want to run this wire from the plug you want to isolate to the ground rod you found or drove in step 2. This is the hard part and why I hate my job so much, there are many ways you can do this if your plug is in an interior wall of your house you can go into the attic find where the wire for the plug goes down and push it down there or drill a new hole if there is no room. If you have someone helping you have them at the plug trying to fish the wire through the box with a piece of wire with a hook on the end of it. If you have a crawl space under your house you can run it down there. If the plug is on an exterior wall you might have to run a piece of pipe or just staple the wire to the outside of the wall and drill a hole through the wall into the back of the box. Be very careful doing this its easy to fall through the sheetrock if you miss a step in the attic. After you get the ground wire in the box you need to run the other end to the ground rod BEFORE DISCONNECTING THE LUG ON THE GROUND ROD TURN OFF ALL THE BREAKERS INCLUDING THE MAIN BREAKER because if you have something in your house shorting out or a broken neutral somewhere when you take the lug off the main grounding electrode conductor will shock you this is why ground rods are 8 feet long so people don’t try to steal them and kill their self in the process. When you get the wire to the ground rod clamp it on as shown in figure 2.
Step 5 Hooking up the plug
You will need an isolated ground plug it is an orange plug and has a green triangle on the front of it they look a lot like a regular plug but the difference is an IG plugs yoke is not connected to the ground the yoke is the metal part of the plug on the top and bottom where the screws go to hold it into the box. The ground wire in the romex in your house wiring will not hook up to this plug Only the isolated ground you ran will hook up to the green screw the black wires hook to the gold screws and the white wires hook to the silver screws as in Figure 3 Don’t hook it up backwards reverse polarity is bad ju ju and make sure the screws are tight loose connections are bad ju ju to loose electrical connections cause more house fires than anything else. After you got it hooked back up it’s not a bad idea to wrap tape around the plug to keep the screws from hitting the sides of the box and shorting out. Now reinstall the plug put the cover back on and turn the power on put your tester in the plug make sure its working also put 1 lead in the short slot and put 1 lead in the round ground hole if its says you have 120 volts then your all set.
Final note
Remember what I said about the network, printer and any other cables I don’t want to hear about any of you on the news or the [H] front page that your house burned down if you don’t think you can do this please call a professional they will do it right for you and in most cases its not real expensive.
Figure 1
http://www.hommie.net/forum/plug.jpg
Figure 2
http://www.hommie.net/forum/grod.jpg
Figure 3
http://www.hommie.net/forum/igplug.jpg