Re: OFF TOPIC: 2-prong outlets

["Fluke" <fluke@gotadsl.co.uk>]

I'm with STephen. A lot of the solutions suggested do not edequately 
address
the issue of safety,. and probably cost more than replaceing your 2-prong
outlets with 3-prong...if a safety ground is available. Running new cable
from the fusebox is a hassle, but not expensive in terms of materials. It
would be good to know if the in-wall wiring is run in conduit or loose in
dry wall or just embedded in plaster.

Nik

--------- Original Message --------
From: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
To: "Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com"
<Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Subject: Re: OFF TOPIC: 2-prong outlets
Date: 18/02/06 05:52



Zoe,

First it's good to know what that third wire really means. In one way of
looking at it, it's
a second ground. Should anything ever go wrong with your equipment and it
decides that you make a
pretty good electrical path, that third wire can be really nice to have.

Since electrical grounding codes are different all over the US, what's
kosher for one area
might not be for another. Sometimes, the ground and the neutral wires are
connected at the fuse
box. Other times, the ground is only physically connected to the earth via 
a
grounding pole (sunk
8 feet deep, and usually not under the eaves of your roof unless you live 
in
a very wet area).
Usually, it is no longer code to connect to a water pipe, mostly because
there's no guarantee that
at some point the pipe isn't plastic (or may be at some point in the
future), and hence no longer
a suitable ground.

Unless I'm totally mistaken, that third wire does not necessarily make your
electrical audio
equipment more or less noisy. That depends more on the configuration of the
wiring in the rest of
the house. It just makes it safer.

Were it me, I'd run a new wire from the fuse or breaker box to my music
studio and make sure
it had a solid grounding point. Perhaps as was suggested elsewhere, you can
do this by getting
the 3 to 2 adaptors and grounding out the tab onto the screw in the plate.
You'd definately want
to make sure of that via one of those there testers. Then I'd plug my whole
studio into that new
circuit. That's basically what I've done in my home studio. If you have an
electrician friend in
the area, you can ask them for more specific help. Pretty much everywhere 
in
the country, every
single home has three wires running to it, two at 110-120 each, and one
ground. The second ground
wire is done at each home by some sort of grounding rod.

Stephen



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