Well, it seems about time to add to my list of electrical theory questions with answers far too broad for one question, so:                          I understand that the Earth can act as a giant capacitor, conductor, etc.  What I don't understand is why.  For instance, why would ac power from the hot wire dissipate into the ground?  (and, for that matter, will power from the neutral wire not do so?  If so, why?)   

I'm thinkin of puttin up a high antenna. Due to my location with a mountain between me and broadcast towers, reception can be sketchy.  One concern is that of lightning strikes.  But if the antenna is grounded, wont that also ground out the microvoltage radio signals? How do I get microvolt signal without risk of megavolts burning the house down? I've done a wee little bit of google research, but haven't seen this question addressed.

Can someone explain the following, I got 24 VDC power supply (or take 1.5V AA battery) which is connected to 110VAC outlet on the input, potential difference out of the power supply is 24VDC node (+) to node (-) and potential difference of either one to ground is 0V (outlet ground). Now I take wire and ground (+) of the 24 VDC to outlet ground. Questions: 1. Why i am still measuring 24 VDC across (+) and (-) nodes ? If ground (call it whatever common) is 0 v and ground is touching (+) which was prior to shorting it to ground raised in potential by 24 V in relation to (-) that means (-) is zero potential? Or is it + 24VDC and - 24VDC but than potential difference is 48V at the output of the power supply. 2. Does that mean that I raised the potential of the ground to 24V? Probably not Thanks

Link: https://www.instructables.com/id/High_Voltage_Power_Supply_For_Marx_Generator/?comments=all#CRLI0D7FV40AZSC

I'm building this circuit, and it uses ground marks which I'm unfamiliar with these kinds of circuits (this is my first one) can anybody explain to me how it works? 

Well every time i copy a game onto my psp it says corrupted data 

Any one hand ground a telescope mirror, how long did it take approx cost, UK suppliers of necessary parts, is it worth the effort?

I am building a tesla coil, the first i have ever built. I know that one side of the secondary coil is supposed to be grounded (the other side being the donut). Problem is, i am not clear where to ground it to. The ground socket on the wall outlet? a nail stuck in the ground? the negative terminal on the first transformer? I'd like to have this straightened out.

I'm starting to work with high voltages again, but for real this time. I just built an ignition coil driver, using a 555 (and I got an ignition coil), but my 555 broke (the texas instruments ones can only drive 15mA, oppose to the normal 200mA, oops) so I have to go buy one today. My main question is what to use for ground, whether it be for an old screwdriver for arcing sparks or the secondary of a tesla coil. I was originall just going to use the 3rd prong of an outlet, but somewhere on the internet I heard this could destroy all surge protected power strips and destroy all plugged in electronics at your house. I, of course, do not want this cause... well... I'd be screwed. Is this true or not? Can I use the 3rd prong?

Hello , im making a little guitar amp with ROG tonemender as preamp and tda2003 power amp.This is my schematic , can you check it for me please!. Will it get ground loop problem ?? My English is bad so i can't understand clearly some documents about ground loop. i have 2 seperate board (a power amp based tda2003 and a ROG tonemender as preamp).They will use the same power supply .some thing like this picture http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg132/chipmapple/noobiedsn.png and this is schematic  http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg132/chipmapple/combineta.jpg Thanks!

How to make proper grounding in audio amplifier circuit? How to have separate signal and power grounds?

Does anyone know how to ground pins automatically using the polygon tool and the auto tool in eagle (e.g. the black ovals in picture)?

Hi! I made a tesla coil like this guy! https://www.instructables.com/id/Tesla-Coils-for-Dummies/ But I didn't ground the secondary coil of the tesla coil. It seems to work ok without it, but I'd like to see it preform better. Would it help if I grounded it?  Thanks!

Ok, I am extremely new to doing anything with electronics. I'm working on a project where I am connecting some LEDs and some toggle switches. On some instructables I was looking at it mentions having a ground wire. What do I use for a ground wire? Is it a special type of wire? Anything specific I need to know? Thanks for your help in advance.

Hello, out there, I would like to find how to build a ground penetrating gadget. I think there are a lot of 'us' would like to have something that can 'peek' underneath the surface of the ground, not necessary very deep. For example, such a gadget that can help fossil hunting tremandously. And it does NOT have to go all the way to Ground Penetrating Radar. As long as it can detect the differences between the matrix and interested object up to say 50 cm in depth, it will be good enough. And it doesn't matter what physical principle is used: GPR, ultrasound, electrical resistance or capacitance, ... (whatever). What I have in mind in such gadget would be tied to one of the shoes (so, it must be very light weight), using wifi to transmit the signal to iPad/iPhone so that the user can just walk and know the place to dig. Any help or comment will be greatly appreciated.

I am looking for any information regarding Ground Penetrating Radar (or GPR). I am a newbie to this type of tech and was hoping the someone may know of a basic reference manual or other sources that could contribute to building one from the ground up at reasonably little cost. Also, I am looking specifically for something in the high frequency range - good resolution at minimal depth. The hardware side is more important although any advice/resources on the software to interprete the data wouldn't hurt. Thanks in advance! By the way, my user name(just created and second guessed) has nothing to do with being dug on digg, or anything to do with digg for that matter - just thought it had a nice ring to it... Thanks!

For those not familiar with the term, an earworm is a song that gets stuck in your head and refuses to leave, eventually driving you crazier than a Cthulhu cultist with an itch that's just out of reach. Sometimes it will be a song you actually like (or liked), but usually it's the other kind. A well-known fact about earworms is that the best way to get rid of them is to infect someone else instead. For this purpose, I introduce the Earworm Dumping Ground. Leave your earworms here, and if you're lucky some poor schmuck will stumble across them by accident and take them off your hands. Warning: Earworms are extremely contagious. Sometimes just thinking of the title of the song is enough to produce unwanted results. It's kind of like The Game that way. (You just lost The Game, BTW.) Do not read any posts under this topic unless you are willing to take the risk of infection. You have been warned. BWAHhahahaha!!

I'd like to build an under ground fort, it must be water proof. I want to have a stove in it if possible, i will have big ventilation so as not to have a build up of carbon monoxide. I have access to a wide rang of tools, I live on a farm so space isn't a problem. I did find a plan in a magazine from 1929, its rather vague and i would like more help. I can take as long on it as it long as it takes to build it right, so time isn't a problem. I don't know if i should pack the wall with stones or planks, Ideas? I want to have a good idea of how to do it before I start. It shouldn't be to expensive but that isn't really a factor. People are saying that I shouldn't build an underground fort because of the danger of it. If i didn't make a fire place in it would it be better? How about I put a trapdoor above the fire place, that way i could open it when i used the fire (Update)

I am connecting my 5.1 speakers to my receiver to my PC.  The surround (back) speakers are fairly far away and I have limited speaker wire.  Is the negative post on a speaker just a ground wire, or does it contribute to the speakers function?  Can I just solder it to something metal?  Alternatively, could I daisy-chain the negative posts of the speakers and run that to a single negative post on the receiver?

Anyone run into this problem? How to fix please thanks

I have bought and "Index" above ground pool (5X10 METERS) and am wondering if there is a way of putting it in the ground. First of all can it be done and if so how it can be done. Thanks

Ok, so, I am very confused with wire colors, ground and (+) and (-). I NEEd someone to answer me. What I have read is that electricity flows from (-) to (+). However red wire is always connected to (+) and referred to as the "hot or "live" wire, and (-) is the ground. This seems backwards to me. Ground wires go to ground because it is highly positively charged, It just seems like there is contradictions. I really need this cleared up. Thanks in advance!

I want to get started with electronics, however I'm getting really confused schematics, specifically this one. Am I supposed to connect ground to the negative pole of my battery, or is the negative pole not used?

I'm planning a stripboard POV kit to solder with learners over about 3 hours or so, and I have a problem designing the wiring for the LEDs. It's straightforward to use the required series resistors to wire the output pins of an ATMEGA like http://www.arduino.cc/en/Hacking/PinMapping to the anodes of 8 5mmx2mm rectangular leds like http://www.rapidonline.com/Electronic-Components/Kingbright-L-383IDT-5x2-5mm-H-i-Red-LED-Rectangular-56-0398 packed side by side onto 0.1 inch stripboard. However, I'm facing a puzzle when trying to wire the LEDs' cathodes together to ground. It's fairly easy for me myself to do this, just by free-soldering a couple of spare legs directly over the cathode tracks, or chaining loads of wires. However, I can't see myself guiding 45 people through this in a workshop without hassle and errors. Does anyone have a simple way to wire 8 'odd' stripboard tracks together to a ground track (the 'even' tracks have the anodes in them). To give a flavour of the solutions I'm considering, I'm looking into 0Ohm bussed resistor networks like http://www.interfacebus.com/resistor-network-schematic-bused-resistors-sip.html to wire theparallel tracks into a single ground track using a standard through-hole component with legs clipped off. However I'm having trouble sourcing anything like this, and I'm sure others have better ideas.

Transmitter goes off like i have a break in the line from time to time. installed new transmitter and it does the same thing. I'm assuming i have a bad connection some where but don't know how to find it.

We have a grapes tree in our garden. the grapes are at their peak now (if left on the tree they will begin to spoil) the grapes are salty like hell and not edible but perhaps can be used to make some jam or something else parents say trash them - no time to bother making the jam + dont know any friends who do either i see a problem with it - trashing them means trashing the minerals from our garden ground. won't it degrade the ground ability to grow stuff ? how to avoid it ? or does trashing them actually help remove excess salt from the ground ? (is the problem with the ground or with the tree itself ?)

This and vcc are the two things at the moment i don't know how to link up.

I am learning how to Hack Wheelchair joysticks and other simple controllers.. problem is I don't understand "Why do we connect Grounds of the controller and Arduino in these cases ?" Like here (example A): http://mowstation.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-wire-up-joystick.html and here (example B): http://jbprojects.net/articles/programmable-rc/images/schematic.jpg source: http://jbprojects.net/articles/programmable-rc/ in Example A the circuit is powered Via Wheelchair batteries, Example B via Arduino .. Thanks :)

Hello everyone! The question is pretty straight forward, I have my fair share with electronics, so I'm not really new. I have a linear power supply in my shop and only now it has started bothering me that there is like 35V between my psu's negative and ground. I would normally not care, but since I've gotten into audio and video I found it to be problematic, because every time I connect my psu's negative to my lets say source audios' negative, 4 amps start to flow from my amp to ground trough the thin audio cable I use. I know it's not my source's fault because it's switching psu's negative is shorted to ground.

It would be very much appreciated.

I have my headphone on my head, then i happened to be touching the headphone's metal arch(at the top through which the wires reach the right speakers) and the wall of my room at the same time, so then i heard a vrvrvrvrvrvrvrvrvrvrvrvrvrvr sound . Could any one help me identify this phenomenon?

I want to make a lightsaber from a 18w neon tube. I am using a 12v to 1800v inverter. The positive lead is connected at the bottom of the tube but in need a ground on the top without pulling a wire from the inverter.

Hello everyone, I'm having a bit of a problem getting my LM317 soft-start circuit to function properly. If you'll take a look at my schematic, I've built everything on the schematic up until the relays and diodes get involved (specifically where the output forks into two). In order to check that I soldered the board correctly, I hooked an LED up to where the fork would be to make sure the soft-start worked. Here's where things get funny: If the LED is connected to the rectifier's negative, the LED behaves as I expect it to, with a slow turn-on. However, if I keep the LED connected to the same positive point, but hook the led directly to ground, nothing happens. In fact, using a multimeter showed that no voltage would flow to ground from the positive, but that 14 volts were flowing between the same positive point and negative. I need voltage to flow to ground, this is a ground safety interlock for a welder I'm working on... does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks for reading :)

I have checked many schematics and on all of them I see GND (ground) and nothing going to the VSS of the power supply. Is GND mean that it's connected to the negative (VSS) or is it more complex than that? What I am supposed to do if a schematic have both negative and grounding? Thank you.

I'm building gmoon's Valvelitzer inside a utility box. I've just realized that the entire enclosure is going to be grounded, meaning it's going to be directly connected to the negative pole of the power supply, which seems to run at 14V 2.2A (It'll be regulated at 12v before it gets to the tube). Is this dangerous? If it isn't, should I just solder all the ground points to the enclosure? If I run the power along the enclosure, is that going to cause some extra capacitance? Is that bad?

Hello!Reading about proper grounding of cnc electronics I saw that ground has to be isolated from power supplies negative. So, I have a copper plate with ground cables from 48v, 12v and 5v power supplies with ground cable from the wall. Everything works fine but the machine itself, has no ground cable because if I attach the negative of my probe cable I will be connecting negative to ground... This morning touching the machine structure and the door handle (the door is metalic) I felt a light discharge. Should I connect the maching to ground? Can this affect in any way the electronics with that negative to ground? ( the discharge was lightly, I can live with that lol)The router has no ground cable, maybe that was the reason for the discharge.Thanks!!

Same as subject is there a universal frequency ground chip one wireless devices?

Can anyone suggest a good place to static ground myself when working with electronics? Next to my bench is a radiator with some bear metal, would that work?  If not can anyone suggest  any other places?

I need help understanding the circuit attached, from what i understand is that i can power it from a 12V mains adapter. The one i have is 1 amp which i think is enough. But more importantly for the grounds, that i should connect them all up to the ground coming from the 6 pin on the left opamp. As though this ground would act as a central one, with all the other ones connected to it. Is this correct or not, if not then please explain to me how i should ground this circuit. I claim no rights to the content in the link and am using it for my own recreational purposes. http://uzzors2k.4hv.org/projectfiles/magneticlevitator/Magnetic%20Levitator%20circuit.GIF

I'm building a lifter. I'm using an old monitor for a power source. I'm hooking a wire from the 25kV output (that plugs into the monitor tube) but I want to know where the best place is on my monitor board to hook up the ground wire. There seems to be a number of grounds on the board, but I want to be certain; I don't want to smack up the monitor if it can be avoided. Thanks in advance.

I fixed a break a week ago, now both dog collars are not registering. the fence alarm is not sounding, so I replaced both batteries in the dogs collars, still nothing, got any ideas?

 i cant figure out which prong is which just by looking and i dont have an expertise in electronics, so if you guys could help that would be wonderful, heres a pic 

What is the difference between Vcc- and the ground symbol on this schematic? Or are they the same thing? I've just never encountered this before.

This needs a bit of background info. I found this amplifier a year ago in the streets, by the trash, and I took it with me cause I like to open up things and see what I could get (it was obviously broken). I opened it up, and started looking at the parts. The connections are old-school, first time seeing those. I noticed that one cable was not connected, so I took care of it, and tried to power it up. For my surprise it worked, and I had to secure the plug, which had only red and black (+ & - I guess). Fast forward to now, I heard or read that anything connected to a plug should have the ground as well, especially if it had something metal. The amplifier is made of metal on the sides. I'm giving it to my uncle, but I don't want to give him in a dangerous state, so, should I change the plug again and put one with the 3 wires? How or where do I connect the ground? (I saw one connected to a screw in the metal part once) And most important, why? Thanks a lot, sorry for length and for possible grammar or vocabulary mistakes. TL;DR: Found an amplifier without plug, should I put one with ground? How? Where? and Why? THANKS!! I've got answers saying that ground on audio systems are complicated and I've been reading but it's so confusing, and I don't understand it pretty well... THANKS IN ADVANCE TO ANYONE GIVING ME SOME INPUT, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT!! :D

I been trying to put some LEDs in my car that can pulse to music. I followed this instructable; https://www.instructables.com/id/Pimped-Out-LED-Car-Sound-System/#step1 My only problem is when I connect the ground cable all the speakers from the car turn silent, the only way I can get the LEDs to flash is by not connecting the ground cable at all. Anyone know how I can fix this?  

I hooked up this projector at work (it's a BenQ) and when I view the projected image (in this case a computer screen) I see horizontal lines traveling up the picture. This projector is the only thing on the circuit right now.  I had to branch off the existing electrical line to add a new plug on the ceiling.  When I plug the projector into the existing outlets I get no lines, when I plug it into the outlet I installed I get lines.  The existing outlets on the circuit are all isolated grounds.  I have tried wiring in a regular outlet and then switched it to an isolated ground when the lines appeared, thinking it could be a ground issue.  I know my wiring is correct as I've installed these projectors before. What could it be?

Hello, I followed a great instructable here to make rgb led bars. It uses the ledwiz controller. I wanted to shift it over to an arduino controlling the thing. My main problem is that the leds I have is that they have one power lead, and 3 grounds to control the color. how would I get that to work with an arduino? Thanks ~penguins

I am building a small amp: Does the order in which I connect the "grounds"  on the cb matter as long as they are all interconnected? Diagram available at: .

Hello Guys , i need your help .  I want made that : (Hot plate ) https://www.instructables.com/id/Hot-Plate/?ALLSTEPS And i have a Cpu but i dont know where is the Ground and Volt pin . information about me Cpu : Intel® Celeron® Processor in the 478-Pin Package Datasheet : ftp://download.intel.com/support/processors/celeron/sb/29074802.pdf If anybody can help me =D