Keep in mind that a primary purpose of grounding the plane is electrical safety.
Ghery S. Pettit From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org] On Behalf Of Flavin, John Sent: Friday, August 23, 2013 11:55 AM To: emc-p...@ieee.org Subject: RE: [PSES] Ground Plane Grounding in the Immunity Lab Grace, Our lab is used for testing of ITE products to the IEC 55024 (CISPR24) immunity standard. We built ours from sheets of 1/4" (6mm) 5052 aluminum, screwed down onto 1" (25mm) plywood, with the plywood then fastened to the building floor. (Our products are large, heavy, rack-based systems, and this aluminum is hard enough to prevent the rack casters from doing any damage to the plate.) A 4" (10cm) wide backing plate is placed under each butt joint, and fasted to the plates with countersunk screws about every 4" along the joint. This insures good electrical continuity across the entire plane. The backing plate does require the plywood to be routed/notched at the butt joints, to accommodate the extra thickness of the backing plate. We have two such floors, one which is about 15 years old, and have had no issues with them (electrical, mechanical, auditors). These are grounded to the building steel. One uses a flat braid, the other uses 6 gauge wire. John D. Flavin Teradata TCP Engineering 17095 Via del Campo San Diego, CA 92127 john.fla...@teradata.com<mailto:john.fla...@teradata.com> V: (858) 485-3874 F: (213) 337-5432 From: Grace Lin [mailto:graceli...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, August 23, 2013 6:04 AM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG<mailto:EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG> Subject: [PSES] Ground Plane Grounding in the Immunity Lab Dear Members, Could you please share your experience and/or knowledge for the ground plane grounding in the immunity lab? We plan to layout a L shape ground plane in the 24' x 18' area for ESD, etc. tests. The corner of the L shape is right next to a 10" wide building collar. Is a ground strap tied to the collar good enough? Do we need (copper) ground rods? If yes, what is the minimum length (deep)? What is the recommended space between rods? How to choose metal sheet material (galvanized steel, stainless steel, etc.)? When weldering the metal sheet, is there anything that need to be cautious? Thank you very much and look forward to your help. Best regards, Grace Lin - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org<mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org>> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net<mailto:emcp...@radiusnorth.net>> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org<mailto:mcantw...@ieee.org>> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <j.bac...@ieee.org<mailto:j.bac...@ieee.org>> David Heald <dhe...@gmail.com<mailto:dhe...@gmail.com>> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>