I’m planning on moving my current workstation (down in my basement) to my room, since it’s annoying trudging up and down the steps, and I doubt that the somewhat damp conditions are helping my electronics.
I’ve been using the whole copper-wire-and-1-MOhm-resistor-to-big-metal-pipe setup to keep everthing ESD safe (as well as a metal work surfaces and pink bags).
But, I’m tiring of that and want to do it like a pro (nerd).
So I’m getting the works: a matt, the wristband, etc.
The only problem is… in my room, I won’t have a nice exposed large pipe to tie to.
I can’t just use my AC outlet’s ground, eh?
Any suggestions?
I’ve thought of running wire down to the basement, but I’d have to get out the drill…
I think a question to ask might be how new is your house? If you have 3-wire outlets and they have metal boxes then it is possible the box itself is grounded, in which case you can grab the center screw that holds the outlet cover on. Another suggestion would be to use one of those benchtop power strips with the outlets every 12" or so. Frequently those are in metal enclosures (that bolt to the table) and those enclosures should be earth grounded.
Yes, you can use your ground terminal from a wall outlet. I have done this several times. Infact, the ground terminal (a 3 terminal wall outlet, as pictured) you can fit a bana jack perfectly in it, well almost perfectly.
Just to be clear, its the semi-round terminal below the two blade terminals
Wow… it was starting to seem like all my hairbrained ideas were getting shot down.
Yea, Mike.
I’ve found that them thar bannana plugs are real wonders.
They’ll fit in anything if yeh push hard enough.
Of course… getting them to fit back in their proper receptacle after that is another story.
Well, my house is old as dirt, but we’re always remodling it.
Almost the outlets in the house are 3-prong GFCI protected outlets.
I know that’s a good thing for normal purposes, but will that be a problem if I’m bootlegging the ground?
I don’t really wish to be crawling under my desk and pushing those lil’ buttons every few minutes.
If I remember rightly, their breakers break when they detect a short to ground.
Now that I think about it, though… it should be fine.
Most breakers are bimetalic strips that disconnect the circuit when heated rapidly.
I doubt that enough juice will trickle through a 1MOhm resistance to heat anything.
A GFI breaker is supposed to trip when it detects any currents flowing in the ground circuit that is unexpected.
So, it may or may not care about 1M-ohm ground strap and such…
If you are going to hook yourself up to any AC outlet, I’d check to make sure that the ground is really grounded – don’t assume that the electricians did it right.
Good news.
I found an older non-GFCI outlet hiding behind a bookcase.
Verifying that the ground was a ground was easy enough, since my father had previously replaced that outlet as well (it was an ungrounded when we originally got it).
