[Amps] What to do about 'Neutral' in HB amp?

[Jeff DePolo]

I'm probably going to catch hell from a moderator, but virtually everything
that is written below is so wrong that it's not worth picking apart.  But to
possibly prevent someone from doing something that could result in injury or
worse:

> The functionality is different, neutral is for
> human safety, ground wire is low impedance path to the actual ground.

This is 100% bass-ackwards.  Neutral (or what is correctly called the
"grounded conductor") *is* a current-carrying conductor.  It is *not* for
human safety.  On the utility side, It is most often the center tap of the
secondary feeding a 120/240 split-phase residential service, or the center
of a wye, or the center tap of one side of a delta.  Yeah, I know, there are
corner-grounded deltas and the like, but they're pretty rare.

The "green wire" is often called "ground" but is more accurately called the
equipment grounding conductor - it is NOT for carrying load current, only
fault current.  It *is* for human protection.  Its purpose is to provide a
low-impedance path for fault current in order to trip/blow the overcurrent
protection device (fuse, breaker, etc.) in the event a phase conductor comes
in contact with the equipment frame, wireway, or other "grounded" conductive
object.

The neutral (grounded conductor) only becomes a grounded conductor by virtue
of being bonded to the ground system (i.e. the grounding conductor and
grounding electrodes) at the first disconnect means via the system bonding
jumper.  Lacking that bond, neutral has no reference to ground, nor do the
phase conductors; this of course ignores other customers sharing same
transformer secondary and the resulting earth connection by and between
their respective ground systems with their neutrals bonded to them.

					--- Jeff WN3A


> You need to connect the Amp chassis to the AC neutral (wire connected to
> the
> ground at the AC entrance), and you need to connect the Amp chassis to the
> ground of the station, at same time, the  ground of the station need to be
> connected to the AC ground at the entrance. All neutral wires must be
> connected to only one point!
> 
> You cannot do both at the same time.
> 
> If you don't isolate the AC house ground from the station ground, also
> neutral, because it is also connected at the AC entrance, you end up with
a
> UNSAFE ground. RF can flow to the house, EMF generate currents on both
> wires
> and you want the current to the ground, not to your house. It is a mess.
> 
> Neutral or ground are two names for the same thing, a wire from the
chassis
> to a bar on the ground. But!  


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