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Clean Earth sockets

I’m just wondering about how clean earth sockets (Some of you may call these high integrity sockets) fit into the requirements of BS7671 in terms of their use in domestic homes.


One of my clients has asked me to look into the use of some clean earth sockets to be used to power audio equipment in their home studio, the basic idea is that a completely separate Earth helps eliminate what’s known as an earth hum on audio equipment caused by functional earth leakage of other equipment connected to the same circuit and disturbances originating from the suppliers earthing arrangement. The basic concept seems to be to insulate the cpc from the earth terminal of the socket outlet which then has its own independent Earth electrode, high integrity sockets seem designed to accept and insulate a cpc and a separate earth. 


My concern is that this sort of thing is usually used in a restricted access environment where only IT or audio engineers are going to be around and might be considered trained and competent to understand the risk of introducing an earth potential to the equipotential zone that is not in itself connected to the equipotential bonding. It wouldn’t be a problem if I could guarantee restricted access or that the socket would only supply class 2 equipment, but as this is a home studio it seems a bad idea to have an earthed metal casing of some piece of audio equipment that may be completely separate from all other earthing and bonding in the property? 


id appreciate your thoughts and advice please, I’m confident a separate clean earth will resolve the earth hum problem which I’ve seen work well in theatres (essentially restricted access) before but never in a domestic property.


Edit: I should add that the property is a TT property but because the street is a hodgepodge of TNS and TNCS (I have other neighbouring clients really close by) you should assume the gas and water pipe are throwing in a bit of PME related disturbance.
Parents
  • I would not recommend SY... the cable's not compliant with any known british standards. It's ok when used within equipment (that doesn't come under 7671). It's also not actually very well screened (admittedly I tend to think of anything with less than 150% (100% on one layer and at least 50% on the other) as not well screened..., from an RF perspective.


    An alternative to SY or steel conduit would be FP200 or equivalent. That has a full 100% screen in intimate contact with the CPC (you'd need 3 core+E if you still wanted to run your clean earth, and the cable would be screened using the 'dirty' earth of the CPC, but you'd be way down into diminishing returns by that point.


    Finally... I'd like to say that Chris is very helpful;... it may be that in this case he is not seeing (or hearing) the issue, but he is most certainly trying to help. :)
Reply
  • I would not recommend SY... the cable's not compliant with any known british standards. It's ok when used within equipment (that doesn't come under 7671). It's also not actually very well screened (admittedly I tend to think of anything with less than 150% (100% on one layer and at least 50% on the other) as not well screened..., from an RF perspective.


    An alternative to SY or steel conduit would be FP200 or equivalent. That has a full 100% screen in intimate contact with the CPC (you'd need 3 core+E if you still wanted to run your clean earth, and the cable would be screened using the 'dirty' earth of the CPC, but you'd be way down into diminishing returns by that point.


    Finally... I'd like to say that Chris is very helpful;... it may be that in this case he is not seeing (or hearing) the issue, but he is most certainly trying to help. :)
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