In farming country, some electricians and "electricians" have a cavalier attitude toward ground vs neutral. I often see 3-wire outlets in farmhouses where the ground is connected to the neutral. I also paid an electrician to wire a freestanding cabinet at a tower site to the breaker box at the H-frame, and he mixed up ground and neutral. Bad things happened when the tower lights were on until I discovered and corrected this. The neutral wire may be pretty long all the way out to the transformer on the pole, and tower lights draw a lot of current.
-----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Seth Mattinen Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 10:49 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC Site Wiring Fault On 2/16/17 08:38, Chuck McCown wrote: > But they run back to two different bars. The neutral bar and the > ground bar. Then normally those two are bonded and the ground bar > goes to the building entrance ground rod. Any bad connection coupled > with decent amount of current causes voltage differences. Bonded only at the service entrance and separate at sub-panels; that's important. Also worth considering: there was a time when separate ground conductors wasn't required and it was OK to use the metal conduit itself as the ground path. This is no longer allowed because over time conduit fittings can loosen and make the ground bad, possibly intermittently. ~Seth
