Electricity question

nowtime · Post by **nowtime** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 5:17 pm

I just moved into a house and in my room there are only the ancient 2-prong ungrounded plugs.

What might this mean for my computer, hard drives, etc.

It's obvious that for the rest of my studio, a buzz would be the sign of a problem. But what of these Macs and Lacies ?

Joshua Boden · Post by **Joshua Boden** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 5:22 pm

I know where your comin from man.
Most of the places I lived in the past five years havent had proper outlets for all my gear....its a pain in the ass.
The main thing that Ihave found is making sure that your monitors are powered from a different plug. Find another source in the house and get your self a LONG extension cord....it sucks but atleast you get to work on your tracks....being a broke musician sucks, but it beats being a broke plumber!

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 5:51 pm

Joshua Boden wrote: The main thing that Ihave found is making sure that your monitors are powered from a different plug. Find another source in the house and get your self a LONG extension cord....it sucks but atleast you get to work on your tracks....being a broke musician sucks, but it beats being a broke plumber!

actually, that's the opposite of what you want to do.

most of all, if there's no problems, don't sweat it.

electricity hits your house in '3 phase' form... 3 sine waves at 60 Hz(US) 50Hz (elsewhere) combined together because it's more efficient. then somewhere in your house those 3 sine waves are split up and put on different circuit breakers. you want all your stuff on the same circuit breaker or at least on the same phase, otherwise your gear can be feeding from power that's out of phase from each other which can lead to ground loops and hums.

the third prong is the GFP (ground fault protection) prong. it's there so that in case you spill liquid on your gear and the electrons want to stray they can use the GFP instead of you, the GFP is a path of less resistance to ground. the GFP is can also be tied to the chassis of your gear and if your monitors are 'shielded' the shield is tied to GFP, so any noise they block and catch gets dumped to ground.

hth, just woke up, sorry for any bad typing

Joshua Boden · Post by **Joshua Boden** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:05 pm

OK...but Im confused....when I had pproblems with my monitors humming I was told to plug them into a different out let....that killed the hum. But your saying I shouldnt do this?

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:09 pm

as long as they're on the same phase, that kills one source of hum.

hum can happen for a lot of reasons.

it could've been there was something dumping hum into the GFP where your monitors were, the other outlets you found could've been on the same phase but the new location had some advantage. it's hard to say without being there to check it.

Joshua Boden · Post by **Joshua Boden** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:35 pm

Thanks TD. Any other advice for eliminating hum?

dj_huck · Post by **dj_huck** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:38 pm

Tone Deft wrote: most of all, if there's no problems, don't sweat it.

electricity hits your house in '3 phase' form..

the third prong is the GFP (ground fault protection) prong.

hth, just woke up, sorry for any bad typing

good answer tone, however most people only get 2 phase electricity or 220v ac into their house.2 "hot" legs and one neutral leg. the third prong is earthed with a grounding rod.(please note that in most cases the neutral and ground are tied together in the panel if not actually then practically at least.) 3 phase is usually reserved for industrial applications and is highly efficient for large motor application. some people will get 3 phase to their house if they have things like pottery kilns or a "shop" with mills and lathes etc. you can convert 2 phase electricity to 3 phase with things called a rotary 3 phase converter.

having said that, the third prong is for safety, if things go wrong the 3rd prong gives the electricity a way to get where it wants to go which is the earth.
the only concern with using 2 prong is that of safety. you can look to see if your panel is earthed. then get converter plugs that will kind of tie the ground to the neutral which is not ideal but better. you may have seen them they tie into the screw in the center of the receptacle.

having said that, most people do not worry about it and like the other poster said if it ain't broke......

it is better to have everything plugged in together.
etc
cheers all
shane

dj_huck · Post by **dj_huck** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:40 pm

also please note that people in the us usually refer to the "2" phase electric that enters most homes as residential 220v service

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:44 pm

that's a pretty deep question.

do some google searches and read up a bit if you'd like
http://www.google.com/search?q=eliminat ... =firefox-a

keep an open mind, go after simple solutions (electricity is an odd beast, it can get you thinking the weirdest things are the problem, keep it simple), try different cables, look out for hum from monitors (displays, not speakers), air conditioning, large household appliances, try cheaters (the things that add or remove the 3rd prong from a wall plug), simplify the problem by disconnecting gear from your setup to isolate the problematic stuff, use shielded monitors, stuff like that.

dj_huck · Post by **dj_huck** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:48 pm

Tone Deft wrote:that's a pretty deep question.

agreed i think that hum problems are the most annoying and frustrating things that can happen in a studio. balanced cables can help, those hum eliminators can help, but most of all i would deal with it the way tone said, process of elimination. seems like the more gear you have the more hum you have

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:54 pm

dj_huck wrote: good answer tone, however most people only get 2 phase electricity or 220v ac into their house.2 "hot" legs and one neutral leg. the third prong is earthed with a grounding rod.(please note that in most cases the neutral and ground are tied together in the panel if not actually then practically at least.) 3 phase is usually reserved for industrial applications and is highly efficient for large motor application. some people will get 3 phase to their house if they have things like pottery kilns or a "shop" with mills and lathes etc. you can convert 2 phase electricity to 3 phase with things called a rotary 3 phase converter.

hmmmmmm, I dunno...
FWIW I disagree, it's 3 phase, not 2 phase and is independent of 220V or 110V. the two prongs aren't related to the 2 phases, there's line, neutral and ground, it's the lines that are out of phase. I've never heard of 2 phase, but I'm no electrician, I do know that 3 phase is more efficient than 2 phase or single phase, so I don't see why 2 phase would be used.

3 phase industrial can be used in large motors that use 3 phase 220V directly.

I dunno, this was from a power electronics class I took in college years ago, I'm not an electrician (electrical engineer) all the stuff I design is low voltage DC, the high power stuff was just in school (labs where there was a REAL threat of death!! whoohoo!!!)

we both agree that power hits the house in separate phases and gear can be put onto different breakers which CAN be on separate phases, or to say that gear on the same breaker is guaranteed to be on the same phase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power

ramble ramble ramble, the coffee's hitting me now, i can geek out on this stuff all day. it'd be great if a for reals electrician stepped in.

dj_huck · Post by **dj_huck** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:10 pm

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Beowulf/be ... ode60.html

most people do not refer to it as 2 phase, it is usually called 220. 220 has 2 hot leads and one shared neutral/ground.(in the past 5-10 years or so 220 has added a 4th wire for a dedicated ground and dedicated neutral )

you can have single phase, double phase and 3 phase in any voltage by using a transformer. (which i am sure you knew being redundant sorry)
a typical 3 phase hookup would have 4 conductors, 3 hot legs(red,black,white)
and one ground(green). the big difference is on the 3 phase all three wires (red,black,white) will shock you and the green is the safety. on single phase only the black wire will shock you(unless there is a load on the black wire) and the white wire and green wire are for getting the power to ground. and with 220v 2 wires will shock you that is the red and black(on a 4 wire hookup) or the black and white(on a 3 wire hookup)

hope i am not jacking this thread too much

disclaimer, never touch any of the wires, it can be painful and sometimes the colorcoding is wrong

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:19 pm

nice link!! makes sense, I learned something today.

it's 2 phase into the house for sure.

and yeah, never touch any of this stuff. if you have to, plug something into the circuit, go find the circuit breaker and turn off the breaker until the device you plugged in turns off, then check it with a voltmeter (set to "V~", not "V--")and let people know not to mess with the breaker.

nice post!

dj_huck · Post by **dj_huck** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:23 pm

Tone Deft wrote: 3 phase industrial can be used in large motors that use 3 phase 220V directly.

we both agree that power hits the house in separate phases and gear can be put onto different breakers which CAN be on separate phases, or to say that gear on the same breaker is guaranteed to be on the same phase.

you are right 3 phase can be 220 and it often is in y style 3 phase, it is often 480 in delta style.

having said that, and back to the original topic that this thread is about, we agree 100% on there are multiple phases that come into a house and you need to keep everything on the same outlet.

oops you made a post while i was making this one

nowtime · Post by **nowtime** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 4:47 am

thanks everyone

I will let you know how it works...