Grounding Tek retrofit into wooden canopy? NEW troubles...

[sphelps]

Your house has ground wires, the ground spike is usually in the basement and connects to the copper piping and electrical panel. All your household outlets should be grounded, the ground wire connects from the electrical panel to all the metal electrical boxes then your light fixtures and outlets connect to the metal boxes. To ground your ballasts simply connect the green wire from the ballasts to the green wire from the power cable that plugs in the wall. Just be sure to use three prong power cords.

[intarsiabox]

Your neutral line (white) also acts a ground wire. The extra green ground wire is in the event a wire comes loose in a metal electric box the electricity will still be grounded to your house and not electrocute someone or cause a fire. As Sphelps says as long as you are grounding from your ballast to your electrical outlet you will be fine. You don't really need to add another ground from your wooden canopy to the house as the neutral wire is still grounding your fixture and the wooden canopy won't allow electricity to conduct through it in the event of a loose wire in the canopy. Just unplug the ballast before you do any work in the canopy such as bulb changes and you should have no problems.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by intarsiabox

Your neutral line (white) also acts a ground wire. The extra green ground wire is in the event a wire comes loose in a metal electric box the electricity will still be grounded to your house and not electrocute someone or cause a fire.

I'll have to disagree with this particular statement. The neutral is a return for the hot wire and should not be considered as what is commonly referred to as a 'ground'. The ground in your residence is connected to a grounding stake or other approved method of providing an 'earth' potential. The neutral (white) goes back to your breaker panel and essentially back to the power provider.

If you take a peek inside a properly wired breaker panel, you will see that the ground wire terminals are separate entities from the neutral wires which are attached to one side of your circuit breakers. EDIT: Ok my bad here, the neutrals are not attached to one side of the circuit breakers, but they are on a separate terminal bar which is connected to one of the lines coming into the house from the power company. The ground terminals are still separate from the neutrals though.

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by mike31154

I'll have to disagree with this particular statement. The neutral is a return for the hot wire and should not be considered as what is commonly referred to as a 'ground'. The ground in your residence is connected to a grounding stake or other approved method of providing an 'earth' potential. The neutral (white) goes back to your breaker panel and essentially back to the power provider.

If you take a peek inside a properly wired breaker panel, you will see that the ground wire terminals are separate entities from the neutral wires which are attached to one side of your circuit breakers.

You can disagree with me if you want as it's only my opinion but I think they essentially both do the same thing, one is continuous and the other is only for emergencies. Both take the electricity away (flow through) from the unit to prevent it from over heating or becoming electrified and causing damage to the unit or the unfortunate person who touches it. As you stated one sends the power back to the breaker panel and then onto the grid so it can be sold again and the other sends it back to the breaker panel and then on to the earth were it is lost. I'm not an electrician by trade even though I work with it all the time and I'll have to ask one of my electricians but don't some breaker panels use the same bar for both the neutral and ground wires? Maybe this is old technology and not current code?

[cwatkins]

Since we all know Wikipedia is the source of all factual infomation (), see below:

Ground or earth in a mains (AC power) electrical wiring system is a conductor that provides a low impedance path to the earth to prevent hazardous voltages from appearing on equipment (the terms "ground" (North American practice) and "earth" (most other English-speaking countries) are used synonymously here). Normally a grounding conductor does not carry current.

Neutral is a circuit conductor (that carries current in normal operation), which is connected to earth (or ground) generally at the service panel with the main disconnecting switch or breaker.

This also explains why two conductor plugs always have one bigger prong, so that neutral always goes to the neutral connector in the outlet?

[hillegom]

In my 1970s house, the neutral went back to the breaker box and connected to all the other neutrals. This bus bar was connected to the incomming neutral and to the grounding bus bar and then to a 10 foot (I think 10 ft) grounding rod close to the breaker box

[KrazyKuch]

Originally Posted by hillegom

In my 1970s house, the neutral went back to the breaker box and connected to all the other neutrals. This bus bar was connected to the incomming neutral and to the grounding bus bar and then to a 10 foot (I think 10 ft) grounding rod close to the breaker box

Is correct, your neutral does get grounded at your panel Once and only once, The real difference is that you can get shocked from a neutral since it is carrying a load, but you can't get shocked from a ground..

Myka just make sure that you take the ground wire from your power cord and attach it to your ballast with the same screw you use to hold it in the canopy!

[mike31154]

If your ballast has 3 wires going in, hopefully one green, then you're pretty much good to go. Don't worry about mounting to the wood since your ballast should already be safetied.

You also mentioned a green grounding wire in the kit, is this an extra piece in addition to the third wire in the cord going to the ballast? Some pics of the set up would be helpful, but in the meantime I'll look up the tek retro fixture online to see if that helps me visualize what you have.

My T5HO set up is a bit more of a diy rig with Workhorse ballasts and water resistant endcaps I purchased seperately. It also has individual reflectors for each lamp and I found grounding each reflector was a good idea since I was getting tingles when brushing against the reflectors with my hand in the water. Any piece of wiring will do for this purpose and it can be attached to one of the mounting screws you use to mount the ballast. Since your ballast case is metal, it will provide grounding for your reflectors through the ballast case. If they're clip on reflectors with metal screws holding the clips, you can attach the ground wire there. You'll need one for each reflector unless you prefer to link each reflector with another short piece of wire. Either way it gets to be a bit of a hassle when removing reflectors for cleaning, but that's the price you pay for added safety.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by sphelps

Your house has ground wires, the ground spike is usually in the basement and connects to the copper piping and electrical panel. All your household outlets should be grounded, the ground wire connects from the electrical panel to all the metal electrical boxes then your light fixtures and outlets connect to the metal boxes. To ground your ballasts simply connect the green wire from the ballasts to the green wire from the power cable that plugs in the wall. Just be sure to use three prong power cords.

Ok thanks Steve, I didn't really get the whole grounded outlet thing, but that clarifies it. Obviously, from the work I've done in the past I've seen all this electrical that you're talking about, but I didn't understand how it all worked with each other. I was also thinking that I just need to connect the greens to each other (between ballast and plug end).

Originally Posted by mike31154

You also mentioned a green grounding wire in the kit, is this an extra piece in addition to the third wire in the cord going to the ballast? ... My T5HO set up is a bit more of a diy rig with Workhorse ballasts and water resistant endcaps I purchased seperately. It also has individual reflectors for each lamp

No extra ground wire. The ground comes right out of the ballast, and needs to be connect to the green end coming out of the power cord. Power cord has a male outlet plug on one end, 8' of cord, and the three bare wires on the other end.

The Tek retrofit that I have sounds just like the one you describe. It all has to be wired up DIY. Clip on reflectors too.

Originally Posted by mike

...and I found grounding each reflector was a good idea since I was getting tingles when brushing against the reflectors with my hand in the water. ... Either way it gets to be a bit of a hassle when removing reflectors for cleaning, but that's the price you pay for added safety.

Hmmm, I was wondering about that too. The clip on reflectors are notorious for the "tingle".

[cwatkins]

An easy to use grounding kit is usually a green wire, one end can be screwed onto a piece of metal (your hood) and the other end has a plug with 3 prongs. The 2 power prongs are plastic as not to conduct electricity, and the third ground prong is metal, and is how the grounding kit grounds itself to earth ground via your outlet. (just plug it in!).

Alternatively, if you're handy and qualified, you can open up your outlet and hard wire the grounding wire to your earth ground.