Power Conditioners

[dsavitsk]

Older homes did not have grounds as there was no need for them at the time. The wiring for the homes only had two conductors. The only way to fix it would be to re-wire your house... Which becomes a rabbit hole.

 

There was concern that our house was partially knob & tube. We had an electrician poke around, and it turns out not to be. However, he said he rewired an entire house in the neighborhood and it cost $35K (plus wall repair).

[CarlSeibert]

We'll, that part worked out. The carpet looks great, by the way.

[nopants]

They are certainly 3-prong outlets, and it adds up if you figure that this guy bought the house in '87 and has used a family friend as a combination plumber/electrician...

 

Maybe I shouldn't be plugging electrostatic amplifiers into the house for the near-term.

[dsavitsk]

I'd guess that a combination plumber/electrician is neither.

 

Are there metal pipes or radiators that might provide an earth connection?

[kevin gilmore]

if your water pipes are copper, they are usable as a ground.

[guzziguy]

That probably works but wouldn't be to code in California.

 

Possibly the least painful "to code" fix would be just to change out the plain, non-grounded 3-wire outlets for GFCI outlets.  It's not as good as having a ground but much better than having no ground.  A better thing to do would be to rewire the just circuit(s) you need for your music room.

[Grand Enigma]

Depending on your locality you might not be able to legally replace only a portion of of the circuits in the house without doing the whole thing.

 

GFCI would be good, but they are not legal for use everywhere.

 

I would definitely not be using an electrostatic amp in a house without a ground

[kevin gilmore]

gfi outlets will not work without a real ground.

they work by measuring differential current.

[Dreadhead]

They offer some protection and will trip for appliances or humans etc. but aren't as good as when they are grounded and don't control current well enough for electronics etc. Still much better than trusting the circuit breaker to stop your kid getting shocked to hell.

 

We are about to have the grounding fight with the outlets in our new home it's all weird because a single wall will have two 3-prongs that are correctly grounded and then one 2 prong. I'm hoping that the boxes are grounded somehow but I'm guessing it's going to cost a bit to get everything rewired...

[nopants]

I guess the real solution is to find a new place to live- abuse the advantages of not being a property owner...I can make the hum die down a bit by touching the component metal surfaces, maybe a grounding wrist strap is in order?

 

Is this still an issue if I use an isolation transformer? As I understand things so far, it's a giant 1:1 where the outlet side is grounded, but not on the component side. If ground is open on the outlet side the isolated side shouldn't see anything different right? By this logic I could just buy one large enough to handle my entire chain...assuming I can find one that doesn't hum.

[CraigBuckingham]

Why not run an earth line dedicated just for your hi-fi system?

 

Out the window or through the floor or over your shoulder even.

[DefQon]

Or buy a stash of chokes and hook up the AC wires to it.

[MagusG]

Anyone familiar with the OneAC brand power conditioners?  I've had one for a while now and it seems to do its job.

[Pars]

The semiconductor manufacturer I used to work for used these on their laser systems (back in the '80s). No opinion on how well they work for audio.

 

I did pull a floor tile once to find the hose running from the laser PSU/cooling unit to the laser was spewing water all over the 440V OneAC under the floor

 

Fortunately it was DI water, and we got the breakers shut down

[Jon L]

Clearly the answer is the new Tesla (as in Teslamotors) home battery.  Power the entire home off the grid.

 

TeslaBattery by drjlo1, on Flickr

 

http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

[Grand Enigma]

Will be replacing my cabinet of lead-acid batteries with two of those as soon as I can.

[nopants]

I fixed my hum problem by buying an isopuck and a grounding strap, I wear it while I listen to the SR007

 

happiest ending 

[Jon L]

My Liebert GXT2 double-conversion UPS I use for audio developed a "fault," and after some poking around, I traced the problem to one of the 4 SLA batteries being bad, measuring only 5 some volts and unable to be charged by charger.  The problem is, Liebert itself seems to have gone completely to industrial grade equipment only and GXT2 series seems to have been long discontinued.  The SLA batteries inside are B.B. batteries SH7-12, and B.B. does not exist anymore, although I found some replacement names on the net and ordered one.  It's too bad Liebert doesn't seem to make the smaller models anymore, as I really like the sonic qualities of Libert after replacing the fan (very loud) with Nexus quiet fan and swapping in some better AC outlets.  

How long are SLA batteries supposed to last in UPS environment and should I have replaced all 4 batteries?  

0610171351 by drjlo1, on Flickr

[HiWire]

Schneider Electric says SLA batteries last about 3-5 years: http://blog.schneider-electric.com/it-management/2014/08/28/recommendations-prolonging-life-ups-battery/

That matches my experience with my APC and CyberPower UPS at work. People claim that APC is overly-conservative in their battery ratings (some of their UPS units will stop working until you get a new battery, based on the installation date of the current battery), so you might be able to get a longer life out of an SLA in your Liebert, as long as you can keep the batteries near their optimum temperature (77°F).

You did the smart thing... if the replacement you ordered works properly, you can budget for more of them. If the other batteries are showing the right voltage and they can take a charge, you can leave them for now.