The purpose of a ground wire is to ensure the breaker trips during a fault. Common/single point grounding is always highly recommended. I don’t have my NEC book handy, but they don’t need to be larger than a #6 and probably no larger than your #10 based on the circuit you are protecting. Perhaps smaller. Of course this has nothing to do with lightening or surge suppression.
From: Paul McCall Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:41 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run In my continued disposition of acknowledging that I am not a electrical grounding expert, I lay out this scenario for review, a new tower we just built. We installed a new tower, approximately 200ft. from the service panel that feeds it. We will be on our own breaker (kinda irrelevant here). In the past, we had run 10 gauge wire (x3) out to the tower with 110vac. Voltage drop is relatively negligible, certainly within the bounds of working properly to drive our 24v charger for the battery array. I was told, by a grounding “expert” that all my equipment electrical grounds need to homerun to a bus bar that ride the ground back to the service panel directly, that nothing else is acceptable. AND, and this is the big part… that I needed to seriously upgrade the 200ft. ground wire only that rides back to the panel to something significantly bigger. How much bigger I am not sure. So, I figured I would ask the crowd for an answer J Thanks! Paul McCall, Pres. PDMNet / Florida Broadband 658 Old Dixie Highway Vero Beach, FL 32962 772-564-6800 office 772-473-0352 cell www.pdmnet.com pa...@pdmnet.net
