I see grounding the dust collection hose talked about a lot around the forum. I have had issues in the past in marlin mode on my LR3 of the screen going bazirk in the middle of a cut and when i asked about it static in the ungrounded hose was the most common answer. I still haven’t gotten around to grounding it. I also haven’t had any more issues since re routing it up and over and also using Touch screen mode after the latest TFT update. But now that im running Touch screen and the SD card in the screen it has me a little more concerned about it.
What size copper wire is recommend?
I assume start the wire where the hose ends on the LR3 and wrap it around the hose all the way back to the dust collection but then where should i ground it to? an outlet? i have no access to a separate ground rod where its at. Nothing but concrete every direction for 15’.
Can i use the wire thats already in the flex hose as the ground? so hook copper wire to where the hose hooks up to the PVC?
Sorry if these questions seem dumb. Googling gets you every answer under the sun. At least here i know i can trust this group…for the most part LOL
Grab the end of the wire, then gather the family, and make a human chain to the youngest standing barefoot in a puddle outside. That should do the trick.
But my theory is that the static charge is a low amount of charge, but it adds up to a large voltage, which can spark (like most static electricity).
If you put even a very small wire, completely exposed (no insulation), any build up of charge will go down the wire before it builds up.
The current moving down the wire will be so small, you probably can’t measure it. You don’t need a big block at the end. The screw that holds the face plate to your electrical outlet would be fine. A screw on your PSU case is probably easier, and less risk.
That is for the “nominal” operation. And it is only based on theory. If that wire were to touch something electrically hot, and you were to accidentally short through that cable to ground, it would be bad. A small wire could catch fire before a breaker blew. So I would guess any actual code would require a big enough wire to be safe in any conditions.
You have to choose your own level of risk you are willing to accept. Do you think there is any chance that wire will be shorted to AC power? Probably not.
BTW, you can buy vacuum hose that has a metal spiral in it. Even though it is insulated, if you grounded that, it would probably be fine.
So if I could put a ground wire to the end of the wire for the hose at the pvc end and run it back to the outlet where the lr3 plugs into and tap into ground (safely) that should work correct?
Now to look on Amazon and see what sizes of non insulated copper wire is available
There should be a fair amount of grounding wire selection. I added a grounding rod to my house a while ago for my powder coat setup. I wonder if you could tie into that.
I just didn’t want to use my house wire as a grounding source and found that a specific ground peg worked well.
Next time I use my machine I will run some tests with my gauss meter and see what kind of charge is being built up.
Just curious tho does your dust collector use a 2 prong plug or a 3 ?
I thought about bringing the idea up about using the charge or static to your benefit in a plastic bucket to static attract to the inside of bucket. But then I thought about the fine dust and the spark chances of making a sawdust bomb.
I have the harbor freight dust collector and it has a 3 prong plug. If I run it along the pipe and instead of going back to the dust collector (would be a royal pain) I go along the other direction I can end up right at my garage breaker panel and just tie it into the ground strip in there. I’m sure I didn’t make much sense there but it works good in my head lol
You can also ground it to any metal on the dust collector itself.
My understanding is you want some of the wire in the tube exposed. If you’re going to use the wire in the tube, then you might need to reach up into the tube a ways and scrape some of the plastic off the wire.
People that use pvc pipe usually screw a screw through the pipe so that the tip of the screw pokes into the path of the dust. They’ll do this every so often along the tube and then run a wire to all the screws.
