Eletronics - How to ground my simulator?

[RafBR]

Hi, I am since a year ago taking shock in my simulator.

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This is how I have it * It would help if I ground the PC so the simulator is grounded via the serial cable?
If not, is there any other way as just ground the Simulator Frame?

regards!

[poteroa]

Hi RafBR.

It would help to know what different ways you could do it, meaning do you have ground in your house/flat (the green/yellow cable inside the powersockets), watercirculated heating system is always grounded to earth. If you have any of those, you can ground the frame there, but do not ground the motors or the AMC directly to yellow/green or the battery, can´t say if its very good idea..
If you get pikes from the frame when you sit there, one way to ground the frame is to stick a copper pipe/bar in to ground in your backyard and run a cable directly to your frame.
Do not leave the copper/wire in open air, otherwise you might get a problem when there is a lightning and a storm.

Oh, and before doing this, make sure your motors are insulated from the frame!

And if you don´t have experience with high voltages, and its illegal to mess with power sockets in your country, let someone with experience do it. I will take no responsibility if you burn your house, kill yourself, or break the electronics of your sim.

[RafBR]

Hi RafBR.
It would help to know what different ways you could do it, meaning do you have ground in your house/flat (the green/yellow cable inside the powersockets), watercirculated heating system is always grounded to earth. If you have any of those, you can ground the frame there

I dont have the green/yellow cables at my place. No heating system either. But no problem I bought some copper bars to ground it into my backyard.

but do not ground the motors or the AMC directly to yellow/green or the battery, can´t say if its very good idea...

Here you say it afraid of me taking shock from the powersockets? ok I agree!

If you get pikes from the frame when you sit there, one way to ground the frame is to stick a copper pipe/bar in to ground in your backyard and run a cable directly to your frame.

I am planning to do it!

Do not leave the copper/wire in open air, otherwise you might get a problem when there is a lightning and a storm.

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This is what I understand from what you said.

Oh, and before doing this, make sure your motors are insulated from the frame!

Yes they are.

And if you don´t have experience with high voltages, and its illegal to mess with power sockets in your country, let someone with experience do it. I will take no responsibility if you burn your house, kill yourself, or break the electronics of your sim.

Ok, dont worry! I have a bit of experience in electronics (I know it harms) and I will take caution!

And the AMC, PC, is no need to ground it? I always thought that the PC case was directly connected to the ground pin of powersockets

David Lane, I dont want to nuke my PC thanks for the advice!

Well, thank you very much for the help!!!
regards,
Rafael.

[motiondave]

Have you put a multimeter on the frame to see if any power is going through it?
Is it a static zap you are getting?

[poteroa]

Do not ground the pc frame to ground, it has negative voltage (if you touch the case with your back of your hand, and at the same time other hand is on a kitchen table for example, you will get a sizzling feeling, this is normal, and the case is supposed to be grounded via powersupply, do not ground anything but the frame. When the AMC is connected to your pc, its grounded via com-cable, same with the H-bridge. They share the common ground, but in a way they are isolated from real earth, I will not go in to that *

P.S.Do not drag your feet on the ground before doing things with electronics.

There is also one solution to void static charges, if the frame is on a carpet, take it off, do not use any clothes that are not "natural", meaning just cotton etc. All materials containing plastic are static hazardous. One way is to touch something big and made of metal, before you sit on your sim chair. Well, I think you don´t have anything like that near the sim.

Hope you will find a good way to do it, the copper-pipe/bar/plate is the best and easiest way. There are many examples that you can find by googling. "copper grounding".
Normally the copper plate/pipe/bar has to be 8-10 feet long, but then we are talking more about grounding the whole house, and its not needed in this case, just dig the pipe/cable in to earth properly, and more copper you have touching the earth=better.

I will do the same if I get problems with my sim.

One way to do it is to ground a point that you have to pass near where you have your sim, so every time you go near it, you are allready "uncharged/share the same ground as the sim".

Copper is the only good material in this method (actually its copper/metal alloy mix) but this is the way it has been done for atleast a decade..

Make a project page of what you are doing, so if anyone else has the same problem, you can tribute for other x-simers.

-Pete

[RafBR]

No its not static. When I get home I will run the current tests and report back to you.
I will place the copper bar and measure the current from the frame to it.
regards!

[poteroa]

Eh?

What pikes are you talking about if not static charges? This guide I explained help on those static charges, explain a little bit if this is not the case.

[RafBR]

No static and no pikes. I said shock! If I am barefooted and grab the frame I keep feeling this medium-small eletro-shock current. do you got it?
What could be causing it? I thought that it is because of my ungrounded PC.
regards!

[motiondave]

have you checked the frame with a multimeter yet? As far as I can see you have not, so unless you can find a voltage and how much, its a bit hard to say what may be causing it.

[floriske]

Most likely this is indeed due to the fact that your PC's PSU isn't grounded. This often causes a "floating" voltage on the pc's frame (in case of 230V PSU often somewhere around half of it).

Be carefull with simply connecting stuff to ground, this could fry your electronics!

An option would be to decouple the PC's (RS232 cable's) ground from the other electronics but I'm not sure if this can cause issues because ground isn't at the same level.

Edit: I don't meen the RS232 signal ground of course (pin 5) but the cable shield/metal housing.