O.T. HD, PSU review:

Paul wrote:
Mark Twain wrote:
So call the electrician back and let him know
there are 2 and 3 prong outlets? He already knows
there's an open ground because that's why I called
him.

If he can't replace the 2 prong with a 3 prong and he
can't run a green wire for grounding then why have him
come out at all? Just to replace what I already have?

I tried calling him, no answer....

Robert



First I'm trying to make sure you understand
the situation.

I'm trying to describe the situation based on
"betting odds". Two prong outlets are deployed with
two-wire cables. Three prong outlets are
deployed while using three-wire cable. If a
residence has two-prong plugs, then the wire in
the wall is most likely to be two-wire cable.

Maybe there is some way to put a proper ground on
a mobile home outlet box. But I don't know how
that would work. You have to be able to demonstrate
to an inspector, that the Safety ground is suited
for the job, and can deflect 15-30A of "Hot" to
make a breaker trip and prevent an appliance
chassis from being a shock hazard.

The Safety ground exists, to try to convert a Hot
chassis failure, into a breaker trip.

The invention of surge arrestors and computer power
supplies that leak small amounts of AC, those are
secondary uses of Safety Ground.

But once you hook up the third prong, the implementation
must be capable of fulfilling any of those roles,
including Safety Ground handling a large current flow.

*******

Two-prong outlets are "grandfathered". That means you're
allowed to have them and continue to use them. You can't
use them on new construction. But, if they came with the
residence in the first place, you're allowed to continue
using them.

The two-prong doesn't handle computer leakage current
all that well. That's why I was getting a mild shock back
home, because the chassis was "slightly hot" from the front
end filter on a computer I was installing.

The two-prong won't make a surge protector work right.
If the surge protector comes with a "$50,000 warranty",
and there is equipment damage, the warranty is void.
The provider of the warranty goes out of their way to
find fault with the household end of the wiring.

People quite comfortably continue to live in two-prong
houses. It means they won't have surge protection like
a person in a three-prong house would. But I don't
remember anything blowing up back home - I don't think
we had any electronics fail from surges. Never lost a
TV set to lightning. We also didn't have any "hot
chassis failures", so the missing Safety ground
feature was not missed.

Paul

I'll tell you one problem that existed for me in an old 1940's house that
only had two prong sockets (and 30 amp total service via a fusebox). And
that's that mild shock thing you mentioned, but in this case, for a
refrigerator, which would give you a slight tingle whenever you touched it.
I solved the shock problem by grounding the case of the refrigerator by
running a wire over to a cold water pipe that was grounded. Yes, I know
that's a kludge, and not according to electrical code, but it worked for the
time being.

And just a curiosity sidenote: I missed Robert's reply (if he gave one) on
how he came up with that interesting name (Mark Twain), and if he had any
kinship to the author Samuel Clemens, which would be pretty interesting in
its own right!