Electrical Grounding, AIN’T NO JOKE...

So, I've made progress on grounding.

After drilling and sawing away footer concrete to reach rebar, and then filing away at the rebar, the results, as measured by the Megger DET 24C Ohm meter, were not great: 135 ohms which is higher than my old ground at 85 ohms.

So, I disconnected the ground wire from the rebar and connected to stainless steel rods. They are laid horizontal in a 30 foot trench about 30" deep, with a Bentonite slurry in the trench.

The meter now measures 18 ohms, so a big improvement! I'll continue to add another 100 lbs of powdered Bentonite to be power-mixed with water to fill the rest of the trench. Bentonite absorbs water x 60 so that will be another 6000 lbs of slurry into the trench which should continue to increase the conductivity-- I hope.

I also may run another wire from the rebar to the rod and cover the drilled out footer area with a concrete/bentonite mix. I'll see if that increases conductivity further.

Finally, the Ohm meter has been essential for someone like me to have an idea of what's working and what's not. These meters sell for $1700, but I found a place in Texas that rents the for $10/day: Protec Equipment Resources.
 
Willco said:
So, I've made progress on grounding.

After drilling and sawing away footer concrete to reach rebar, and then filing away at the rebar, the results, as measured by the Megger DET 24C Ohm meter, were not great: 135 ohms which is higher than my old ground at 85 ohms.

So, I disconnected the ground wire from the rebar and connected to stainless steel rods. They are laid horizontal in a 30 foot trench about 30" deep, with a Bentonite slurry in the trench.

The meter now measures 18 ohms, so a big improvement! I'll continue to add another 100 lbs of powdered Bentonite to be power-mixed with water to fill the rest of the trench. Bentonite absorbs water x 60 so that will be another 6000 lbs of slurry into the trench which should continue to increase the conductivity-- I hope.

I also may run another wire from the rebar to the rod and cover the drilled out footer area with a concrete/bentonite mix. I'll see if that increases conductivity further.

Finally, the Ohm meter has been essential for someone like me to have an idea of what's working and what's not. These meters sell for $1700, but I found a place in Texas that rents the for $10/day: Protec Equipment Resources.
Click to expand...

Willco, you literally took my thread at heart - I am designating you as “The Ambassador of Hardcore Audio”.

I/we look forward to hearing your results and by the way you have assembled a nice system [emoji851]


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Willco, sorry the concrete encased electrode did not work well. I feel bad. How old is the Foundation. It seemed pretty corroded, I wonder how long that rebar really remains solid and grounded in the concrete.

Interesting the stainless steel rod and the ground enhancing material is doing well. How many bags do you have in there now? Are you paying $100 a bag shipped?

Thanks for noting the rental company. I might get a device to test ed's and my place. I'm curious now. I especially want to know the result of adding a ground rod to my place. That as much as how well is my concrete encased electrod working.
 
Thanks for the inspiration. It's been fun -- that is, if you're in to hammer drills, ditch digging and bentonite slurry. Honestly, the bentonite is a blast. I was finally able to locate it locally at a ceramics supply, but it's available online around $70/ 50 lb bag. I think it will take almost 200 lbs to completely fill the trench. The amount of water this stuff absorbs is out of this world: 60:1. (My steel cut oats are like 4:1 !).

I'm going to give the rebar connection another try: burr it down even more, apply some intense audiophile contact enhancement to the clamp and bury it in a mix of concrete/bentonite-- and measure. The rebar and foundation are only 10 yrs old and judging from the section I exposed, is extremely well bonded to the concrete.
 
I'm surprised you're getting such a low reading from it. But numbers don't lie.

I have never used one of these ground resistance tester is. Do you do something like clamp-on to the rebar then take another probe and stuff it into the ground 10 or 15 feet away? If so, are you sure the dirt you're sticking your other probe into is making good contact? I'm honestly asking as I don't know, and want to understand that the tests are all being performed in a way to provide a reliable and consistent result. The probe you're sticking in the ground outside by the Bentonite might be damp exterior soil where's the probe you're sticking in the ground with the rebar Baby Dry powdery Earth under a house. But once again I'm really not sure how it's all connected together.
 
The Bentonite locally was actually $85 per 100 lbs, so that was a good deal.

After pouring additional slurry from another 50 lb bag, the reading is now down to 12 ohms. With each 100 lbs of slurry, the ohms would drop as much as a point. I'm tempted to get one more bag to see if I've reach diminishing returns or not...

The Meggar "Digital Earth Clamp" model DET24C doesn't use contacts or probes. The clamp just goes around the wire and reads the ohm levels accurately. It comes with a handy "check loop" which lets you test the clamps calibration at 0.1, 10 and 25 ohms.

My current set up is wired from panel bus to 30' of stainless steel rod buried in trench. I then have another wire from the footer rebar (buried in a cement/bentonite mix) spliced into the primary wire.

The interesting thing is the differing ohm measurements on different wires. As shown in pictures below:

the main wire below panel reads lowest at 11.9 ohm.
the main wire below the spliced wire junction reads 12.7 ohms
and the splice wire from rebar to main wire reads 64 ohms

Common sense would tell me to disconnect the splice wire because of it's much higher resistance, but when I do, the main wire's resistance goes up by a couple of points.

I'm not sure how that makes sense...
 

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Your not suppose to splice a ground. Why not take it to the panel?

What type stainless. Stuff looks to be about $9 per foot at half inch or so diameter. 10 foot sticks? Did you weld them together?
 
OK, I disconnected the splice. It raised the resistance from 12 to 13, but that's fine.

I used the #304, .5" stainless rod. It's $1/foot. in 12 foot sticks.
 
Owe leave the splice. I was just noting. Splicing is not legal because the connection can corrode appart or oxidize losing your ground. Who really cares in your case. It's better with it in the overall system. I would leave it if it was me. When you get it all to a final state, I would detox that splice point and wrap it good with electric tape.
 
Most important, now that you have a much better grounded main service at your house, do you hear a difference in your audio playback when you connect or disconnect that new ground system.
 
I haven't done an A/B comparison of before ground and after as I just don't want to hassle with it.

I will say the sound is significantly better these days. But, I've made three other changes in the last two weeks ( 1. switch to Dueland speaker and ic cables, 2. Linear power supply on modem, and 3. Gigafoil with Keces ps), so the improved grounding is just more accumulation of improvement.

I would definitely recommend dedicated audiophiles check out their grounding by renting an Ohm meter like the Megger ($10/day) and, if the resistance measurements are high, bury some rods in bentonite. With the bentonite, I think a horizontal trench is easier depending on your yard space.
 
Anybody upgraded the circuit breakers in their panels ? If so, any recommendation on the brand/model ? Here is what MSB (Vince Glabo) has to say about it:

"I recommend new breakers if they are older then one year or so. (they are cheap). If you get the original equipment circuit breakers (like Square D, Siemens, etc.), from an electrical supply house (not Home Depot or Lowe’s), you will likely get silver-tungsten contacts inside the breaker. Cheap replacement breakers are likely to have copper contacts which have higher resistance and will oxidize over time raising the resistance further. Research with your local electrical supply and ask them to look up the breaker contact material to confirm it is silver or silver tungsten."

I searched couple of them but they don't seem to specify the contact used. Anybody know who makes breakers with silver or silver/tungsten contact ?
 
Devg said:
Anybody upgraded the circuit breakers in their panels ? If so, any recommendation on the brand/model ? Here is what MSB (Vince Glabo) has to say about it:

"I recommend new breakers if they are older then one year or so. (they are cheap). If you get the original equipment circuit breakers (like Square D, Siemens, etc.), from an electrical supply house (not Home Depot or Lowe’s), you will likely get silver-tungsten contacts inside the breaker. Cheap replacement breakers are likely to have copper contacts which have higher resistance and will oxidize over time raising the resistance further. Research with your local electrical supply and ask them to look up the breaker contact material to confirm it is silver or silver tungsten."

I searched couple of them but they don't seem to specify the contact used. Anybody know who makes breakers with silver or silver/tungsten contact ?
Click to expand...

Will do some research on this -


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Pretty darn confident there's absolutely no difference between a Homeline or QO circuit breaker from Home Depot or one from a supply house. I worked at Schneider Electric ( Square D is a branch of Schneider) for almost four years and nobody ever talked anything as such. They are over-the-top concerned about margins and keep their product lines as streamlined as possible. I'm pretty sure there's only one plant assembling those circuit breakers for the USA.

QO are definitely the gold standard. They are more robust and can be purchased with a much higher AIC rating. AIC is Arch Interrupting Capacity. It's the ability to withstand exploding underneath a bolted ground fault or short circuit occurrence. The jaws clamping to the bus bar or much more robust and can also be purchased as a bolt-on. Additional QO panels can be purchased with copper bus instead of the mixed alloy in Homeline.

I will say this. There are plenty of CopyCat circuit breakers sold on eBay that are not Square D. I would only purchase them from a Home Depot or supply house.

You're not going to get a panel with copper bus from Home Depot unless you special order it. Supply houses carry them in stock and a 125 amp 24 space MLO panel may only cost about $80.

Square D no longer makes copper ground bars. Not unless you're in distribution gear. You will have to get an aftermarket set and put them on the PKG standoff.
 
Kingrex said:
Pretty darn confident there's absolutely no difference between a Homeline or QO circuit breaker from Home Depot or one from a supply house. I worked at Schneider Electric ( Square D is a branch of Schneider) for almost four years and nobody ever talked anything as such. They are over-the-top concerned about margins and keep their product lines as streamlined as possible. I'm pretty sure there's only one plant assembling those circuit breakers for the USA.

QO are definitely the gold standard. They are more robust and can be purchased with a much higher AIC rating. AIC is Arch Interrupting Capacity. It's the ability to withstand exploding underneath a bolted ground fault or short circuit occurrence. The jaws clamping to the bus bar or much more robust and can also be purchased as a bolt-on. Additional QO panels can be purchased with copper bus instead of the mixed alloy in Homeline.

I will say this. There are plenty of CopyCat circuit breakers sold on eBay that are not Square D. I would only purchase them from a Home Depot or supply house.

You're not going to get a panel with copper bus from Home Depot unless you special order it. Supply houses carry them in stock and a 125 amp 24 space MLO panel may only cost about $80.

Square D no longer makes copper ground bars. Not unless you're in distribution gear. You will have to get an aftermarket set and put them on the PKG standoff.
Click to expand...

Well my research was easy [emoji851]


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My grounding job is done. I added another 500lbs of bentonite slurry to the ground-rod trench to fill it to ground level. Interestingly, each time I've added another few hundred lbs, the Ohm level has dropped. In this case, .5 Ohm drop with this latest 500 lbs. Down to 11.9 Ohms (from 105 Ohms before).

I think this is the way to go if your soil is problematic-- that is, sandy or rocky.

Links below for cheap bentonite and info on ground rod/bentonite application. Best to find it local if you can to save on shipping.

http://cspforestry.com/products/sodium-bentonite-50-lb-bag.html

http://www.ground1.com/ground_rod_installation.htm
 
Willco said:
My grounding job is done. I added another 500lbs of bentonite slurry to the ground-rod trench to fill it to ground level. Interestingly, each time I've added another few hundred lbs, the Ohm level has dropped. In this case, .5 Ohm drop with this latest 500 lbs. Down to 11.9 Ohms (from 105 Ohms before).

I think this is the way to go if your soil is problematic-- that is, sandy or rocky.

Links below for cheap bentonite and info on ground rod/bentonite application. Best to find it local if you can to save on shipping.

http://cspforestry.com/products/sodium-bentonite-50-lb-bag.html

http://www.ground1.com/ground_rod_installation.htm
Click to expand...

Lots of work. Now tell us about the sound; did hear the veil lift?


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Ah, the proverbial Lifting of the Veil...

To be honest, I've been so consumed with digging ditches, drilling concrete, pouring slurry, and measuring Ohms, that I haven't had much time to... oh, yeah... listen to the damn Stereo.

I will say it sounds super Damn Good. But while I've been on this grounding journey, I've also put in some Duelund tinned copper cables, contact enhancer paste on plugs and tube pins, a linear ps on the modem and added a Gigafoil. So, I honestly have no idea how to attribute a particular benefit to any of this independently.

But, it is strangely satisfying to revel in my low Ohm readings (down to 11.5 this morning!).
 
Willco said:
Ah, the proverbial Lifting of the Veil...

To be honest, I've been so consumed with digging ditches, drilling concrete, pouring slurry, and measuring Ohms, that I haven't had much time to... oh, yeah... listen to the damn Stereo.

I will say it sounds super Damn Good. But while I've been on this grounding journey, I've also put in some Duelund tinned copper cables, contact enhancer paste on plugs and tube pins, a linear ps on the modem and added a Gigafoil. So, I honestly have no idea how to attribute a particular benefit to any of this independently.

But, it is strangely satisfying to revel in my low Ohm readings (down to 11.5 this morning!).
Click to expand...

Totally get what your saying. The normal was always several changes at once and what contributed what, I’ll never know, but what I do know is everything you’ve done is cumulative and I’m positive your in a much better place sonically, now mentally and physically may be a different matter [emoji851]


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