Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Depending if you are using solid or stranded. I prefer #2 stranded. A little easier to work with. You should have a MGB at the tower. If tower has 3 legs run the #2 to all 3 do not make a ring. The MGB should have a #6 bonded or lug to MGB and bonded or lug to tower steel. Ground for equipment should return to #2 leading to Main earth and coax or cable ground leaving tower should be grounded to MGB. That should be sufficient for a ground at tower site. In order to make it more compliant you may want a ring around the tower and pad with proper spacing of bonded ground rods. If this is done then the tower legs would bound to the ring along with MGB and equipment. The Return to Main earth electrical would bond in one place on the ring. On 4/15/2015 2:58 PM, Mike Hammett wrote: Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com https://www.facebook.com/ICSILhttps://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalbhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutionshttps://twitter.com/ICSIL *From: *Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net *To: *af@afmug.com *Sent: *Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM *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 http://www.pdmnet.com/ pa...@pdmnet.net mailto:pa...@pdmnet.net --
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
We recently had a site where an electrician installed a panel and his own ground (rod) for the electrical/AC ground. We then installed our equipment at the bottom of the tower and bonded everything in the cabinet to the tower ground. This site took a pretty bad strike and it was my understanding that this may have happened because the surge traveled through our equipment and out of the AC/electrical ground since it was the path of least resistance. I am admittedly stupid when it comes to grounding, so, was this actually the proper way to ground this site? Josh On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Mark Radabaugh m...@amplex.net wrote: For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
That’s a great answer in theory, but both buildings that we had to be disconnected from were thoroughly checked out by a reputable and thorough electrician. If the tower gets physically hit, the concept is… why induce that surge into your electrical ground as well for it to have to deal with? From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 8:09 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run If your grounding is failing, it is because some piece somewhere isn't big enough or connected properly. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com [http://www.ics-il.com/images/fbicon.png]https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL[http://www.ics-il.com/images/googleicon.png]https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb[http://www.ics-il.com/images/linkedinicon.png]https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions[http://www.ics-il.com/images/twittericon.png]https://twitter.com/ICSIL From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.netmailto:pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 6:49:24 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Mark, Proposing to bond electrical ground with tower ground at the tower is the opposite of what they are saying to do. I know, I know … we have done that pretty regularly in the past. We had a coupe towers that got total equipment losses a several different times… sometimes multiple times in one lightning season. All the potentials were within a couple ohms of each other … everywhere. We double, triple checked everything. Still got pounded. At the expert’s sugg4estion of not bonding everything together at those 2 towers, we separated the grounds, and guess what… no more damages (almost 2 years now) And I understand the concept, but the grey area for me is… What about shielded Ethernet cables going up the tower… I mean your APs are grounded (450s, ePMPs, sectors to the tower, yet they would plug into your electronics at the bottom of the tower…seemingly linking the two systems together regardless of intent. I have lots of thoughts on that.. from shield kits on each Cat5 wire …to isolating antennas with rubber from the tower…. Which we have tried too, LOL. It all starts to get a bit cloudy in understanding… over the years we have had both paid and unpaid “experts” say…absolutely THIS is the way to do it, yet the next guy contradicts the former guy more frequently than makes me feel comfortable. Forrest, I hadn’t thought about backing the breaker size down to 15A…. that makes sense. I will definitely try that the bigger ground cable to see if that helps at this site. From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mark Radabaugh Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 9:44 PM To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.netmailto:pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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 ☺ 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.comhttp://www.pdmnet.com/ pa
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Tower ground wasn't sufficient? Also, fiber would help keep the surge out of your data path, if only the equipment vendors supported it. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 7:26:29 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run That’s a great answer in theory, but both buildings that we had to be disconnected from were thoroughly checked out by a reputable and thorough electrician. If the tower gets physically hit, the concept is… why induce that surge into your electrical ground as well for it to have to deal with? From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 8:09 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run If your grounding is failing, it is because some piece somewhere isn't big enough or connected properly. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 6:49:24 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Mark, Proposing to bond electrical ground with tower ground at the tower is the opposite of what they are saying to do. I know, I know … we have done that pretty regularly in the past. We had a coupe towers that got total equipment losses a several different times… sometimes multiple times in one lightning season. All the potentials were within a couple ohms of each other … everywhere. We double, triple checked everything. Still got pounded. At the expert’s sugg4estion of not bonding everything together at those 2 towers, we separated the grounds, and guess what… no more damages (almost 2 years now) And I understand the concept, but the grey area for me is… What about shielded Ethernet cables going up the tower… I mean your APs are grounded (450s, ePMPs, sectors to the tower, yet they would plug into your electronics at the bottom of the tower…seemingly linking the two systems together regardless of intent. I have lots of thoughts on that.. from shield kits on each Cat5 wire …to isolating antennas with rubber from the tower…. Which we have tried too, LOL. It all starts to get a bit cloudy in understanding… over the years we have had both paid and unpaid “experts” say…absolutely THIS is the way to do it, yet the next guy contradicts the former guy more frequently than makes me feel comfortable. Forrest, I hadn’t thought about backing the breaker size down to 15A…. that makes sense. I will definitely try that the bigger ground cable to see if that helps at this site. From: Af [ mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com ] On Behalf Of Mark Radabaugh Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 9:44 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
You should have had a large copper (I forget the exact size. I thought 4 or larger, but someone suggested 0/2.) among tower, equipment and electrical ground. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Josh Baird joshba...@gmail.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 7:16:55 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run We recently had a site where an electrician installed a panel and his own ground (rod) for the electrical/AC ground. We then installed our equipment at the bottom of the tower and bonded everything in the cabinet to the tower ground. This site took a pretty bad strike and it was my understanding that this may have happened because the surge traveled through our equipment and out of the AC/electrical ground since it was the path of least resistance. I am admittedly stupid when it comes to grounding, so, was this actually the proper way to ground this site? Josh On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Mark Radabaugh m...@amplex.net wrote: For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: blockquote 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 /blockquote
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Mark, Proposing to bond electrical ground with tower ground at the tower is the opposite of what they are saying to do. I know, I know … we have done that pretty regularly in the past. We had a coupe towers that got total equipment losses a several different times… sometimes multiple times in one lightning season. All the potentials were within a couple ohms of each other … everywhere. We double, triple checked everything. Still got pounded. At the expert’s sugg4estion of not bonding everything together at those 2 towers, we separated the grounds, and guess what… no more damages (almost 2 years now) And I understand the concept, but the grey area for me is… What about shielded Ethernet cables going up the tower… I mean your APs are grounded (450s, ePMPs, sectors to the tower, yet they would plug into your electronics at the bottom of the tower…seemingly linking the two systems together regardless of intent. I have lots of thoughts on that.. from shield kits on each Cat5 wire …to isolating antennas with rubber from the tower…. Which we have tried too, LOL. It all starts to get a bit cloudy in understanding… over the years we have had both paid and unpaid “experts” say…absolutely THIS is the way to do it, yet the next guy contradicts the former guy more frequently than makes me feel comfortable. Forrest, I hadn’t thought about backing the breaker size down to 15A…. that makes sense. I will definitely try that the bigger ground cable to see if that helps at this site. From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mark Radabaugh Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 9:44 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.netmailto:pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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 ☺ 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.comhttp://www.pdmnet.com/ pa...@pdmnet.netmailto:pa...@pdmnet.net
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
If your grounding is failing, it is because some piece somewhere isn't big enough or connected properly. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 6:49:24 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Mark, Proposing to bond electrical ground with tower ground at the tower is the opposite of what they are saying to do. I know, I know … we have done that pretty regularly in the past. We had a coupe towers that got total equipment losses a several different times… sometimes multiple times in one lightning season. All the potentials were within a couple ohms of each other … everywhere. We double, triple checked everything. Still got pounded. At the expert’s sugg4estion of not bonding everything together at those 2 towers, we separated the grounds, and guess what… no more damages (almost 2 years now) And I understand the concept, but the grey area for me is… What about shielded Ethernet cables going up the tower… I mean your APs are grounded (450s, ePMPs, sectors to the tower, yet they would plug into your electronics at the bottom of the tower…seemingly linking the two systems together regardless of intent. I have lots of thoughts on that.. from shield kits on each Cat5 wire …to isolating antennas with rubber from the tower…. Which we have tried too, LOL. It all starts to get a bit cloudy in understanding… over the years we have had both paid and unpaid “experts” say…absolutely THIS is the way to do it, yet the next guy contradicts the former guy more frequently than makes me feel comfortable. Forrest, I hadn’t thought about backing the breaker size down to 15A…. that makes sense. I will definitely try that the bigger ground cable to see if that helps at this site. From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mark Radabaugh Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 9:44 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Yes!!! Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 On Apr 16, 2015 9:45 AM, Mark Radabaugh m...@amplex.net wrote: On 4/16/15 8:29 AM, Mike Hammett wrote: Tower ground wasn't sufficient? Also, fiber would help keep the surge out of your data path, if only the equipment vendors supported it. Mike Hammett In the spirit of Godwin's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law), I propose we now have Hammett's law As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of the discussion invoking SFP's approaches 1 Mark
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
On 4/16/15 7:49 AM, Paul McCall wrote: Mark, Proposing to bond electrical ground with tower ground at the tower is the opposite of what they are saying to do. I know, I know … we have done that pretty regularly in the past. We had a coupe towers that got total equipment losses a several different times… sometimes multiple times in one lightning season. All the potentials were within a couple ohms of each other … everywhere. We double, triple checked everything. Still got pounded. You can leave the electrical ground separate at the tower site if it works for you. I'm pretty convinced that a lot of the damage we see to electronics at the base is coming in on the power lines and grounding out through the tower (and our equipment) when the tower ground is significantly better than the electrical ground. At the expert’s sugg4estion of not bonding everything together at those 2 towers, we separated the grounds, and guess what… no more damages (almost 2 years now) And I understand the concept, but the grey area for me is… What about shielded Ethernet cables going up the tower… I mean your APs are grounded (450s, ePMPs, sectors to the tower, yet they would plug into your electronics at the bottom of the tower…seemingly linking the two systems together regardless of intent. I usually do shielded cable with the shield open (not connected to anything) at the top and grounded to the tower ground at the base. It seems to work pretty well for us. I have lots of thoughts on that.. from shield kits on each Cat5 wire …to isolating antennas with rubber from the tower…. Which we have tried too, LOL. I have had isolated antennas pick up huge static charges and blow out equipment - but only on one specific tower. It was weird. Grounded that setup to the tower and the problem went away - but we have plenty of other LMG Cyclone equipment where the case is ungrounded due to the plastic blocks that are part of the mount that have no issues. It all starts to get a bit cloudy in understanding… over the years we have had both paid and unpaid “experts” say…absolutely THIS is the way to do it, yet the next guy contradicts the former guy more frequently than makes me feel comfortable. Yup. I tried researching all of this and bought a bunch of books on lightning, grounding, etc.. They all seem to agree on grounding everything together at a single point, yet as we have all found what works at one site doesn't seem to work at the next site. Mark Forrest, I hadn’t thought about backing the breaker size down to 15A…. that makes sense. I will definitely try that the bigger ground cable to see if that helps at this site.
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
On 4/16/15 8:16 AM, Josh Baird wrote: We recently had a site where an electrician installed a panel and his own ground (rod) for the electrical/AC ground. We then installed our equipment at the bottom of the tower and bonded everything in the cabinet to the tower ground. This site took a pretty bad strike and it was my understanding that this may have happened because the surge traveled through our equipment and out of the AC/electrical ground since it was the path of least resistance. What equipment did you lose? AP's at the top or equipment at the base? The ground the electricians put in is usually crap. Code tells them they have to run a ground rod - so they do. If your lucky they might even tighten the acorn nut on the ground rod. They are not required to check that the ground rod actually works or anything. I would tie that ground rod back to your central ground point. Mark I am admittedly stupid when it comes to grounding, so, was this actually the proper way to ground this site? Josh
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
We install a separate grounding system for our SCADA masts and towers. Ground rods and wire. We do Not bond to the halo or triangle grid which protects the RTU stuff. We used cable grounding kit on Heliax . We insert a polyphaser in between cable and pigtail. The radio power is protected by terminal block fuses. Then surge protection on LAN ports so far it has worked well Jaime Solorza On Apr 16, 2015 7:26 AM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: That’s a great answer in theory, but both buildings that we had to be disconnected from were thoroughly checked out by a reputable and thorough electrician. If the tower gets physically hit, the concept is… why induce that surge into your electrical ground as well for it to have to deal with? *From:* Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Mike Hammett *Sent:* Thursday, April 16, 2015 8:09 AM *To:* af@afmug.com *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run If your grounding is failing, it is because some piece somewhere isn't big enough or connected properly. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions https://twitter.com/ICSIL -- *From: *Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net *To: *af@afmug.com *Sent: *Thursday, April 16, 2015 6:49:24 AM *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Mark, Proposing to bond electrical ground with tower ground at the tower is the opposite of what they are saying to do. I know, I know … we have done that pretty regularly in the past. We had a coupe towers that got total equipment losses a several different times… sometimes multiple times in one lightning season. All the potentials were within a couple ohms of each other … everywhere. We double, triple checked everything. Still got pounded. At the expert’s sugg4estion of not bonding everything together at those 2 towers, we separated the grounds, and guess what… no more damages (almost 2 years now) And I understand the concept, but the grey area for me is… What about shielded Ethernet cables going up the tower… I mean your APs are grounded (450s, ePMPs, sectors to the tower, yet they would plug into your electronics at the bottom of the tower…seemingly linking the two systems together regardless of intent. I have lots of thoughts on that.. from shield kits on each Cat5 wire …to isolating antennas with rubber from the tower…. Which we have tried too, LOL. It all starts to get a bit cloudy in understanding… over the years we have had both paid and unpaid “experts” say…absolutely THIS is the way to do it, yet the next guy contradicts the former guy more frequently than makes me feel comfortable. Forrest, I hadn’t thought about backing the breaker size down to 15A…. that makes sense. I will definitely try that the bigger ground cable to see if that helps at this site. *From:* Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Mark Radabaugh *Sent:* Wednesday, April 15, 2015 9:44 PM *To:* af@afmug.com *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
On 4/16/15 8:29 AM, Mike Hammett wrote: Tower ground wasn't sufficient? Also, fiber would help keep the surge out of your data path, if only the equipment vendors supported it. Mike Hammett In the spirit of Godwin's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law), I propose we now have Hammett's law As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of the discussion invoking SFP's approaches 1 Mark
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
We lost a few AP's (450s, ugh) at the top, and a few SyncInjectors at the base. The AP's were going through WB SP's at the base in our cabinet before they went into the SyncInjectors. Ok - so really, EVERYTHING should be tied together. It would seem that in our scenario, the electrical ground was grounded to our central grounding point (thus the tower and our equipment) only through our equipment, not directly. So, running a large-ish ground directly from the electrical ground to our central grounding point seems appropriate here. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Mark Radabaugh m...@amplex.net wrote: On 4/16/15 8:16 AM, Josh Baird wrote: We recently had a site where an electrician installed a panel and his own ground (rod) for the electrical/AC ground. We then installed our equipment at the bottom of the tower and bonded everything in the cabinet to the tower ground. This site took a pretty bad strike and it was my understanding that this may have happened because the surge traveled through our equipment and out of the AC/electrical ground since it was the path of least resistance. What equipment did you lose? AP's at the top or equipment at the base? The ground the electricians put in is usually crap. Code tells them they have to run a ground rod - so they do. If your lucky they might even tighten the acorn nut on the ground rod. They are not required to check that the ground rod actually works or anything. I would tie that ground rod back to your central ground point. Mark I am admittedly stupid when it comes to grounding, so, was this actually the proper way to ground this site? Josh
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Nazi... ;-) - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Mark Radabaugh m...@amplex.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 8:45:52 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run On 4/16/15 8:29 AM, Mike Hammett wrote: Tower ground wasn't sufficient? Also, fiber would help keep the surge out of your data path, if only the equipment vendors supported it. blockquote Mike Hammett /blockquote In the spirit of Godwin's law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law ), I propose we now have Hammett's law As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of the discussion invoking SFP's approaches 1 Mark
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
For a 30 amp circuit? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Amperage is irrelevant, well, unless it's larger than the gauge I recommended. It's not an inside-home outlet, but bonding the ground between the electrical service and the equipment\tower. You don't want your tower ground to be better than your electrical service ground and have a surge decide the best path is through the electric (+ or neutral) and thus your equipment. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:01:06 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For a 30 amp circuit? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
We usually put a breaker at the tower and then put in our own ground at the tower and bond it to electrical ground. No idea if this is the right way to do it but you definitely don't want your only ground to be 200' away, right? On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 2:03 PM, Mike Hammett af...@ics-il.net wrote: Amperage is irrelevant, well, unless it's larger than the gauge I recommended. It's not an inside-home outlet, but bonding the ground between the electrical service and the equipment\tower. You don't want your tower ground to be better than your electrical service ground and have a surge decide the best path is through the electric (+ or neutral) and thus your equipment. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions https://twitter.com/ICSIL -- *From: *Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com *To: *af@afmug.com *Sent: *Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:01:06 PM *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For a 30 amp circuit? *From:* Mike Hammett af...@ics-il.net *Sent:* Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM *To:* af@afmug.com *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions https://twitter.com/ICSIL -- *From: *Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net *To: *af@afmug.com *Sent: *Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM *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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
So, you are hanging a receptacle on a tower. 30 amp 10 gauge. You want a 4 gauge ground? I understanding bonding the tower to a common bond point with a large gauge wire. But the three wires run in some liquidtite or conduit can be smaller. How about only hot and neutral inside EMT. If the only goal is to get a safe receptacle at the top of the tower I would thing that would suffice as long as the tower itself is bonded properly. No? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:03 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Amperage is irrelevant, well, unless it's larger than the gauge I recommended. It's not an inside-home outlet, but bonding the ground between the electrical service and the equipment\tower. You don't want your tower ground to be better than your electrical service ground and have a surge decide the best path is through the electric (+ or neutral) and thus your equipment. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:01:06 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For a 30 amp circuit? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
I'm referring to 200' between the tower and your service. Those need to be large. UP the tower? Whatever that requirement would be. 10 gauge may be fine. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:07:47 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run So, you are hanging a receptacle on a tower. 30 amp 10 gauge. You want a 4 gauge ground? I understanding bonding the tower to a common bond point with a large gauge wire. But the three wires run in some liquidtite or conduit can be smaller. How about only hot and neutral inside EMT. If the only goal is to get a safe receptacle at the top of the tower I would thing that would suffice as long as the tower itself is bonded properly. No? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:03 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Amperage is irrelevant, well, unless it's larger than the gauge I recommended. It's not an inside-home outlet, but bonding the ground between the electrical service and the equipment\tower. You don't want your tower ground to be better than your electrical service ground and have a surge decide the best path is through the electric (+ or neutral) and thus your equipment. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:01:06 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For a 30 amp circuit? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Ahhh, didn’t catch that the tower was 200’ from the service. I see... From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:14 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run I'm referring to 200' between the tower and your service. Those need to be large. UP the tower? Whatever that requirement would be. 10 gauge may be fine. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:07:47 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run So, you are hanging a receptacle on a tower. 30 amp 10 gauge. You want a 4 gauge ground? I understanding bonding the tower to a common bond point with a large gauge wire. But the three wires run in some liquidtite or conduit can be smaller. How about only hot and neutral inside EMT. If the only goal is to get a safe receptacle at the top of the tower I would thing that would suffice as long as the tower itself is bonded properly. No? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:03 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Amperage is irrelevant, well, unless it's larger than the gauge I recommended. It's not an inside-home outlet, but bonding the ground between the electrical service and the equipment\tower. You don't want your tower ground to be better than your electrical service ground and have a surge decide the best path is through the electric (+ or neutral) and thus your equipment. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:01:06 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For a 30 amp circuit? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
I didn't think you'd be wrong. Just missed a piece of info in the original post. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:15:29 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Ahhh, didn’t catch that the tower was 200’ from the service. I see... From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:14 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run I'm referring to 200' between the tower and your service. Those need to be large. UP the tower? Whatever that requirement would be. 10 gauge may be fine. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:07:47 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run So, you are hanging a receptacle on a tower. 30 amp 10 gauge. You want a 4 gauge ground? I understanding bonding the tower to a common bond point with a large gauge wire. But the three wires run in some liquidtite or conduit can be smaller. How about only hot and neutral inside EMT. If the only goal is to get a safe receptacle at the top of the tower I would thing that would suffice as long as the tower itself is bonded properly. No? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:03 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Amperage is irrelevant, well, unless it's larger than the gauge I recommended. It's not an inside-home outlet, but bonding the ground between the electrical service and the equipment\tower. You don't want your tower ground to be better than your electrical service ground and have a surge decide the best path is through the electric (+ or neutral) and thus your equipment. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:01:06 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For a 30 amp circuit? From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Hmmm, not an electrical person either, but quick search online says #6 gauge highly recommended for 200' run vice the #10 you mention. -- Larry Smith lesm...@ecsis.net On Wed April 15 2015 14:41, Paul McCall wrote: 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 :) 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.comhttp://www.pdmnet.com/ pa...@pdmnet.netmailto:pa...@pdmnet.net
[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 :) 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.comhttp://www.pdmnet.com/ pa...@pdmnet.netmailto:pa...@pdmnet.net
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
4 gauge was what I was considering. We run a polyphaser on the AC at the tower box as well, as our “receptacle” From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 4:20 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run I didn't think you'd be wrong. Just missed a piece of info in the original post. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com [http://www.ics-il.com/images/fbicon.png]https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL[http://www.ics-il.com/images/googleicon.png]https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb[http://www.ics-il.com/images/linkedinicon.png]https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions[http://www.ics-il.com/images/twittericon.png]https://twitter.com/ICSIL From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.commailto:ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:15:29 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Ahhh, didn’t catch that the tower was 200’ from the service. I see... From: Mike Hammettmailto:af...@ics-il.net Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:14 PM To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run I'm referring to 200' between the tower and your service. Those need to be large. UP the tower? Whatever that requirement would be. 10 gauge may be fine. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com [http://www.ics-il.com/images/fbicon.png]https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL[http://www.ics-il.com/images/googleicon.png]https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb[http://www.ics-il.com/images/linkedinicon.png]https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions[http://www.ics-il.com/images/twittericon.png]https://twitter.com/ICSIL From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.commailto:ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:07:47 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run So, you are hanging a receptacle on a tower. 30 amp 10 gauge. You want a 4 gauge ground? I understanding bonding the tower to a common bond point with a large gauge wire. But the three wires run in some liquidtite or conduit can be smaller. How about only hot and neutral inside EMT. If the only goal is to get a safe receptacle at the top of the tower I would thing that would suffice as long as the tower itself is bonded properly. No? From: Mike Hammettmailto:af...@ics-il.net Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:03 PM To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Amperage is irrelevant, well, unless it's larger than the gauge I recommended. It's not an inside-home outlet, but bonding the ground between the electrical service and the equipment\tower. You don't want your tower ground to be better than your electrical service ground and have a surge decide the best path is through the electric (+ or neutral) and thus your equipment. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com [http://www.ics-il.com/images/fbicon.png]https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL[http://www.ics-il.com/images/googleicon.png]https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb[http://www.ics-il.com/images/linkedinicon.png]https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions[http://www.ics-il.com/images/twittericon.png]https://twitter.com/ICSIL From: Chuck McCown ch...@wbmfg.commailto:ch...@wbmfg.com To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:01:06 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run For a 30 amp circuit? From: Mike Hammettmailto:af...@ics-il.net Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:58 PM To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run Your ground should be at least 4 gauge, maybe even larger than that. One of the 0/x gauges is in my mind for some reason. That should bond the electrical ground with all tower and equipment grounds. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com [http://www.ics-il.com/images/fbicon.png]https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL[http://www.ics-il.com/images/googleicon.png]https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb[http://www.ics-il.com/images/linkedinicon.png]https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions[http://www.ics-il.com/images/twittericon.png]https://twitter.com/ICSIL From: Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.netmailto:pa...@pdmnet.net To: af@afmug.commailto:af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:41:15 PM 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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
Re: [AFMUG] Electrical - Grounding question - long run
Mark's answer matches what my recommendation would be. I'd just use the same sized conductor for ground that you used for the circuit itself, and make sure that the breaker is sized correctly (meaning not too large) for the wire run. I would probably put a 15A breaker in back at the panel, even with a 10GA run, unless you needed 15A for some reason, at which point I'd run 230V and step it down at the tower.The purpose of sizing the breaker down is to better match the actual capacity of the circuit at that distance. It sounds like the expert in this case has somehow gotten the idea that the only acceptable solution is to have a single low-impedance ground system which encompasses the entire system, including the panel. To do this effectively, you *would* have to have a large conductor so that effectively all grounding points are electrically identical. However, in this case, it's probably better to treat it as two separate grounding systems, with a higher-impedance (resistance) grounding path between them which will serve the purpose of allowing the circuit breaker to clear a phase-to-ground fault by tripping, but not encourage surges to travel between the two systems - you want tower system surges to go into the tower ground, and the electrical system surges to go into the electrical ground. Alternatively you could include a transformer at the tower end to separate the grounds completely - See separately dervived ground in the code. You'd have to take care to ensure the ground is truly isolated, but I think this is excessive. -forrest For longer On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 7:44 PM, Mark Radabaugh m...@amplex.net wrote: For electrical service purposes the ground wire you have is fine. The tower itself obviously needs to be well grounded. Where is your equipment? I'm assuming it's at the tower since you talk about driving the battery charger. All of the equipment at the tower needs to be bonded together with the tower ground and the electrical ground. A good 120V surge suppressor at the tower, grounded to the tower ground, will help avoid damage from coming in over the power lines. You are not trying to protect equipment back at the breaker panel. The ground wire size back to the panel is pretty irrelevant as long as it can carry enough current to trip the breaker in a short circuit condition. Other than that it doesn't serve much purpose. Mark On Apr 15, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Paul McCall pa...@pdmnet.net wrote: 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 -- *Forrest Christian* *CEO**, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc.* Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road, Helena, MT 59602 forre...@imach.com | http://www.packetflux.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/fwchristian http://facebook.com/packetflux http://twitter.com/@packetflux
