Rim star, This is absolutely the best grounding video on TH-cam! I'm recently retired Electrical Engineer and have taught electrical design for many years. It took me several years at first to finally figure out how grounding actually works! Your explanation is exactly correct. I'm pretty sure than 99% of electricians, designers, and electrical engineers do not understand what you just taught. After reading the comments, for those who think he is incorrect, think it through! If you accept this information, designing or installing electrical system grounding makes sense. Most people are taught what to do, not why to do it. Again, awesome job! Very Respectfully, Kevin
A question for both or either. The energy the electric company sends is termed "skin effect". It is teslas plasma energy. It can be made by taking man made ac sine wave and running it thru a spark gap to turn it into ac direct. Then you can run that thru a hps sodium bulb which would be a vacuum tube spark gap, and you have plasma energy. If you take a digital thermometer and take a reading of the plasma energy in the hps bulb it'll read in the negative -900 degree range. I assume it's because the heat is used by the plasma energy that's created for powering itself. The skin effect runs down the transmission line on the outside of the highly vibrational blend of metal that's used. When it reaches the pole the transformer is on, it has a short thin jump wire wired to it. The jump wire is tied to the ground wire on one end, and the other end to the transformer. The return line is also tied to the ground wire that is considered the guide wire. Teslas tower wasn't used to send wireless electricity, it was used to draw up the earths rf energy. So it seems to me, the electric company uses the skin effect plasma energy to suck the earths rf energy out of the ground to run to the transformer and that is dumped in to the liquid via tiny wires and turned into ac sine wave and that's what we being charged for. I have zero electronic schooling, but a year of watching videos of how electronics work it seems to be the case. I've tried asking multiple electronic channels, particle and quantum physics channels and have only gotten blocked and my comments removed. Asteronx tried saying i was wrong on my information when i explained how faster than light travel works, until i proved them wrong then they blocked me and came out with a video on their "possible new theories" and so did Sean Carroll from Stanford university when i took it further and explained my theory on gravity. When i tried explaining that all that together explains how particle entanglement works, my comments got removed and i can't even post them anymore. It's all from top Dr's in neuroscience and biochemistry that explain it, quantum cooper pairs electromagnetism ect but the two i mentioned, Jordan Peterson, Bruce Lipton, Neil Tyson and others wont even discuss what their combined work adds up to. So im trying to get honest answers fro electronic experts. I posted my 3 minute video on face book, with two sermons explaining how electricity is in the Bible today and they shut my account down. Can you tell me if im right? And not from a knee jerk emotional perspective, but from a knowledgeable scientific point of view. No disrespect, but the that's crazy answer from a non knowledgeable perspective is getting old. Especially when the guy's saying that remove my comments, then later come out with videos on their new theories. If you don't know thats fine, if im wrong that's fine. But im getting tired of being called crazy when im just trying to learn the truth. If i was wrong about gravity and particle entanglement, i wouldn't be getting my comments suppressed when i explain it, I'd get explanations on how i am wrong. It seems nobody has a problem telling you when your wrong and how, but no one has done that except Asteronx, which stopped when i proved faster than light travel. Thanks for any explanation either way, right or wrong.
@@checkingoutgypsymike2075 Mike, A question, if I am reading correctly, you are saying that the transformer on the pole is collecting the energy from the earth, not from a power plant somewhere else. If this is the case, knowing that the earths magnetic field is 8 hertz and our electrical system is 60 hertz, where or how is that change in sine wave frequency made? Since you have this all figured out, I am assuming that you have made your own working system and do not need the utility company for electricity. Please make a short video of it and put it on your channel that you signed up for on February 6, 2021. Just 6 days ago.
@@KevinCoop1 no sir, i got the information from Gerard Morins channel, he has a bunch of videos going over how tesla made his plasma energy. He actually had a working system before his posting stopped a few years ago. His thoughts were that the ground was a siphon for the feed and return lines. But from the keshe foundations magrav (magnetic gravity) power pack unit it makes me question if it is just a siphon. Their nanotechnology is taking particles from nuclear waste and combining them in to a safe paste. They use the paste to coat teslas coils like used in an induction stove top, and when you run a trickle charge thru the power pack it makes energy from the vibration of the coils. There's a channel invert gravity (i believe the name is correct of the top of my head) that is making a tesla steam generator, he posted an article a few days ago that was from tesla, explaining how the energy we are bombarded with can be harnessed if you haven't read it. So besides drawing out the rf energy, the skin effect running on the outside of the power lines could also be using that, like i stated im not an electrical engineer by any means. Taking into account the us patent for faster than light travel, is a double hulled craft of highly vibrational metal, which they fill the chamber with mercury at -15,000 degrees so it is detached from the solar radiation all around us, so it has no friction as it moves it implies that the energy we exist in is key to understanding how the universe works. Thru neurology and biochemistry, the understanding of quantum locked cooper pairs helps to explain it further. The wicking effect in water damage restoration, how the dehumidifier dries the air, charging it, so that when the fans blow it across the wrt surfaces it magnetically pulls out the moisture due to the energy in water. Or like ground to sky lightening, the highly charged air from the thermal energy build up in the storm clouds and when it gets strong enough it actually pulls massive volts from the earth to create the lightening. Their are many examples of what im proposing all around us, as tesla said" once you understand the energy you can see God's work all around us. Planks book the spiritual universe also leads credence to it. The 3.5 trillion volts of God's spiritual, intelligent, conscious, evolving energy working in a symbiotic exchange grounding us explains gravity. There's a channel i asked about the quantum locking and it being the explanation of gravity, i believe if you search for double quantum locking you'll find his experiment from my inquiries. I asked about the suns energy being the key to gravity and the moon being dielectric, it being stuck in the magnetic energy that has the sun and planets locked together. I watch a lot of science channels so i could be wrong on the channel name, but i believe that experiment was done by the thought emporium. I can look and if im wrong make a correction. There was a video on the keshe foundations work on green energy jubilation, i haven't looked in a while so i don't know if it's been removed. You can search the internet for magrav power pack and in images you can see how the build them and see an explanation of how they work. Do yes im saying that it seems possible to draw out the earths energy. The tower tesla had made and had to destroy was for pulling the rf energy out of the earth, buy the 3 6 9 emp like pulsation it produced was hitting the Teutonic plates and caused an earth quake. Even a common generator pulls the energy from two directions, the ground and the sky. The magnet when spun over 3,000 rpm's collect the energy and forces it across the metal to generate electricity. The readon a vertical axis generator is more efficient is because it doesn't pull the energy in and make it do a 90° turn as it's collected. Like in wiring, you don't want sharp bends in wires because a power surge can make it exit the wire, and aldo causes more heat build up do to friction. Something like that, it's been thirty years since i worked with microwave cable but that was stressed in safety meetings.
This is one of the best ground explanations I've seen. I'm a journeyman electrician. *Yes the subject of grounding does get a lot deeper, and more technical, but this is sufficient for any non-electrician or first year apprentice. It's simple, easy to understand and follow, and it tells you everything you need to know to understand it on a basic level. Great vid, I'll send it to apprentices.
Plumber here, please never connect your ground to a pipe unless its a completely dead and redundant line you wont need to work on. Grounded pipes make working on your plumbing system very dangerous if you have any electrical faults as the pipe become charged with electricity and this is the reason more plumbers die of electrocution every year than electricians. Love the video and find your way of explaining things very simple and informative but please don't tell people to connect ground to pipes it can be very dangerous.
Yikes. Usually the people doing this are hobbyists connecting to a pipe for grounding for a quick demonstration or experiment and then disconnecting again. I was once attending a convention in a conference center where they connected to a kitchen pipe for a ground for a Tesla coil demonstration (a high voltage machine that produces lightning-like discharges). Now that you mention it, that was not a good idea even though it's a quite common practice. But I hadn't thought of more permanent situations for household ground as a danger to plumbers and others. In the video I'm talking about the temporary hobbyist situation, but it is in a video about household ground so I can see someone thinking of it for a permanent installation. Yikes.
@@RimstarOrg Thanks for the reply, as someone who's worked on a large variety of houses for a large variety of people I can tell you that temporary solutions can last many years sometimes depending on the person. If its just for demonstrations or is connected and disconnected quickly then obviously its no issue, but I've met plenty of people who use videos like this to try and do things to their property that should only be done by a licensed tradesperson. In future videos if it ever arises again maybe just a quick word to let people know these connections have to be temporary for safety reasons would be nice.
The purpose of ground was not to protect people. It is a meaningless thing to even think it is so. It was to protect the grid and the infrastructure. From what? From thunder and lighenting discharge. On the contrary it became obvious that in doing so cme with it serious danger to people. And the solution has taken on many forms and most of them has little to no meaning. All a person, an actual attentive person that is, has to do is to simply look at the whole thing, the entire picture.
the secret of life? the secret of life is knowing which hole will get you in trouble and how to properly plug it to silence, you can't catch a case if youre not a case catcher.
Excellent video. You can always tell when an instructor deeply understands their subject, because they can explain it in simple terms to a lay person. You've done that here. Well done! Thanks!
I've studied electricity and electronics for more than twenty years. This is the best explanation of ground I have ever seen. I'm finding that that's a common occurrence on this channel. Fantastic video.
Holy crap, I recognized your voice, and it randomly hit me that I have watched your channel before, like 3 years ago, when I built a crystal radio. Now I'm back, working as a technicians apprentice, trying to get a full understanding of electricity.
dude thank you for making this video... most explanations suck, SERIOUSLY! YOU HELPED SO MANY PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS. people over complicate this so much.
Oh, I believe you!! All universities do these days is indoctrinate young people into being socialist anti-white hate mongers. When I was in school, we were there to learn real things like science.
I have a friend who built his own recording studio. When it was all finished, he was getting some really bad noise from the house. If you tuned on a blender you could hear it on his recordings or occasionally you could pick up radio stations. So we called in an electrician and he isolated the ground for the studio only, so it was by itself. The problem went away. He drove a copper rod 10 feet into the ground and used it for the ground. Quiet as a mouse now.
Damn boi this is the most straightforward and foolproof explanation of ground I've ever seen! I wish I found your channel back when I was a freshman. Thanks buddy.
Great video. It's amazing how even professors in tertiary education cannot properly explain concepts like this but you've managed to make it simple and easy. Thanks for putting this up
I am continually surprised by the quality of content on TH-cam. This was not the case when I was in school. I mean, the net was there, but today's content is simply better than it was.
Yep - the Internet connections, computer hardware, software, cameras and especially the Internet platforms and services are all in place nowadays. Therefore enthusiast content creators have found it worth their while to place masses of useful content online in palatable formats, such as well produced TH-cam videos. That we're able to pay them tips and subscriptions, as well as them earning ad revenue, is the icing on the cake, as it can create a virtuous cycle of content creation across and within a subject. A lot of creators are even looking back at their early work from a decade or more ago, and remaking it at a high quality, with updated content. It's better than a lot of broadcast TV from the 2000s - there was a lot of trash on TV back then, and I've no idea what's on cable TV these days, as TH-cam has replaced all but live TV and sports events for me.
Here in Malaysia we commonly use TN-S standard since Earth and Neutral are isolated. And because of that, the household is only grounded by the planted ground rod, and that means the Earth wire is not connected to Neutral wire. So that, we use three types of breakers; Main Switch, RCCB and MCB. Main switch controls the input voltage from the main into the RCCB. The newer ones can trigger by itself during short circuit or overcurrent. RCCB protects user by tripping (or trigger) when it detects current imbalance between Live (known as HOT or Line in some countries) an Neutral (or NUL in some countries), which occurs when some current got leak to Earth. MCB on the other hand, functions just like the Main Switch but the main purpose is to distribute the mains voltage supply to the entire home. MCB has its own maximum current like 6, 10, 16, 20 and 32 amps. So, unlike main switch that trips at high current like 32 and 63 amps, MCB will trigger itself at its maximum current without depending on the main switch that trips at much higher current.
I don't understand why there are any negative comments to this beautiful video. This is the best explanation i have ever come across of this very confusing subject. Notice how he seemlesssly integrates that ground with the transformer, and now it makes sense because you see complete current paths. That's what has been missing in all these other videos.
Best explanation ive seen. Nice visuals, examples, animations, and articulate explanations. Ill be seeking you out for my electric questions from now on. Thank you
I UNDERSTAND IT. I FULLY UNDERSTAND IT!! Thank you for explaining this phenomenon thats been baffling me for long and i got quite a few answers from this video.
I stumbled into this video, thinking, what the heck, I always take the subject of ground for granted. It's simple, nothing new here. Boy was I wrong. I learned several new things. Also, I've been trying to make sense of potential difference for weeks now. None of the videos I watched helped much. In one fell swoop, it now makes sense. Thanks!
Such a good video. I've been using it for years to show students. They spend years in collage and don't understand. a single 10 min video connects everything Thank you 😊
Very thorough and easy to understand. Well done! In my house nothing is grounded. The 3-prong outlets are fed by only 2-wire romex. That really screws with the oscilloscope since there are so many ungrounded electric fields. If I want good grounds I have to go out to the garage.
Im a senior in ME right now, this video was a huge help at explaining some stuff we cover in class. Thanks a ton, I know these vids take a long time to make. You seem like a super cool guy, I'll check out some of your other videos
5:30 this part is important. The object doesn’t have to be *that* big and it doesn’t have to connect to the earth. On an airplane in flight, ground wires connect to the fuselage. The International Space Station also has a grounding system even though it never touches the ground. In a car, electricity only really flows from the cathode of the battery to the anode, so the metal frame of the car or engine block is a ground.
This video reminded me of a scary night I had over a decade ago: I was awakened by a loud cracking from a wall AC unit, then I hears a smoke alarm go off in my shop. I unpluged the AC, and the smoke was coming from a fault protection strip which had three MOV's connected between E, N, and G. The MOV's had shorted (maybe exposing a flaw overlooked in these circuit/surge protectors)...pouring out smoke. I found that only -certain outlets would work, but had not discovered the problem yet. At daybreak, I took a hand telescope and looked along the power line--then I saw it! The BARE wire in the bundle of three wires was snapped! This is not simply a support cable or earth ground as many people think, but it is the Neutral line. What I had was an "OPEN NEUTRAL". When it broke some of my circuits had to complete through the actual ground in the earth, which was a high resistance to the "pole pig" or pole transformer. Thus some outlets would only dimly illuminate an incandescent 120VAC bulb. Interesting...the power company called it an "OPEN NEUTRAL" It prompted me to design an "open neutral" detector.
Thanks for this good video. But if the green ground wire is connected to the white neutral wire back in the breaker box, the ground then has the same potential as the neutral, so doesn't the ground pose a shock risk?
It doesn’t really pose a shock risk because the resistance from the panel to the transformer is so little that the electricity wants to flow to the transformer and not back thru the panel to the ground on the outlets. Electricity is always trying to get back to the source (transformer) via the shortest route (least resistance)
Neutral to ground difference is 0 volts so in theory, you can even touch neutral on the outlets. Problem is that in some installations, you cannot be sure which hole is neutral and which one is hot! Hot, as the name states, is the only of the 3 holes you should never touch!
After much research and frustration of not knowing why the ground and neutral wires are connected, I finally understand. There are many people on the internet who know how it works but the key here is, the teacher knows how to pass that information along. Cheers for the simple explanation.
Great explanation, congrats! Now i also know why old cars with metal bumpers would lose battery charge when parked touching a fence. My guess from what you showed is that there is a potential difference between the chassis ground of the battery and the "soil ground" reached by the fence allowing electrons to escape into the earth (right?)
two types of Grounding you need to know in house wiring 1. equipment ground is the return for fault current typically when a short occurs lets say a bad wire in a washer the current returns to the breaker box where it is bonded with the neutral to complete the path so the over current device (breaker) will trip protecting the upstream equipment 2. Earth ground is used to drain off high Current and voltages to earth (IE) Lightning it is also bonded to neutral in the breaker box house receptacles are equipment ground that are also bonded with Earth Ground Earth ground is achieved with a ground rod,grid,plate or ufer type grounding (IE) rebar or copper wire encased in concrete this is why the ground and neutral shair the same busbar hope this helps just my humble opnion
If the ground wire and neutral are connected, then a short-circuit can be made on both wires by touching them with the hot. In this case the ground wire and earth ground are good only against thunder?
What a great lesson, i better understand my efforts here in our shops electricity. Sand we live in a desert no water lacks moisture (great point you shared) so we have 5 of these long copper coated poles with grounds for each and nearest each junction box. Now we see why we have many of these poles, city water no metal piping. Lance & Patrick.
I watched this video for a college class, but it reminds me of the kinds of random science videos I would watch just for fun before I started college. Thank you for making this topic interesting and easy to understand!
This is what I've been looking for. A very good explanation of "ground" and how it is used. I had so many questions about ground and why would you use it, etc and this answered all of them. Thank you so much for this video. You are a wonderful Human Being.
THANK YOU. I always knew ground were very important, but I couldn't figure out how they worked. This is very clear and helped me finally understand it!
It helps to think of the history. Originally, there were only hot and neutral wires, no ground. In a perfect circuit, that is all you need to run the microwave. Suppose in this case there is a break in the hot conductor's insulation and it shorts to the microwave cover. That cover isn't connected to anything, so nothing happens. The microwave still runs. If you touch the cover in this situation, and if you are in bare feet or touching the sink, current will flow from the hot, through the case, and through you. You get shocked. So, if all you have is hot and neutral, you can make things work, but for many kinds of faults, the system will still appear to work, but will be dangerous. You don't know there is a problem until you touch it. When you add the grounding circuit, as he described, things get much better. Now, if the hot shorts against the case, current immediately flows and trips the breaker, giving you a clue something is wrong. The difference between an electrician and someone who isn't trained in electrical work is that electricians are constantly thinking about making things safe even when they are broken or something goes wrong. It's not enough to just make things work. The EGC (electrical grounding circuit) is all about helping to handle situations when things go wrong.
@Freddy Krueger If it's not the textbook definition, it ought to be. It goes along with the definition of the National Electrical Code being the list of all the ways humans have surprised themselves by killing themselves with electricity when they thought they were safe. But, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the NEC; for example, having a neutral arc even when your probe showed zero voltage before and after turning off the the circuit at the load center.
Your explanations are perfect for highly intuitive people like me. If I know how things work at the most basic level, then my intuition will fill in the gaps in all other relevant areas. Some people learn best in a linear fashion, remembering the A-Z steps, but I need to know "why" so everything can branch out in a web of concepts (the way my brain organizes things).
You stated that the Source of the Voltage (Transformer Secondary) is Grounded. Why doesn’t the electric current flow to the Ground wire, but instead, the electric current flows to the Hot wire? If electric current seeks the lowest electrical charge potential, wouldn't the electric current go to ground immediately, thus, the electric current is terminated to Ground right away? Also, since the Neutral wire is Grounded, wouldn't the returning electric current go to Ground immediately as well? I am very confused.
Because looking at some of the comments it is obvious some people have no fucking clue what they are talking about. As a licensed electrical contractor and HAM this is a better explanation than I could have ever tried myself.
Very nicely explained. I know this is about explaining ground, but my confusion is about the other two wires. Since this is AC, why do we distinguish between “hot” and “neutral” wires. I assume the “neutral” wire is considered the return path. However, depending on the phase of the AC, either wire could be “hot” or “neutral”.
To answer my own question. Most likely the distinction between "neutral" and "hot" comes in when the equipment is turned off. In this case the "hot" wire would carry a current through your body to ground, if you touch it by accident. The "neutral" wire wouldn't carry current, because the equipment is turned off. However, once the equipment is turned on, there is no distinction between "hot" and "neutral".
Hi Tom C. What you wrote is not quite right. The neutral wire is bonded to ground, earth, at the secondary of the power company transformer, and again at the power panel of the building to which power is fed. Two grounds for redundancy. So the neutral really is neutral, same as the earth is neutral. Such a situation is grounded ac which is not the same as ungrounded or floating ac. The neutral does carry current, but has no voltage...it is essentially a current sink. In floating ac there would be no difference between the two wires, each would have voltage and current relative to the other, but neither wire is neutral. When one of the two ac lines in bonded to ground, the voltage of the other line varies above and below ground, swinging from neg to pos, but the neutral wire remains neutral, or ground, or zero. In practice, depending on quality of bonding to ground, which may vary, a person standing on ground may feel a very tiny shock or tingle of electricity when touching the neutral wire.
rh001YT I totally get what you are saying. The only thing I'm confused about is the two grounds. Wouldn't the easiest return path for the current be through the ground of your home, through the earth and back up through the ground at the transformer? I've never seen a TN-C-S system with a ground at the house in any literature. At home I have a TT system, so I have never seen a TN-C-S system up close.
rh001YT I was looking at your explanation again. True the neutral wire is connected to ground at the service station, and acts as a current sink. However, saying that there is only voltage applied to the hot wire, but not to the neutral only applies to DC. In AC, the voltage has phase reversal, and the current swings back and forth. For one half of the AC cycle the hot side is more negative than the grounded neutral, in effect the neutral is positive with respect to the hot wire. In that case, the neutral side has the voltage, and the hot side is the current sink.
In India We use Red for Phase(Hot or Live) , Black for Neutral and Green for earth. Ground wire runs separately from equipment to local earthing point (separate earth pit constructed at home). It does not get combined with neutral wire in junction box. Whereas neutral point of transformer is earthed at transformer pole.
Ganesh Kumar Shetty the UK used to be Red for live, Black for Neutral and Green for earth but for sometime now it has been changed to Brown for live, Blue for neutral and Green & Yellow for Earth to make it easier for colour blind people to identify the wires. The whole of the European Union follows this convention. This only applies to new or modified installations, so it is quite confusing to see wiring with a mix of colours. Wherever the new wiring has been used on an old installation, a notice has to be displayed indicating that the new colours have been used. I think it is the convention in the US to join the neutral and earth in the panel, unlike ourselves, earthing the neutral at the transformer.
When using a two prong tester to find the hot line, we can old one prong between our thumb and finger. Inserting the other prong in the hot socket, the bulb will light. Our body is absorbing electrons. Does that mean "ground" means electron hungry? Are our bodies behaving like capacitors? If we held that prong all day with the other on the hot side of a plug, would we reach capacity?
Not sure how old you are, and I am writing this at 4:30 in the video, so that being said: if your old enough then you may remember when outlets were mostly only two prong, neutral and hot. Appliance chassises like TVs, kitchen mixers, etc., often had their chassis connected to neutral which was probably only grouded to plumbing and/or earth at the service/fuse box, which would be fine unless the earth connection broke (i.e. Probably from corrosion or just plain hook up error), this, in the case of just a ground fault could cause a minor shock, or in a ground reversal error, a full voltage shock. So they changed the wiring code to include a separate, independent, earth ground, which as folks have commented, is effectively the same as neutral when everything is wired and connected properly, but less likely to present a shock hazard when things are less than ideal. This also caused the rise of "double insulated" appliances/tools, which were made safe from most wiring because they are electrically isolated from both the hot and neutral except in the case of water unfiltration. GFCIs now handle safety for water infiltration, but that's a separate topic 😊
This is not at all true. Older appliances like TVs and such DID NOT have the neutral bonded to the case. The only time this happened was with 120/240V electric dryers and cooking appliances.
Hi , what can you tell us about grounding emf shielding paint. Why would one need to shield that paint and what would the possible dangers of not grounding said paint? Thank you for the great video and keep up the good work.
So if i am correct ... The fact that the ground wire is connected to the ground has nothing to do with protecting your from getting shocked ... but protecting the breaker panel from high voltages? (thunder) The only thing that keeps you safe from getting shocked is the breaker of the hot wire when a closed circuit with high current exist? or it helps "pull" the current towards the ground where low resistance exists? (our body resistance is about 100kohms and a typical ground about 100 i think)
Consider this: GROUND=SAFETY/NON-LETHAL ... so if the case to your appliance is connected to GROUND, then certainly it is always safe to touch no matter what happens --normal or fault. The breaker tripping is a bonus to kill the high voltage and prevent any charge from building up.
@@barnabywilde374 But is it safe because... the current will choose to discharge on the ground because of the lower resistance (about 10ohms) or Because ground helps to pull the current through the breaker ?
GROUND directs the dangerous charge away from human touch. BREAKER removes the dangerous charge. But since you're forcing me into a choice, the BREAKER removing the dangerous charge altogether is more important than just re-directing it.
There is another reason why we should literally connect the ground wire to the ground at breaker panel: if the neutral wire somewhere between the breakers panel and the transformer get disconnected, and there is a connection between hot and natural, the natural line and ground line will be charged to same potential as the hot line. You will get shocked every time you touch a metal surface that is connected to the ground line. To avoid this, you need to make sure that the ground line is literally connected to ground. So it's a good idea if you connect your breaker panel case and therefore the ground line to a literally ground.
wow really good video. i am studying cognitive neuroscience and need to write a research proposal about any mood disorder. so I went for depression and with the help of your video I am going to study the effect of indoor grounding on stress and relaxation in depressed people. As I am from europe, I didn't know about the ground plug so I was super confused when reading literature about researchers connecting bare skin with electrical sockets via electrical patches... Now I got it ;))
Hello, thanks for the great video. I have question regarding earth electrode size. Many standards suggest that minimum dia of earth electrode is 12.7 mm. Suppose someone burries an earth electrode 50 ft deep. Should the dia of entire 50 ft conductor be 12.7 mm or connecting a 10 ft long 12.7 mm earth electrode to a 40 ft long 6-8 mm conductor is sufficient?
Tapos Barai The minimum electrode size is just an in general ‘this size electrode should be sufficient for most types of soil.’ In actuality the resistance to ground should be tested. The NEC requires it to be less than 25 ohms. If one electrode gets your resistance under 25 ohms then great. If not than more electrodes need to be driven in the ground and bonded together until your resistance to ground reading is less than the 25 ohms.
In Holland we like to standardize everthing. And we call these networks either TT, IT or TN networks. TN can be devided in 3 different networks TN-S, TN-C and TN-C-S networks. What is being explained in the video can be an IT, TN-S, TN-C-S or even a TT network. Its hard to say, as you can only see one side of the installation, but my guess would be a TN-S or either a TN-C-S network, but with a earth pin on both the household side and on the transformer side. And no RCD. What we use in Holland for house holds installations is called a TT network. The 2 letters represent a code. *The first letter* (either a T or an I). Determines how the side of the transformer is connected to earth. (The star point). And means the following: *T* represents a network where the NUL/Zero/Neutral is connected to the Earth on the transformer side. *I* represents a network where the NUL/Zero/Neutral is isolated from the earth on the transformer side. *The second letter* (either a T or a N). Determines how an user is connected to the earth (a conductor or the housing of a unit). And means the following: *T* represents that the housing is connected to the earth. *N* represents that the housing is connected to the NUL/ZERO/NEUTRAL. TT network are less safe and have a lower reliability compared to a TN network. The safety issue can be dealt with by introducing a so called RCD switch that will switch off the power to the breakers very fast and on a relative low isolation fault. This level can still be dangerous though (30mA max in Holland). RCD switch stands for; Residual Current Device or Residual Current Circuit Breaker). A benefit of a TT network is that you can distribute Power over long distances. An IT network is more reliable, in the sense of keeping everything up and running, even when an isolation fault occurs. As the isolation fault can't make a loop with the NUL/ZERO/NEUTRAL of the power source. As the NUL/Zero/Neutral is isolated from the earth. This is used on ships and/or hospitals for example. Earth and NUL are isolated from eachother. Transformer has a floating NUL and is NOT connected to ground. (NOTE: when a isolation fault occurs, it has to be solved before a fault occurs in another (2nd) fase, as this will be the same a short circuit and the breaker will trip!) TN is the easiest to setup and saves a lot of money in costs. An earth fault (isolation fault) is the same as a short circuit and will trip the breaker, due to the high current that will occur. TN-C = 2 pin socket installation, household has no earth. NUL and Earth are 1 and the same. Only the transformer side has an earth pin. TN-S = NUL and Earth are isolated. Only the transformer side has an earth pin. TN-C-S = NUL and Earth are partly isolated and partly joined together. Only the transformer side has an earth pin.
I'm from the US. My opinion is in Europe you guys use way too many acronyms! I designed electrical systems for over 30 years and was amassed when I say John Wards videos telling about your systems. It's the same thing, just different words. Pronounce aluminum and you will know what I mean. Enjoy life and be safe!
I can't really comment because I'm not a licensed electrician. This video is aimed at the lay person. Others here who have that expertise may answer but if not, have a look at Mike Holt's videos th-cam.com/video/mpgAVE4UwFw/w-d-xo.html as they're from the electrician point-of-view.
The electrical installation connecting neutral with ground makes it impossible to use an differential circuit breaker. I'm not sure about the US, but in Europe the ground is separated from neutral for good reason.
kpharck you can use a differential breaker such as GFCI and AFCI. The neutral comes from the circuit and terminates into a second lug next to the hot then a pigtail wire connects the neutral to the neutral buss.
Many electrical distribution systems outside of North America do not ground either current carrying conductor. These systems rely on an RCD (Residual Current Device) for safety. Many older residences in North America were not wired with grounding conductors. It is permissible to replace the dangerous two prong outlet with a GFCI in that case. This acts very much like the RCD.
@@mikolajwojnicki2169 the ground cable is also connected as the video explains on stuff like for example that oven' s case.If the hot wire touches the case and there s no ground wire you ll get zapped.Also it helps by removing static charge in case of a lighting strike to protect equipment or to protect you you if you touch it
@@mikolajwojnicki2169 because if you connect the neutral wire yo the io oven's case then the case would become part of the circuit the moment you would turn the switch on and we obviously dont want that.Thats why we need a separate cable just in a case of a short circuit
This video solves part of my long-time question about how the earth can be served as a "good" conducting ground. The answer to that seems to be increasing the soil moisture to reduce the contact resistance.
Ground has another feature. It tries to make what you are locally standing on concrete or earth at the same potential as your grounded applience. I've seen grounds between buildings have 17 or more volts difference. Seen a steel building arcing to a cast iron sewer pipe. Grounds don't offer absolute protection. You can have a broken neutral between pole and service box. Recently a little girl died when she touched an outside water faucet.
Question: Say there is a short and the hot wire is touching the casing of the microwave, but there is no ground wire. Why would the breaker not flip? Wouldn’t the short circuit cause the current to exceed the rates amperage of the breaker, which is usually 20amps for American households?
To put whqt @E!Maestro is saying another way, without the ground wire connected to the case, there is no complete path for the current to follow. So no current will flow through the hot wire. But if someone who's grounded comes by and touches it, then there will l be a complete path through the ground.
@RimstarOrg what about "no ground" EU outlets? We only have hot and zero wires, and the latter is connected to cases of household devices, which is by your schematic completely equivalent. Why having a distinct third wire, though?
Why would it? Of course it would not. The voltage would remain in the case and when you touched it would shock you. It just just the purpose of the ground wire to cause the breaker to trip.
@@arseniix All modern European outlets have ground. On older installations ground was often not used on rooms that were considered safe. The idea was that there was no ground potential available so even of you got shocked that would not be serious. Now in many countries grounding was done with the neutral. While this is not ideal and not allowed anymore it works just as well as the neutral and the ground go to the same place.
a lot of ground was covered here
Lmao
I hate you
What? A dad joke? That’s it - your grounded! 😂👍🏻
I'm usually neutral to dad jokes, but this one sparked some joy. Stay positive!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Rim star, This is absolutely the best grounding video on TH-cam! I'm recently retired Electrical Engineer and have taught electrical design for many years. It took me several years at first to finally figure out how grounding actually works! Your explanation is exactly correct. I'm pretty sure than 99% of electricians, designers, and electrical engineers do not understand what you just taught. After reading the comments, for those who think he is incorrect, think it through! If you accept this information, designing or installing electrical system grounding makes sense. Most people are taught what to do, not why to do it. Again, awesome job! Very Respectfully, Kevin
Thank you!
penandpike If you did this video, no thanks necessary. I was very pleased to see an electrical video based on knowledge!
A question for both or either. The energy the electric company sends is termed "skin effect". It is teslas plasma energy. It can be made by taking man made ac sine wave and running it thru a spark gap to turn it into ac direct. Then you can run that thru a hps sodium bulb which would be a vacuum tube spark gap, and you have plasma energy. If you take a digital thermometer and take a reading of the plasma energy in the hps bulb it'll read in the negative -900 degree range. I assume it's because the heat is used by the plasma energy that's created for powering itself. The skin effect runs down the transmission line on the outside of the highly vibrational blend of metal that's used. When it reaches the pole the transformer is on, it has a short thin jump wire wired to it. The jump wire is tied to the ground wire on one end, and the other end to the transformer. The return line is also tied to the ground wire that is considered the guide wire. Teslas tower wasn't used to send wireless electricity, it was used to draw up the earths rf energy. So it seems to me, the electric company uses the skin effect plasma energy to suck the earths rf energy out of the ground to run to the transformer and that is dumped in to the liquid via tiny wires and turned into ac sine wave and that's what we being charged for. I have zero electronic schooling, but a year of watching videos of how electronics work it seems to be the case. I've tried asking multiple electronic channels, particle and quantum physics channels and have only gotten blocked and my comments removed. Asteronx tried saying i was wrong on my information when i explained how faster than light travel works, until i proved them wrong then they blocked me and came out with a video on their "possible new theories" and so did Sean Carroll from Stanford university when i took it further and explained my theory on gravity. When i tried explaining that all that together explains how particle entanglement works, my comments got removed and i can't even post them anymore. It's all from top Dr's in neuroscience and biochemistry that explain it, quantum cooper pairs electromagnetism ect but the two i mentioned, Jordan Peterson, Bruce Lipton, Neil Tyson and others wont even discuss what their combined work adds up to. So im trying to get honest answers fro electronic experts. I posted my 3 minute video on face book, with two sermons explaining how electricity is in the Bible today and they shut my account down. Can you tell me if im right? And not from a knee jerk emotional perspective, but from a knowledgeable scientific point of view. No disrespect, but the that's crazy answer from a non knowledgeable perspective is getting old. Especially when the guy's saying that remove my comments, then later come out with videos on their new theories. If you don't know thats fine, if im wrong that's fine. But im getting tired of being called crazy when im just trying to learn the truth. If i was wrong about gravity and particle entanglement, i wouldn't be getting my comments suppressed when i explain it, I'd get explanations on how i am wrong. It seems nobody has a problem telling you when your wrong and how, but no one has done that except Asteronx, which stopped when i proved faster than light travel. Thanks for any explanation either way, right or wrong.
@@checkingoutgypsymike2075 Mike, A question, if I am reading correctly, you are saying that the transformer on the pole is collecting the energy from the earth, not from a power plant somewhere else. If this is the case, knowing that the earths magnetic field is 8 hertz and our electrical system is 60 hertz, where or how is that change in sine wave frequency made?
Since you have this all figured out, I am assuming that you have made your own working system and do not need the utility company for electricity. Please make a short video of it and put it on your channel that you signed up for on February 6, 2021. Just 6 days ago.
@@KevinCoop1 no sir, i got the information from Gerard Morins channel, he has a bunch of videos going over how tesla made his plasma energy. He actually had a working system before his posting stopped a few years ago. His thoughts were that the ground was a siphon for the feed and return lines. But from the keshe foundations magrav (magnetic gravity) power pack unit it makes me question if it is just a siphon. Their nanotechnology is taking particles from nuclear waste and combining them in to a safe paste. They use the paste to coat teslas coils like used in an induction stove top, and when you run a trickle charge thru the power pack it makes energy from the vibration of the coils. There's a channel invert gravity (i believe the name is correct of the top of my head) that is making a tesla steam generator, he posted an article a few days ago that was from tesla, explaining how the energy we are bombarded with can be harnessed if you haven't read it. So besides drawing out the rf energy, the skin effect running on the outside of the power lines could also be using that, like i stated im not an electrical engineer by any means. Taking into account the us patent for faster than light travel, is a double hulled craft of highly vibrational metal, which they fill the chamber with mercury at -15,000 degrees so it is detached from the solar radiation all around us, so it has no friction as it moves it implies that the energy we exist in is key to understanding how the universe works. Thru neurology and biochemistry, the understanding of quantum locked cooper pairs helps to explain it further. The wicking effect in water damage restoration, how the dehumidifier dries the air, charging it, so that when the fans blow it across the wrt surfaces it magnetically pulls out the moisture due to the energy in water. Or like ground to sky lightening, the highly charged air from the thermal energy build up in the storm clouds and when it gets strong enough it actually pulls massive volts from the earth to create the lightening. Their are many examples of what im proposing all around us, as tesla said" once you understand the energy you can see God's work all around us. Planks book the spiritual universe also leads credence to it. The 3.5 trillion volts of God's spiritual, intelligent, conscious, evolving energy working in a symbiotic exchange grounding us explains gravity. There's a channel i asked about the quantum locking and it being the explanation of gravity, i believe if you search for double quantum locking you'll find his experiment from my inquiries. I asked about the suns energy being the key to gravity and the moon being dielectric, it being stuck in the magnetic energy that has the sun and planets locked together. I watch a lot of science channels so i could be wrong on the channel name, but i believe that experiment was done by the thought emporium. I can look and if im wrong make a correction. There was a video on the keshe foundations work on green energy jubilation, i haven't looked in a while so i don't know if it's been removed. You can search the internet for magrav power pack and in images you can see how the build them and see an explanation of how they work. Do yes im saying that it seems possible to draw out the earths energy. The tower tesla had made and had to destroy was for pulling the rf energy out of the earth, buy the 3 6 9 emp like pulsation it produced was hitting the Teutonic plates and caused an earth quake. Even a common generator pulls the energy from two directions, the ground and the sky. The magnet when spun over 3,000 rpm's collect the energy and forces it across the metal to generate electricity. The readon a vertical axis generator is more efficient is because it doesn't pull the energy in and make it do a 90° turn as it's collected. Like in wiring, you don't want sharp bends in wires because a power surge can make it exit the wire, and aldo causes more heat build up do to friction. Something like that, it's been thirty years since i worked with microwave cable but that was stressed in safety meetings.
This is one of the best ground explanations I've seen.
I'm a journeyman electrician.
*Yes the subject of grounding does get a lot deeper, and more technical, but this is sufficient for any non-electrician or first year apprentice. It's simple, easy to understand and follow, and it tells you everything you need to know to understand it on a basic level. Great vid, I'll send it to apprentices.
I just wanna say, your use of animation to clearly explain concepts is nothing short of stellar. Great video man. Cheers!
Plumber here, please never connect your ground to a pipe unless its a completely dead and redundant line you wont need to work on. Grounded pipes make working on your plumbing system very dangerous if you have any electrical faults as the pipe become charged with electricity and this is the reason more plumbers die of electrocution every year than electricians. Love the video and find your way of explaining things very simple and informative but please don't tell people to connect ground to pipes it can be very dangerous.
Yikes. Usually the people doing this are hobbyists connecting to a pipe for grounding for a quick demonstration or experiment and then disconnecting again. I was once attending a convention in a conference center where they connected to a kitchen pipe for a ground for a Tesla coil demonstration (a high voltage machine that produces lightning-like discharges). Now that you mention it, that was not a good idea even though it's a quite common practice. But I hadn't thought of more permanent situations for household ground as a danger to plumbers and others. In the video I'm talking about the temporary hobbyist situation, but it is in a video about household ground so I can see someone thinking of it for a permanent installation. Yikes.
@@RimstarOrg Thanks for the reply, as someone who's worked on a large variety of houses for a large variety of people I can tell you that temporary solutions can last many years sometimes depending on the person. If its just for demonstrations or is connected and disconnected quickly then obviously its no issue, but I've met plenty of people who use videos like this to try and do things to their property that should only be done by a licensed tradesperson. In future videos if it ever arises again maybe just a quick word to let people know these connections have to be temporary for safety reasons would be nice.
The purpose of ground was not to protect people. It is a meaningless thing to even think it is so. It was to protect the grid and the infrastructure. From what? From thunder and lighenting discharge. On the contrary it became obvious that in doing so cme with it serious danger to people. And the solution has taken on many forms and most of them has little to no meaning.
All a person, an actual attentive person that is, has to do is to simply look at the whole thing, the entire picture.
My county inspector forced my electrician to ground a pipe. Then he signed off on the permit for my upgraded 200amp panel. 😬
"To understand this hole, we first have to understand the other two holes." Ah, the secret to life...
I'd expect this from anybody with the last name Corbin
the secret of life? the secret of life is knowing which hole will get you in trouble and how to properly plug it to silence, you can't catch a case if youre not a case catcher.
😂
Lol
incredible comment holy christ
Excellent video. You can always tell when an instructor deeply understands their subject, because they can explain it in simple terms to a lay person. You've done that here. Well done! Thanks!
I've studied electricity and electronics for more than twenty years. This is the best explanation of ground I have ever seen. I'm finding that that's a common occurrence on this channel. Fantastic video.
He is false though because code says to only bond neutral to ground at the main panel or at the transformer but not both!!!!
Holy crap, I recognized your voice, and it randomly hit me that I have watched your channel before, like 3 years ago, when I built a crystal radio. Now I'm back, working as a technicians apprentice, trying to get a full understanding of electricity.
Other people might understand other videos on this topic, but this is the one that I understood best.
dude thank you for making this video... most explanations suck, SERIOUSLY! YOU HELPED SO MANY PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS. people over complicate this so much.
This 9 minute video was more helpful then my 4 years of university
Oh, I believe you!! All universities do these days is indoctrinate young people into being socialist anti-white hate mongers. When I was in school, we were there to learn real things like science.
@@pauls0416 ok boomer
Christmas Eve ok boomer
@@turolretar You manually typed "Christmas Eve" before your comment because who don't know how to reply to someone on TH-cam... who's old??
Christmas Eve ok boomer
Very good explanation of the ground wire. This video Should be part of the standard learning package on Electrical Engineering.
I have a friend who built his own recording studio. When it was all finished, he was getting some really bad noise from the house. If you tuned on a blender you could hear it on his recordings or occasionally you could pick up radio stations. So we called in an electrician and he isolated the ground for the studio only, so it was by itself. The problem went away. He drove a copper rod 10 feet into the ground and used it for the ground. Quiet as a mouse now.
This is the best video on TH-cam covering the "ground " topic. Animations are absolutely amazing.
College would be better if videos like these were around years back. Very educational!
Damn boi this is the most straightforward and foolproof explanation of ground I've ever seen! I wish I found your channel back when I was a freshman. Thanks buddy.
Great video. It's amazing how even professors in tertiary education cannot properly explain concepts like this but you've managed to make it simple and easy. Thanks for putting this up
This is one of the best if not THE best explanations, I have ever heard, watched or read . Thank you for sharing and your time.
Clear and straight to the point! Lectures should be like this
Thanks for simply/clearly explaining the ground with the microwave example. Clicked immediately.
I am continually surprised by the quality of content on TH-cam. This was not the case when I was in school. I mean, the net was there, but today's content is simply better than it was.
Yep - the Internet connections, computer hardware, software, cameras and especially the Internet platforms and services are all in place nowadays.
Therefore enthusiast content creators have found it worth their while to place masses of useful content online in palatable formats, such as well produced TH-cam videos. That we're able to pay them tips and subscriptions, as well as them earning ad revenue, is the icing on the cake, as it can create a virtuous cycle of content creation across and within a subject.
A lot of creators are even looking back at their early work from a decade or more ago, and remaking it at a high quality, with updated content. It's better than a lot of broadcast TV from the 2000s - there was a lot of trash on TV back then, and I've no idea what's on cable TV these days, as TH-cam has replaced all but live TV and sports events for me.
Here in Malaysia we commonly use TN-S standard since Earth and Neutral are isolated. And because of that, the household is only grounded by the planted ground rod, and that means the Earth wire is not connected to Neutral wire. So that, we use three types of breakers; Main Switch, RCCB and MCB. Main switch controls the input voltage from the main into the RCCB. The newer ones can trigger by itself during short circuit or overcurrent. RCCB protects user by tripping (or trigger) when it detects current imbalance between Live (known as HOT or Line in some countries) an Neutral (or NUL in some countries), which occurs when some current got leak to Earth. MCB on the other hand, functions just like the Main Switch but the main purpose is to distribute the mains voltage supply to the entire home. MCB has its own maximum current like 6, 10, 16, 20 and 32 amps. So, unlike main switch that trips at high current like 32 and 63 amps, MCB will trigger itself at its maximum current without depending on the main switch that trips at much higher current.
I don't understand why there are any negative comments to this beautiful video. This is the best explanation i have ever come across of this very confusing subject. Notice how he seemlesssly integrates that ground with the transformer, and now it makes sense because you see complete current paths. That's what has been missing in all these other videos.
Best explanation ive seen. Nice visuals, examples, animations, and articulate explanations. Ill be seeking you out for my electric questions from now on. Thank you
Awesome !!!! Answered every nagging question I've ever had about ground since I was 10, 48 years ago. Beautiful.
Once again, a yootubz video has explained things far more clearly than my official tertiary electronic repair course. Thank you
It's one of the best time spent 9 minutes ever! Thank you sir, you have another subscriber!
As german electrician your whole system with the breakers, the transformers and stuff looks very.. hm adventurous :'D
Aber gut zum lernen für die nicht-Elektriker
I UNDERSTAND IT. I FULLY UNDERSTAND IT!! Thank you for explaining this phenomenon thats been baffling me for long and i got quite a few answers from this video.
I stumbled into this video, thinking, what the heck, I always take the subject of ground for granted. It's simple, nothing new here. Boy was I wrong. I learned several new things. Also, I've been trying to make sense of potential difference for weeks now. None of the videos I watched helped much. In one fell swoop, it now makes sense. Thanks!
I appreciate the work gone into this short film
Well done that man.
Such a good video. I've been using it for years to show students. They spend years in collage and don't understand. a single 10 min video connects everything Thank you 😊
Absolutely the BEST vid explaining GND!!!
Very thorough and easy to understand. Well done!
In my house nothing is grounded. The 3-prong outlets are fed by only 2-wire romex. That really screws with the oscilloscope since there are so many ungrounded electric fields. If I want good grounds I have to go out to the garage.
I have only one wall socket which has a good ground. I stretch an extension cord out to it whenever I'm doing high voltage stuff.
Im a senior in ME right now, this video was a huge help at explaining some stuff we cover in class. Thanks a ton, I know these vids take a long time to make. You seem like a super cool guy, I'll check out some of your other videos
Another fun fact...the ground prong is always the longest, so that it is always the first and last to enter the plug, ensuring a constant connection
The more you know...
Wow.... I never thought of it that way! Nice job for paying attention:)
It actually makes sense when you think about it!
Thank you for that fun fact!
so when one part of the capacitor is grounded(one plate), the potential and the charge are both equal to 0?
Best way to summarize this video is by saying that ground gets rid of any unwanted potential differences
Finally someone who knows what Earth grounding is realy for. Great job on the explanation. Super easy to understand.
Bruh how am I 25 with a engineering degree with honors and I am now just learning this lol
What a great clear video
Sam 52 Probably because electrical engineers are taught electronics, not electrical construction.
@@KevinCoop1 yes indeed and the fact that profs in many elec engineering depts probably don't know these concept themselves.
One of the best explanations for the term ground that I've every seen. Thanks! :)
yes this was great stuff
I taught Electrical Theory for years, but it can always be made clearer, thanks.
I have become your fan now after watching this video... Simplest explanation ever...❤️❤️❤️
5:30 this part is important. The object doesn’t have to be *that* big and it doesn’t have to connect to the earth. On an airplane in flight, ground wires connect to the fuselage. The International Space Station also has a grounding system even though it never touches the ground. In a car, electricity only really flows from the cathode of the battery to the anode, so the metal frame of the car or engine block is a ground.
best explanation i have found on the internet, and thats after days of researching about this topic
This video reminded me of a scary night I had over a decade ago:
I was awakened by a loud cracking from a wall AC unit, then I hears a smoke alarm go off in my shop. I unpluged the AC, and the smoke was coming from a fault protection strip which had three MOV's connected between E, N, and G. The MOV's had shorted (maybe exposing a flaw overlooked in these circuit/surge protectors)...pouring out smoke. I found that only -certain outlets would work, but had not discovered the problem yet. At daybreak, I took a hand telescope and looked along the power line--then I saw it! The BARE wire in the bundle of three wires was snapped! This is not simply a support cable or earth ground as many people think, but it is the Neutral line. What I had was an "OPEN NEUTRAL". When it broke some of my circuits had to complete through the actual ground in the earth, which was a high resistance to the "pole pig" or pole transformer. Thus some outlets would only dimly illuminate an incandescent 120VAC bulb. Interesting...the power company called it an "OPEN NEUTRAL"
It prompted me to design an "open neutral" detector.
Ground breaking, but not Earth shattering content. Perfect.
This is the best video I've seen on the topic. It's like you dumped pure wikipedia right into my brain.
Thank you so much.
For the first time in my life. I finally understand "ground".
Thanks for this good video. But if the green ground wire is connected to the white neutral wire back in the breaker box, the ground then has the same potential as the neutral, so doesn't the ground pose a shock risk?
no all electrons flow to general mass of earth and , ground wire its permanent conected to earth
I believe you are right john, the ground is not supposed to be a current carrying conductor, watch mike holt's video on grounding
It doesn’t really pose a shock risk because the resistance from the panel to the transformer is so little that the electricity wants to flow to the transformer and not back thru the panel to the ground on the outlets. Electricity is always trying to get back to the source (transformer) via the shortest route (least resistance)
Neutral to ground difference is 0 volts so in theory, you can even touch neutral on the outlets. Problem is that in some installations, you cannot be sure which hole is neutral and which one is hot! Hot, as the name states, is the only of the 3 holes you should never touch!
After much research and frustration of not knowing why the ground and neutral wires are connected, I finally understand. There are many people on the internet who know how it works but the key here is, the teacher knows how to pass that information along. Cheers for the simple explanation.
thank you. this explanation with demonstrations was extremely easy to understand
This one of best videos on explaining ever.
Excellent video. A nice clear description of the how ground and earth work in practice.
You are an excellent teacher, a very rare species.
Great explanation, congrats! Now i also know why old cars with metal bumpers would lose battery charge when parked touching a fence. My guess from what you showed is that there is a potential difference between the chassis ground of the battery and the "soil ground" reached by the fence allowing electrons to escape into the earth (right?)
i think so
Great video. This should be presented in every electrical apprenticeship program.
two types of Grounding you need to know in house wiring
1. equipment ground is the return for fault current
typically when a short occurs lets say a bad wire in a washer the current returns to the breaker box where it is bonded with the neutral to complete the path so the over current device (breaker) will trip protecting the upstream equipment
2. Earth ground is used to drain off high Current and voltages to earth (IE) Lightning it is also bonded to neutral in the breaker box
house receptacles are equipment ground that are also bonded with Earth Ground
Earth ground is achieved with a ground rod,grid,plate or ufer type grounding (IE) rebar or copper wire encased in concrete
this is why the ground and neutral shair the same busbar
hope this helps just my humble opnion
The best explanation on ground wiring!
i'm translating an integrated drive controller user's manual to spanish and this was very ilustrative and helpful. Thank you so much for sharing
Probably the best explanation I’ve seen thanks.
If the ground wire and neutral are connected, then a short-circuit can be made on both wires by touching them with the hot. In this case the ground wire and earth ground are good only against thunder?
Yes, when lightening induces an emp inside your home, the ground rod allows this energy a path back to the earth.
Aspects of electricity have always been a mystery to me. This video was very enlightening. Thank you.
I absolutely love this explanation!!!!
i had read a lot about ground but was always confused....
this explanation just nailed it for me ;)
What a great lesson, i better understand my efforts here in our shops electricity. Sand we live in a desert no water lacks moisture (great point you shared) so we have 5 of these long copper coated poles with grounds for each and nearest each junction box. Now we see why we have many of these poles, city water no metal piping.
Lance & Patrick.
I’ve been researching tons of videos on why it’s important to ground my 3 prong outlet and this was this clearest explanation. Thank you.
I watched this video for a college class, but it reminds me of the kinds of random science videos I would watch just for fun before I started college. Thank you for making this topic interesting and easy to understand!
This is what I've been looking for. A very good explanation of "ground" and how it is used. I had so many questions about ground and why would you use it, etc and this answered all of them. Thank you so much for this video. You are a wonderful Human Being.
THANK YOU. I always knew ground were very important, but I couldn't figure out how they worked. This is very clear and helped me finally understand it!
It helps to think of the history. Originally, there were only hot and neutral wires, no ground. In a perfect circuit, that is all you need to run the microwave. Suppose in this case there is a break in the hot conductor's insulation and it shorts to the microwave cover. That cover isn't connected to anything, so nothing happens. The microwave still runs. If you touch the cover in this situation, and if you are in bare feet or touching the sink, current will flow from the hot, through the case, and through you. You get shocked. So, if all you have is hot and neutral, you can make things work, but for many kinds of faults, the system will still appear to work, but will be dangerous. You don't know there is a problem until you touch it. When you add the grounding circuit, as he described, things get much better. Now, if the hot shorts against the case, current immediately flows and trips the breaker, giving you a clue something is wrong.
The difference between an electrician and someone who isn't trained in electrical work is that electricians are constantly thinking about making things safe even when they are broken or something goes wrong. It's not enough to just make things work. The EGC (electrical grounding circuit) is all about helping to handle situations when things go wrong.
@Freddy Krueger If it's not the textbook definition, it ought to be. It goes along with the definition of the National Electrical Code being the list of all the ways humans have surprised themselves by killing themselves with electricity when they thought they were safe. But, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the NEC; for example, having a neutral arc even when your probe showed zero voltage before and after turning off the the circuit at the load center.
Your explanations are perfect for highly intuitive people like me. If I know how things work at the most basic level, then my intuition will fill in the gaps in all other relevant areas. Some people learn best in a linear fashion, remembering the A-Z steps, but I need to know "why" so everything can branch out in a web of concepts (the way my brain organizes things).
Someone who knows their stuff can explain it like this. Masterful teaching.
Most down to earth explanation I’ve seen
THANK YOU. I'm trying to learn more about this kind of stuff (just bought my first house) and this was simple and easy to understand!
What a fantastic, clear and well put together youtube video! I donated a couple bucks to you. Thanks again.
Thanks!
You stated that the Source of the Voltage (Transformer Secondary) is Grounded. Why doesn’t the electric current flow to the Ground wire, but instead, the electric current flows to the Hot wire? If electric current seeks the lowest electrical charge potential, wouldn't the electric current go to ground immediately, thus, the electric current is terminated to Ground right away?
Also, since the Neutral wire is Grounded, wouldn't the returning electric current go to Ground immediately as well?
I am very confused.
It is beyond me on why anyone would give a negative comment to such a good explanation!
Because looking at some of the comments it is obvious some people have no fucking clue what they are talking about. As a licensed electrical contractor and HAM this is a better explanation than I could have ever tried myself.
Thank you! Finally! You are the only one that has scientifically explained what grounding is! 🙏🏼
Very nicely explained. I know this is about explaining ground, but my confusion is about the other two wires. Since this is AC, why do we distinguish between “hot” and “neutral” wires. I assume the “neutral” wire is considered the return path. However, depending on the phase of the AC, either wire could be “hot” or “neutral”.
To answer my own question. Most likely the distinction between "neutral" and "hot" comes in when the equipment is turned off. In this case the "hot" wire would carry a current through your body to ground, if you touch it by accident. The "neutral" wire wouldn't carry current, because the equipment is turned off. However, once the equipment is turned on, there is no distinction between "hot" and "neutral".
Hi Tom C. What you wrote is not quite right. The neutral wire is bonded to ground, earth, at the secondary of the power company transformer, and again at the power panel of the building to which power is fed. Two grounds for redundancy. So the neutral really is neutral, same as the earth is neutral. Such a situation is grounded ac which is not the same as ungrounded or floating ac. The neutral does carry current, but has no voltage...it is essentially a current sink.
In floating ac there would be no difference between the two wires, each would have voltage and current relative to the other, but neither wire is neutral.
When one of the two ac lines in bonded to ground, the voltage of the other line varies above and below ground, swinging from neg to pos, but the neutral wire remains neutral, or ground, or zero.
In practice, depending on quality of bonding to ground, which may vary, a person standing on ground may feel a very tiny shock or tingle of electricity when touching the neutral wire.
rh001YT I totally get what you are saying. The only thing I'm confused about is the two grounds. Wouldn't the easiest return path for the current be through the ground of your home, through the earth and back up through the ground at the transformer?
I've never seen a TN-C-S system with a ground at the house in any literature.
At home I have a TT system, so I have never seen a TN-C-S system up close.
rh001YT I was looking at your explanation again. True the neutral wire is connected to ground at the service station, and acts as a current sink. However, saying that there is only voltage applied to the hot wire, but not to the neutral only applies to DC.
In AC, the voltage has phase reversal, and the current swings back and forth. For one half of the AC cycle the hot side is more negative than the grounded neutral, in effect the neutral is positive with respect to the hot wire. In that case, the neutral side has the voltage, and the hot side is the current sink.
In India We use Red for Phase(Hot or Live) , Black for Neutral and Green for earth. Ground wire runs separately from equipment to local earthing point (separate earth pit constructed at home). It does not get combined with neutral wire in junction box. Whereas neutral point of transformer is earthed at transformer pole.
Ganesh Kumar Shetty the UK used to be Red for live, Black for Neutral and Green for earth but for sometime now it has been changed to Brown for live, Blue for neutral and Green & Yellow for Earth to make it easier for colour blind people to identify the wires. The whole of the European Union follows this convention. This only applies to new or modified installations, so it is quite confusing to see wiring with a mix of colours. Wherever the new wiring has been used on an old installation, a notice has to be displayed indicating that the new colours have been used. I think it is the convention in the US to join the neutral and earth in the panel, unlike ourselves, earthing the neutral at the transformer.
That was british way..same as malaysia..here in malaysia ground touches neutral can cause tripping..
@Ganesh - Those are the *OLD* Color Codes for wiring ...
When using a two prong tester to find the hot line, we can old one prong between our thumb and finger. Inserting the other prong in the hot socket, the bulb will light.
Our body is absorbing electrons. Does that mean "ground" means electron hungry?
Are our bodies behaving like capacitors? If we held that prong all day with the other on the hot side of a plug, would we reach capacity?
Not sure how old you are, and I am writing this at 4:30 in the video, so that being said: if your old enough then you may remember when outlets were mostly only two prong, neutral and hot. Appliance chassises like TVs, kitchen mixers, etc., often had their chassis connected to neutral which was probably only grouded to plumbing and/or earth at the service/fuse box, which would be fine unless the earth connection broke (i.e. Probably from corrosion or just plain hook up error), this, in the case of just a ground fault could cause a minor shock, or in a ground reversal error, a full voltage shock. So they changed the wiring code to include a separate, independent, earth ground, which as folks have commented, is effectively the same as neutral when everything is wired and connected properly, but less likely to present a shock hazard when things are less than ideal. This also caused the rise of "double insulated" appliances/tools, which were made safe from most wiring because they are electrically isolated from both the hot and neutral except in the case of water unfiltration. GFCIs now handle safety for water infiltration, but that's a separate topic 😊
This is not at all true. Older appliances like TVs and such DID NOT have the neutral bonded to the case. The only time this happened was with 120/240V electric dryers and cooking appliances.
Once started I had to watch it all. Thank you.
Hi , what can you tell us about grounding emf shielding paint. Why would one need to shield that paint and what would the possible dangers of not grounding said paint?
Thank you for the great video and keep up the good work.
So if i am correct ...
The fact that the ground wire is connected to the ground has nothing to do with protecting your from getting shocked ... but protecting the breaker panel from high voltages? (thunder)
The only thing that keeps you safe from getting shocked is the breaker of the hot wire when a closed circuit with high current exist? or it helps "pull" the current towards the ground where low resistance exists?
(our body resistance is about 100kohms and a typical ground about 100 i think)
Consider this: GROUND=SAFETY/NON-LETHAL ...
so if the case to your appliance is connected to GROUND, then certainly it is always safe to touch no matter what happens --normal or fault.
The breaker tripping is a bonus to kill the high voltage and prevent any charge from building up.
@@barnabywilde374
But is it safe because...
the current will choose to discharge on the ground because of the lower resistance (about 10ohms)
or
Because ground helps to pull the current through the breaker ?
GROUND directs the dangerous charge away from human touch.
BREAKER removes the dangerous charge.
But since you're forcing me into a choice, the BREAKER removing the dangerous charge altogether is more important than just re-directing it.
There is another reason why we should literally connect the ground wire to the ground at breaker panel: if the neutral wire somewhere between the breakers panel and the transformer get disconnected, and there is a connection between hot and natural, the natural line and ground line will be charged to same potential as the hot line. You will get shocked every time you touch a metal surface that is connected to the ground line. To avoid this, you need to make sure that the ground line is literally connected to ground. So it's a good idea if you connect your breaker panel case and therefore the ground line to a literally ground.
wow really good video. i am studying cognitive neuroscience and need to write a research proposal about any mood disorder. so I went for depression and with the help of your video I am going to study the effect of indoor grounding on stress and relaxation in depressed people. As I am from europe, I didn't know about the ground plug so I was super confused when reading literature about researchers connecting bare skin with electrical sockets via electrical patches... Now I got it ;))
bruh
I have a mood disorder after reading that😵😲
What is Ground?
Baby don't shock me
Don't shock me
No more
lol xD Underrated comment!!
A very well-grounded explanation, and from none other than Al Bundy himself.
Hello, thanks for the great video. I have question regarding earth electrode size. Many standards suggest that minimum dia of earth electrode is 12.7 mm. Suppose someone burries an earth electrode 50 ft deep. Should the dia of entire 50 ft conductor be 12.7 mm or connecting a 10 ft long 12.7 mm earth electrode to a 40 ft long 6-8 mm conductor is sufficient?
Tapos Barai The minimum electrode size is just an in general ‘this size electrode should be sufficient for most types of soil.’ In actuality the resistance to ground should be tested. The NEC requires it to be less than 25 ohms. If one electrode gets your resistance under 25 ohms then great. If not than more electrodes need to be driven in the ground and bonded together until your resistance to ground reading is less than the 25 ohms.
Finally, after more than 3 years of electrotechnical school I know what it all can mean, thanks a lot
In Holland we like to standardize everthing. And we call these networks either TT, IT or TN networks. TN can be devided in 3 different networks TN-S, TN-C and TN-C-S networks.
What is being explained in the video can be an IT, TN-S, TN-C-S or even a TT network. Its hard to say, as you can only see one side of the installation, but my guess would be a TN-S or either a TN-C-S network, but with a earth pin on both the household side and on the transformer side. And no RCD.
What we use in Holland for house holds installations is called a TT network.
The 2 letters represent a code.
*The first letter* (either a T or an I). Determines how the side of the transformer is connected to earth. (The star point).
And means the following:
*T* represents a network where the NUL/Zero/Neutral is connected to the Earth on the transformer side.
*I* represents a network where the NUL/Zero/Neutral is isolated from the earth on the transformer side.
*The second letter* (either a T or a N). Determines how an user is connected to the earth (a conductor or the housing of a unit).
And means the following:
*T* represents that the housing is connected to the earth.
*N* represents that the housing is connected to the NUL/ZERO/NEUTRAL.
TT network are less safe and have a lower reliability compared to a TN network.
The safety issue can be dealt with by introducing a so called RCD switch that will switch off the power to the breakers very fast and on a relative low isolation fault. This level can still be dangerous though (30mA max in Holland). RCD switch stands for; Residual Current Device or Residual Current Circuit Breaker).
A benefit of a TT network is that you can distribute Power over long distances.
An IT network is more reliable, in the sense of keeping everything up and running, even when an isolation fault occurs. As the isolation fault can't make a loop with the NUL/ZERO/NEUTRAL of the power source. As the NUL/Zero/Neutral is isolated from the earth. This is used on ships and/or hospitals for example.
Earth and NUL are isolated from eachother. Transformer has a floating NUL and is NOT connected to ground.
(NOTE: when a isolation fault occurs, it has to be solved before a fault occurs in another (2nd) fase, as this will be the same a short circuit and the breaker will trip!)
TN is the easiest to setup and saves a lot of money in costs. An earth fault (isolation fault) is the same as a short circuit and will trip the breaker, due to the high current that will occur.
TN-C = 2 pin socket installation, household has no earth. NUL and Earth are 1 and the same. Only the transformer side has an earth pin.
TN-S = NUL and Earth are isolated. Only the transformer side has an earth pin.
TN-C-S = NUL and Earth are partly isolated and partly joined together. Only the transformer side has an earth pin.
Same like in Germany. Well, I think he uses a standard between TN-C and TN-C-S since the Earth is fully joined together.
I'm from the US. My opinion is in Europe you guys use way too many acronyms! I designed electrical systems for over 30 years and was amassed when I say John Wards videos telling about your systems. It's the same thing, just different words. Pronounce aluminum and you will know what I mean. Enjoy life and be safe!
@@fikrinoh1135but I read u should only bond neutral to ground at main panel or tranny but not both!!!!
Can you comment on what bonding is (in relation to service entrance or remote shut off switches).
Thanks
I can't really comment because I'm not a licensed electrician. This video is aimed at the lay person. Others here who have that expertise may answer but if not, have a look at Mike Holt's videos th-cam.com/video/mpgAVE4UwFw/w-d-xo.html as they're from the electrician point-of-view.
Check out Mike Holt.
The electrical installation connecting neutral with ground makes it impossible to use an differential circuit breaker. I'm not sure about the US, but in Europe the ground is separated from neutral for good reason.
Ok thanks, I was thinking the same. I'm not the specialist, but I was quite sure ground and neutral were not connected at my house.
Just what I was about to say.
kpharck you can use a differential breaker such as GFCI and AFCI. The neutral comes from the circuit and terminates into a second lug next to the hot then a pigtail wire connects the neutral to the neutral buss.
Many electrical distribution systems outside of North America do not ground either current carrying conductor. These systems rely on an RCD (Residual Current Device) for safety. Many older residences in North America were not wired with grounding conductors. It is permissible to replace the dangerous two prong outlet with a GFCI in that case. This acts very much like the RCD.
so when one part of the capacitor is grounded(one plate), the potential and the charge are both equal to 0?
Nice video! But why is the ground in the power socket necessary? It seems the neutral wire could do it's job since they are connected.
the ground wire has a much lower resistance than neutral so in case of a faulty connection it guarantees that the power will be cut off
@@sotostrig Ok, but then why doesn't the neutral wire have a very low resistance too? After all, resistance leads to energy losses.
@@mikolajwojnicki2169 the ground cable is also connected as the video explains on stuff like for example that oven' s case.If the hot wire touches the case and there s no ground wire you ll get zapped.Also it helps by removing static charge in case of a lighting strike to protect equipment or to protect you you if you touch it
@@sotostrig But why is a separate cable necessary? We could have just 2 the live and the neutral+ground wire.
@@mikolajwojnicki2169 because if you connect the neutral wire yo the io oven's case then the case would become part of the circuit the moment you would turn the switch on and we obviously dont want that.Thats why we need a separate cable just in a case of a short circuit
This video solves part of my long-time question about how the earth can be served as a "good" conducting ground. The answer to that seems to be increasing the soil moisture to reduce the contact resistance.
love this, thank you so much. year after year, no one explain this clearly
Ground has another feature. It tries to make what you are locally standing on concrete or earth at the same potential as your grounded applience. I've seen grounds between buildings have 17 or more volts difference. Seen a steel building arcing to a cast iron sewer pipe. Grounds don't offer absolute protection. You can have a broken neutral between pole and service box. Recently a little girl died when she touched an outside water faucet.
Jesus. That's terrifying. Remind me to bring my Camelbak.
Question: Say there is a short and the hot wire is touching the casing of the microwave, but there is no ground wire. Why would the breaker not flip? Wouldn’t the short circuit cause the current to exceed the rates amperage of the breaker, which is usually 20amps for American households?
There wouldn’t be any current until someone comes by and touches it, completing the circuit and delivering the dangerous shock
To put whqt @E!Maestro is saying another way, without the ground wire connected to the case, there is no complete path for the current to follow. So no current will flow through the hot wire. But if someone who's grounded comes by and touches it, then there will l be a complete path through the ground.
@RimstarOrg what about "no ground" EU outlets? We only have hot and zero wires, and the latter is connected to cases of household devices, which is by your schematic completely equivalent. Why having a distinct third wire, though?
Why would it? Of course it would not. The voltage would remain in the case and when you touched it would shock you. It just just the purpose of the ground wire to cause the breaker to trip.
@@arseniix All modern European outlets have ground. On older installations ground was often not used on rooms that were considered safe. The idea was that there was no ground potential available so even of you got shocked that would not be serious.
Now in many countries grounding was done with the neutral. While this is not ideal and not allowed anymore it works just as well as the neutral and the ground go to the same place.
Best explanation of ground/neutral. Thanks