Bryan;
One thing missing in many installations is a good ground connection from the
block to the chassis. My preference is for a piece of 1" wide braided copper
between the block and chassis. This would cure half of the problems that
I've seen.
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan Savage [mailto:basavage@earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 3:14 PM
To: Albaugh, Neil; List Land Speed
Subject: Re: Speaking of battery voltage
I agree with you Neil.
My 'grounding' paranoia comes from experiences with new computer
installations in the '60's
and helping people with their cars at Bonneville. Poor grounds have
always been part of the
ESD & EMI problems I've seen at Bonneville. Current technology
electronics (last 10 yr's)
is vastly better at resisting these problems than the good old stuff.
Short pieces of 2/0 & 4/0 copper wire (10'-20') can be picked up from an
electrician cheap,
much less than the same size battery cable.
Have fun,
Bryan
Albaugh, Neil wrote:
>Bryan;
>
>True, but if you have enough of it, iron or steel will do just fine.
>
>Comparing conductors with the same length, steel may have much higher
>resistivity than copper but if the steel conductor's cross-sectional area
is
>far, far larger than the copper conductor, its resistance will be lower.
>
>Grounding on an iron block or using a steel chassis as a ground return
isn't
>necessarily bad; there's lots of cross-sectional area to carry the current.
>The problem usually appears as a result of poor connections to the chassis.
>Terminals should be clean and tight to get a good connection. Eventually
>rust and corrosion will degrade the connection so it should be re-cleaned
>once in a while.
>
>Of course, using a heavy copper ground return wire eliminates any potential
>problems with chassis grounds.
>
>I've even seen one case where fiberglass was used as a "ground". Bad idea!
>
>Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
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