Grounding Information

[cbellefontaine]

Attached is a part of a video that we are playing with to show the importance of grounding and bonding. It is a question and I will show the rest later after I see what type of answers I get. I am going to ask that the electrical guru's hold back a little.

www.bellmangroup.com/The Grounding question.wmv

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Errr.....I want to comment SOOOOOO bad.....soooooo bad...but I will refrain....

[cbellefontaine]

Thanks Paul,

I kinda figured you would know.

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Most excellent......MOST excellent in how you are doing this.......gives me some ideas on doing some tests and doing video of them for educational purposes also......can't WAIT to see the outcome of your test

[cbellefontaine]

We have a bunch of these. I hope that I am not stepping on any toes by showing these.

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Most certainly NOT.....great education.......thats what it is all ABOUT my friend.......teaching something to the guys that want to learn it...and allowing people like me to comment on them.....most excellent !

Grant it...I can't seem to get approval to be on the education committee for some reason....(WHAT?) but they are fine by me......its educational....so its GREAT....can't wait for the answer......I might be wrong....

[Jeffrey R. Pope]

Ooh - ooh - ooh!! I know!! I know!!

My question is - is he wearing adequate PPE for this experiment?

[cbellefontaine]

Absoluuuuuuuuutly NOT. What fun would that be.

[cbellefontaine]

OK Jeff and Paul. What say you.

[Speedy Petey]

Here is a hint:

http://ecmweb.com/mag/501ecm17fig4.jpg

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Oh speedy.......you JUST about give it away....

I believe I have explained MANY times what the effect of a 25 OHMS ground rod setup is actually for...opps...I almost gave it away myself...lol


Should we wait for MORE to reply....before I explain the cause and effects.......

[cbellefontaine]

OK, here is the rest of that section. I hope you guys like these kind of things. I am willing to post more if you would like.

www.bellmangroup.com/The Grounding answer.wmv

The most important part to me is that a simple ground fault will not blow the fuse or trip the breaker.

[Paul W. Abernathy]

And it is very important to know why......the misconception that the ground rod has anything to do with clearing a fault is a situation that is very misunderstood.

If a typical ground rod ( we will assume it is 25 OHMS ) is connected to then using normal ohms law you will see that 120V divided by 25 OHMS is only 4.8 AMPS.......this will never clear the OCPD......

anyway.....very nice........allows questions to be asked so electrical people can answer them.....and not just SAY CODE about it.......continue to post them......I will continue to assist in answering them

[cbellefontaine]

Here is a kicker Paul. We got about six amps going down the ground rod. I assume it is because we were about 25 feet from the transformer (rather close) and the ground was wet.

What are your thoughts?

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Did you have the ability to know exactly what your OHMS was on that rod...I would guess it could be you had less than 25 OHMS....more like 20.....the earth is a poor conductor at best.....so tell me...did you actually DRIVE an 8' rod...or just a piece of one...lol