On March 2, 2017 at 13:41, Ernie Gilman said...
If there is a ground potential difference between different "ground" points, a lower resistance/impedance along the length of the ground conductor will result in lower injection of noise. I've seen a demonstration (Middle Atlantic seminar with Bob Whitlock) of cheap-ass audio cables with very low shield resistance being quiet, while a super expensive audio cable with 5 ohms resistance long the ground conductor just hummed along!
You also have an unsafe electrical system. "How did he die?" "He made the mistake of touching the ground of something plugged into Panel B while touching the ground of Panel A."
I'd think your threat to report him to the state contractor's licensing agency would get him to take care of that. And you should probably report him whether he fixes it or not.
That definitely shows there's a potential difference ( = danger) between the two grounds.
I know- I have been dealing with ground loops for 40+ years. Also, Bill Whitlock may have done a presentation for Middle Atlantic, but he's the major force behind Jensen Transformers and all of their great White Paper tech briefs that have been linked to and quoted over the years. The first time I went to one of his presentations was in the early-'80s at CES and again in '05, when I was at CEDIA. It's always a good thing to go a learn/relearn what he has to say.
The electrician was from Illinois, he never pulled a permit and didn't respond to any calls. I found out that he never pulled the permit when the local inspector stopped by to check into the permit I had pulled for some other work and he was decent enough to let the garage work be sistered to the circuit being installed for the new furnace. Since he was there, I asked him if he wanted to check out the garage and that's when he found the code violations. I acted as the helper when the new work was done since I had worked on several jobs with the electrician when I was with another integrator, but the garage was wired about a year before.
The possibility of danger depends completely on the resistance between the two points and the current and since the garage is detached, there was little chance of contacting the ground for each. I didn't measure the voltage but the lack of a bonding conductor doesn't prove a PD, it just attempts to prevent it from existing. Regardless, it's still the current that poses the risk, not the voltage and since the neutral was intact, the difference wasn't great.
I have seen expensive cables hum like a banshee and cheap crap work very well- it definitely shoots holes in the sales pitch for something that costs more than a few cars I have owned.
