patchbay grounding - again
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A.David.MacKinnon
- ears didn't survive the freeze
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patchbay grounding - again
I'm in the midst of rebuilding all the patching in my home studio and I have access to a 3 row (3 rows of 48 ) tt patch bay. Each jack shares a common ground with the jacks above or bellow it (ie: jack #1 in rows 1, 2 & 3 all have the same ground connection). Will I have grounding issues if i have different peices of gear connected to the same ground? Say i have Mixer direct out on jack 1 row 1, mixer line in on jack 1 row 2 and the out from a stand alone pre on jack 1 row 3. Will I be alright as long as everything is ballanced and all the equipment sharing the same ground is on the same circuit?
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lars savage
- audio school graduate
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2003 5:08 pm
- Location: San Francisco, CA
Possibly... My whole studio's on one circuit which is shared with an apartment and wired god knows when and by god knows who, and I've had some issues. Here's what I've done to solve them with pretty decent success:
Buss all patchbay grounds together, if they aren't already, using decent quality buss wire. maybe even available at Adapter Shack
Get some nice thick gauge (at least 12awg) stranded copper wire, connect one end to patch ground.
Buy a nice 3 prong screw terminal AC plug, and attach the other end to the ground pin of this and plug it into an outlet where it will never get kicked out.
It's ghetto, but it works.
some ways to make it slicker are to find a nice piece of copper plating, and drill some 10-32 threaded holes in it (same as handy rack screws) and make this your audio ground plane, then ground this via your outlet. this way if you have multiple single RU bays, you don't have to try bussing them all together with a soldering iron once they're already in a rack, also, as you ad bays, you simply land their grounds at the plate. also if any bits of gear are troublesome, you can try grounding their chassis here, which brings me to the next phase:
Lift all sheilds at your devices! this will avoid potential loops from occuring. Of course you want to make sure all your gear is solidly grounded via it's power cable. some older bits may have ground lugs on the back, if they give you problems, land them to your plate.
I've found that this method works quite well, and once you establish this standard, you won't have to spend much time unplugging stuff trying to figure out which gear was tuning in the baseball game, as you will know where everyone hits earth.
Note: Purists will argue that you should keep your audio ground seperate from your electrical ground, and if you have the luxury, by all means, run your wire outside and drive a stake into the ground, but if like me, you're in a cement floored basement in the middle of a city, the outlet thing works...
sorry if this is long winded, but I've been thinkng about this a lot lately, as I gradually exorcise the ghosts of HOSA from my studio.
Buss all patchbay grounds together, if they aren't already, using decent quality buss wire. maybe even available at Adapter Shack
Get some nice thick gauge (at least 12awg) stranded copper wire, connect one end to patch ground.
Buy a nice 3 prong screw terminal AC plug, and attach the other end to the ground pin of this and plug it into an outlet where it will never get kicked out.
It's ghetto, but it works.
some ways to make it slicker are to find a nice piece of copper plating, and drill some 10-32 threaded holes in it (same as handy rack screws) and make this your audio ground plane, then ground this via your outlet. this way if you have multiple single RU bays, you don't have to try bussing them all together with a soldering iron once they're already in a rack, also, as you ad bays, you simply land their grounds at the plate. also if any bits of gear are troublesome, you can try grounding their chassis here, which brings me to the next phase:
Lift all sheilds at your devices! this will avoid potential loops from occuring. Of course you want to make sure all your gear is solidly grounded via it's power cable. some older bits may have ground lugs on the back, if they give you problems, land them to your plate.
I've found that this method works quite well, and once you establish this standard, you won't have to spend much time unplugging stuff trying to figure out which gear was tuning in the baseball game, as you will know where everyone hits earth.
Note: Purists will argue that you should keep your audio ground seperate from your electrical ground, and if you have the luxury, by all means, run your wire outside and drive a stake into the ground, but if like me, you're in a cement floored basement in the middle of a city, the outlet thing works...
sorry if this is long winded, but I've been thinkng about this a lot lately, as I gradually exorcise the ghosts of HOSA from my studio.
**IF** you drive a ground stake for your audio wiring, then it MUST be tied to the AC mains ground point as well to meet electrical safety codes.
There is good info in the June 1995 AES Journal on this general topic.
http://www.aes.org/publications/journal_issues.cfm
Bri
There is good info in the June 1995 AES Journal on this general topic.
http://www.aes.org/publications/journal_issues.cfm
Bri
-
A.David.MacKinnon
- ears didn't survive the freeze
- Posts: 3825
- Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 5:57 am
- Location: Toronto
- Contact:
-
lars savage
- audio school graduate
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2003 5:08 pm
- Location: San Francisco, CA
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