this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
71 points (98.6% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35776 readers
952 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

To start off: I was explaining to my friend that I don't have a grounding point in my house (plumbing is PVC, outlets are gcfi protected only, not allowed to drive a grounding rod into the ground, etc...) and that I've just been handling sensitive electronics with just luck and preparation (humidity, moisturizer, no synthetic clothing, etc...) all this time. He told me to just wire myself to a good, multimeter tested, grounding point in a car and that will discharge any built-up static electricity. I'm not smart enough to argue with him on this subject but that doesnt seem the safest. Would that work or should I just keep doing my method? My understanding is that chassis grounding is essentially replacing wires with the frame so the outcome would just be connecting myself to the negative terminal of a car battery.

Tldr: I'm explaining my lack of a grounding point at home for sensitive electronics and is advised by my friend to wire myself to a grounded point in a car to discharge built-up static electricity. However, I'm uncertain about the safety of this suggestion and questions whether my current method of handling electronics with precautions is sufficient.

Edit: lmao people are really getting hung up on the no grounded outlet part. Umm my best explanation I guess is that its an older house that had 2 prong outlets and was "updated" with gfci protected outlets afterwards think the breakers as well. My understanding is that its up to code but I'm not an electrician. As for the plumbing I'm sure there's still copper somewhere but the majority has been updated to pvc over the years. Again it's not my house I don't want to go biting the hand that feeds me. Thank you though, haha

Edit #2: thank you all so much for the helpful advice, I really appreciate all of you!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This is what was told to me by an old-timer electrician.

You dig a hole, 2m x 2m x 1.5m (or as deep as you can dig with a shovel). You take the load cylinder from an old washing machine. Weld a rod to that thing (on the side of the cylinder, not the middle). Make the welds good cuz that thing will go under ground and the elements will eat through it in a matter of years if it's not welded correctly. Put the cylinder with the rod in the ground. Make a mixture of about 3 to 5kg of salt with soil (depending on the size of the cylinder and the type of soil) and fill the cylinder up with that. Put the rest of the dirt in the hole. Voila, a grounding solution that will last at least 50 years (or at least that's what he told me).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Are you doing a bit? Why is a salt filled washing machine tub needed for grounding?

You can literally buy a grounding rod on Amazon for like $20 with a cord to connect to whatever you need. Just buy one of those and run the cable out the window. It has a handle, it pulls out of the ground when you’re done, and you can clean it off and put it away. No permanent installation required.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Are you doing a bit? Why is a salt filled washing machine tub needed for grounding?

More active surface in touch with the soil, better conductivity. The salt increases conductivity. Once it starts transferring some of it to the sourrounding soil, the conductivity will be even better.

You can literally buy a grounding rod on Amazon for like $20 with a cord to connect to whatever you need. Just buy one of those and run the cable out the window. It has a handle, it pulls out of the ground when you’re done, and you can clean it off and put it away. No permanent installation required.

I was talking about a permanent solution, not a temporary one.