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 <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> 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 > > [email protected] > > > >
