KStatefan Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I am finishing up my control box for my pixel tree and was wondering how many of you bond the negative of the secondary (5 Volt) with the ground on the primary (120 Volt). I think I should bond them together. Does it make a difference if I have a 12 volt and a 5 volt power supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobschm Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I don't. They are probably connected somehow inside the supply anyway. If not, then the engineers had a reason. Tying them together again outside could create a ground loop. Probably won't harm anything but it could introduce noise and make things misbehave. Try it both ways and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viennaxmas Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 You absolutely should not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 You absolutely should not.OK.. this is not necessarily true. There needs to be more info to answer this question correctly. First off many power supplies are isolated on the secondary and bonding the common on the output to ground is not necessarily a bad thing.. As a matter of fact there are sections in the NEC that require bonding to ground of a LV secondary. Not all but some.. In many cases grounding the secondary of an isolated supply can help with data noise issues. I doubt that is the case with what we are doing but there are times that it helps. I would not in most cases for what we do in this hobby. I do bond the conduits that I mount my Plasma Icicles on. They are not physically grounded but they acted as antenna or inductive coupling links (like a transformer core) in some sections and caused me some grief. In the end I used Pixel Extenders and the bonding became a non issue. But before I added the Extenders the bonding helped quiet things down quite a bit. It all depends on the circumstances of your system.... If the output is not isolated than that would be a bad thing.. and the "You absolutely should not." applies. Most Meanwell supplies are ok to ground but I would be leery of the cheapy supplies. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KStatefan Posted November 22, 2014 Author Share Posted November 22, 2014 You absolutely should not. Why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KStatefan Posted November 22, 2014 Author Share Posted November 22, 2014 OK.. this is not necessarily true. There needs to be more info to answer this question correctly. First off many power supplies are isolated on the secondary and bonding the common on the output to ground is not necessarily a bad thing.. As a matter of fact there are sections in the NEC that require bonding to ground of a LV secondary. Not all but some.. In many cases grounding the secondary of an isolated supply can help with data noise issues. I doubt that is the case with what we are doing but there are times that it helps. I would not in most cases for what we do in this hobby. I do bond the conduits that I mount my Plasma Icicles on. They are not physically grounded but they acted as antenna or inductive coupling links (like a transformer core) in some sections and caused me some grief. In the end I used Pixel Extenders and the bonding became a non issue. But before I added the Extenders the bonding helped quiet things down quite a bit. It all depends on the circumstances of your system.... If the output is not isolated than that would be a bad thing.. and the "You absolutely should not." applies. Most Meanwell supplies are ok to ground but I would be leery of the cheapy supplies. Thanks for that answer. I do not think I will unless I have some type of issue. I know the the manual of my E682 says to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viennaxmas Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Sorry... Thanks for clarifying plasma - I had some kind of blackout... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KStatefan Posted November 24, 2014 Author Share Posted November 24, 2014 (edited) I installed it without the bonding. Hopefully everything works good on Friday. I did not get my star done yet. It is going to have to wait until next year. Edited November 24, 2014 by KStatefan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 very nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KStatefan Posted November 24, 2014 Author Share Posted November 24, 2014 very nice! Thanks Not as nice as some of the works of art I have seen posted here. If I was to start over would have made sure I had the same voltage for the tree and the star. I should have also mounted the network switch some where else to give better access to the power supplies. It is hard to tell in that picture but there are two power supplies in the box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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