On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 13:51 -0800, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
> a completely "floating" system in which everything on the work area is at the
> same potential
> For example, my soldering station, along with all of my of
> my AC powered test equipment, is grounded through the AC mains ground
> system.
In that case you do not have a "completely floating system". The tip of
your iron is not floating with the rest of the system.
> That's true in theory, but I'm personally not comfortable counting on that
> being the case.
The entire concept of "ground" is nothing but notation to make life
easier for us. There's no such thing as some point ("ground") which has
zero voltage. Since voltage is a potential difference *between two
points*, it makes no sense to talk about the voltage of any single point
(including "ground"). When we talk about a point having a certain
voltage, what we are really saying is that it has a certain voltage
"relative to an arbitrary point which we have labelled ground and will
use as a reference for all voltage measurements."
If it makes you feel more comfortable, designate your floating work area
as "ground", and make sure everything has a small enough potential
relative to it - including your iron!
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