Gswitz Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 Yay I got my 12u rack today! Boo I assembled it wrong. Yay I assembled it right! Now, it comes with a ground wire. Do you all ground your racks? I've never seen this before, but my racks have never been stationary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bapu Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 My racks have never been grounded or power protected. Does that make me a bad person. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pragi Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 (edited) 1 hour ago, Bapu said: Does that make me a bad person. Are you a bad person now? If you can answer “yes" to the majority of these questions, you are probably not a bad person. Do you help around the house? Do you treat your parents with respect? Do you treat your own possessions with respect? Do you treat your friends with respect? Do you feel shame or remorse when you've done something you knew was wrong? Do you keep your promises to the best of your ability? Have you apologised and owned a mistake you've made? Do you buy presents for your family on holidays or birthdays? Assuming you are in a position to do so, and your family celebrate such occasions. I am optimistic that this will be helpful. Edited January 5 by Pragi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mettelus Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 6 hours ago, Gswitz said: Now, it comes with a ground wire. To the chassis itself? That is a bit odd since everything in the rack should have a 3-wire power input on it and designed to fault out that ground. The chassis itself should never see power except for things like you walking on the carpet or similar and shouldn't transmit to the circuitry either. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane_B. Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 3 hours ago, Pragi said: Are you a bad person now? If you can answer “yes" to the majority of these questions, you are probably not a bad person. Do you help around the house? Do you treat your parents with respect? Do you treat your own possessions with respect? Do you treat your friends with respect? Do you feel shame or remorse when you've done something you knew was wrong? Do you keep your promises to the best of your ability? Have you apologised and owned a mistake you've made? Do you buy presents for your family on holidays or birthdays? Assuming you are in a position to do so, and your family celebrate such occasions. I am optimistic that this will be helpful. Hmm. I should be up for 4th seat at the throne ... yet here I am ... Back to the topic at hand, as long as your power source (home) is properly grounded, I don't see a need for an extra wire. That said, pop the ground wire off your turntable and let the buzzing begin. So I dunno. Maybe there's something funky with that piece of gear and it's required. Try it without it. What's the worst that could possibly happen? The magic smoke comes out? 🤷♂️ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 9 hours ago, Gswitz said: Proud idiot has a q So, all he needs is an I to have an IQ? 🤔 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bajan Blue Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 11 hours ago, Gswitz said: Yay I got my 12u rack today! Boo I assembled it wrong. Yay I assembled it right! Now, it comes with a ground wire. Do you all ground your racks? I've never seen this before, but my racks have never been stationary. I've got quite a few racks and none of them are grounded...and I'm not dead yet😁 Nigel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 Back when I had gear and a studio, I had a bunch of racks and every one had a Furman power conditioner in it, so all my gear was grounded! I think it comes from my childhood where I was grounded often for all the stupid things I did... 😂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gswitz Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 Gigging, I plug everything on stage into a Power Conditioner, which suppresses spikes and boosts power sags. The ground is the third pin of the power cable. Since everything is plugged into the same conditioner/ground, there are no ground loops on stage, no 60Hz hum. It also protects the electronic components from power spikes and dips. Insights and incites by Notes ♫ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gswitz Posted January 6 Author Share Posted January 6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 1 hour ago, Gswitz said: Looks like you've got a lot of space for more racks to the left there! 😁 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gswitz Posted January 6 Author Share Posted January 6 Space to the left isn't used for fires, but is at the bottom of a chimney. Might get rain water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gswitz Posted January 6 Author Share Posted January 6 I've learned you can't put your power amp on top of your computer at the tap at the bottom without really heating everything up a lot. I think I will slide it out from under the rack when using it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 I can't imagine any good reason to ground the rack. Every piece of gear mounted in there is connecting the rack to ground. I cringe every time I see a rack with power amps at the bottom. That's mainly done because they are the heaviest components, making the whole assembly more stable when rolling it off trucks and such. It also tidies up heavy power cables, plus the power amps are the things you're least likely to be fiddling with when in use. But you have to account for heat flow, leaving a generous space above the amps and ideally have vents or even exhaust fans. Back in the day, I worked on large computer systems that were basically 6'-tall 19" racks. They had fans and air filters, and I personally learned the penalty for not observing heat flow principles. CPUs don't like to run hot and will eventually rebel in a most inconvenient manner. But even with all the precautions taken in an 80's-era computer room (e.g. temperature and humidity controls, fire-suppression systems, dedicated grounds) we did not run a separate ground for the chassis. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 22 hours ago, bitflipper said: I cringe every time I see a rack with power amps at the bottom. That's mainly done because they are the heaviest components, making the whole assembly more stable when rolling it off trucks and such. It also tidies up heavy power cables, plus the power amps are the things you're least likely to be fiddling with when in use. But you have to account for heat flow, leaving a generous space above the amps and ideally have vents or even exhaust fans. Been there, done that, with a good space above the amp, and the back off the road rack. After that, I put it in its own separate short rack and stacked the one with the PA and synth components on top. Then one day I lost a channel on the power amp, thought about it for a while, considered what would happen if both channels went out, and I went out and bought powered speakers. I'm on my second generation of powered speakers, EV ZLX-15s. Rack now looks like this: Notes ♫ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
57Gregy Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 2 hours ago, Notes_Norton said: Rack now looks like this: That wasn't what I was expecting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 (edited) 11 hours ago, Notes_Norton said: Rack now looks like this: 8 hours ago, 57Gregy said: That wasn't what I was expecting. What were you expecting? Something like this??! 😆 Edited January 9 by craigb 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 Active speakers have downsides: having to run power to them, limited distances, the need for longer, more expensive balanced cables. Passive speakers' cables can be made out of lamp cord from the hardware store in a pinch. However, having only active speakers (8 of 'em) means my entire "rack" fits in a single plastic box: 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 On 1/8/2024 at 2:31 PM, bitflipper said: Active speakers have downsides: having to run power to them, limited distances, the need for longer, more expensive balanced cables. You are definitely correct. But for me, it's worth the price. I make my living gigging, and I am a "The Show Must Go On" kind of guy. Having two power amps means if one goes belly-up, I finish the gig. I can cover my sax and guitar parts on the wind synth if I have to, so I bring two wind MIDI controllers and two identical sound modules. The chances of the sax or guitar plus two wind MIDI controllers and both sound modules crapping out is slim indeed. I bring two laptops to the gig. Identical data on both. If something goes wrong, move the USB to the second computer, and the show goes on. Since 2002, when I started bringing ThinkPads on stage, I've done this twice. The first time the Hard Drive was making a grinding noise, between songs I moved the USB->Audio interface to the second song. Nobody but us knew there was a problem. The second time, the CMOS battery in a computer died, and it wouldn't boot. At the time, I didn't know I could manually enter the date and boot it up. I just used the second computer. When I'm on a commercial gig, the bartenders, wait staff, manager, owner, and others are depending on us to make their living. If a private party, the host is depending on us to entertain the guests. No good businessperson lets his/her customers down. Insights and incites by Notes ♫ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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