FINALLY, this is a topic that surprisingly little people have attempted to explain and in a simple and yet deep well put together way. It's honestly felt like a roadblock for electronics to me, google searches only get you so far. Thanks :)

I always make sure to include a few hundred grams of soil inside of every product I design, ensuring a reliable ground connection for the enclosure by shoving a wire into the soil and guaranteeing safety of the device. Proper grounding is very important! Sorry, I had to.

In North America I often see “common” on schematics where it’s not really an earth ground like, for example, on circuit boards and vehicles. I have been involved in many situations where that distinction indeed matters, and the more experienced the electrician or electrical engineer, the more they seem to care about the distinction in the documentation. My circuit board designs often have had a different net for common and earth ground so that the coupling between the two can be managed.

excellent video, bromigo. Grounding is a deep subject and you're giving some very clear explanations

It's very important to ground our knowledge in the basics.

I'm an engineer who works in the grounding field; my favorite part of grounding is the research performed by Dalziel and Lee to determine the human body's withstand to various voltages and currents. Their research is the basis behind the decision making process for various overcurrent protective devices. Your video is great and does a good job summarizing the basics behind grounding

A couple of clarifications, one short, one long. 1) My understanding is that in North America the use of the term Ground is synonymous with Earth. In Europe we tend to use Earth to refer to the Protective Earth (PE) connection, and sometimes a functional earth in RF systems, and use the term ground for all other functional 0V connections. 2) There can be many different earth/ground networks for many different reasons in a system, and these are often designated using different symbols in schematics and on connector markings. When using international electrical safety standards, such as ISO, IEC and EN standards, the symbol usually used by Great Scott consisting of three horizontal lines with decreasing length top to bottom, making a roughly triangular shape, is reserved for the Protective Earth (PE) connection only. Functional ground connections, such as the common 0V network in analogue and digital circuits, and which is not intended to carry fault current to protect users from electric shock, use different symbols. In my design schematics I use an open triangle for low current functional ground networks and a filled triangle for high current power ground connections. Some people use a thick horizontal line instead. But I only ever use the three horizontal line symbol for PE connections to conform to safety standards. I wouldn’t want my circuit to be misunderstood and for an electrician to wire a PE connection to a circuit that was not capable of handling fault currents and was not connected to Protective Earth by a sufficiently low impedance to ensure safety in the event of a fault.

Where I live in Portland Oregon the utility uses earth ground return for the high voltage distribution to residential neighborhoods. That means that on the top of the power pole there is only a single conductor coming from the utility that then feeds into a transformer. The other conductor that goes into the transformer makes its way down the pole and into the ground which completes the circuit with a similar conductor stuck into the ground back at the power distribution station. (Over a km away) I can only assume that back in the 1920s when they put the power in this neighborhood , this saved on copper. There are of course big warnings on this ground conductor that makes its way down the pole telling you not to cut it since if you did, that would then put that loose end attached to the transformer at some very high voltage. It's pretty fascinating that they did it this way and I think it's somewhat unusual for inside a city. It also means if a single tree branch falls on the HV conductor nothing happens but if a tree falls on that's still attached to the ground, you get a short circuit. I have no idea if this ends up being more or less reliable in the long run. On top of that, my house has earth ground with a rod driven into the ground. My earth grounding rod is probably only 25 m from the power pole which has the transformer on it with the earth ground return rod... It's all fascinating that it all just works and goes to show how amazing of a conductor the earth really is.

my dad was working for a broadcasting company in germany. they had 3 metel towers for sending programs in medium wave frequency. they highest was about 188m in lenght. the stabilisation of the tower was build with steel wires to the ground. the wires had isolators at the end with a cable bridge to secure the towers to ground (earth) from electrostatic charging. the mass of metal in the towers made the electrostatic athmosphere effect very dangerous. my dad demonstrated this to me on a sunny day, he got safety clothes on and attached the ground cable. an ca. 10 cm long electric flash appeared. later he told me, that on rainy days there can be one flash about 30 cm and there can be ca. 10000v and more in it and a lot of current strenght.

4:41 Germany uses the TN-C grid system (Earth and Neutral connected together in distributionpanel) but also the TT electric grid system (Earth and Neutral separated). If you have a TT electric grid system, and the Neutral wire comes in contact with the PE wire (chassis home device etc....) your RCD will also trip. Here in Belgium we use the TT electric grid system, and depending on the load of the grid, and how far removed from the grid transformer, there can be a voltage between Neutral and PE between 0,5V up to 5V. The exact amount of current that is available i'm not sure off, but it is way above 100mA because i have seen RCD's of 100mA trip when the Neutral touched the PE wire. Because the current in the PE wire is not monitored by the electricity company, this voltage / current between Neutral and PE is in fact free electricity if you stay below the tripping point of the RCD. 🙂 Grtz

I am absolutely in awe at how nice and tidy modern German electrical panels are in general. Good use of plastic for touch surfaces and electrical boxes. In Canada, we just love making everything out of stamped steel like we did 100 years ago and earth the ever-loving heck out of everything. Leaves a lot of safety in the hands of the installer, and much room for error.

You did a great job of explaining and demonstrating how important proper grounding really is. Good work, keep it up!

This is the best video I have seen in UKposts about Ground. Thank you! I encourage you to make more videos about ground, in case there is anything interesting to add.

Great Scott really gives some useful tips n information

Hi @GreatScott! Thank you for presenting that very important topic 🙋🏻‍♂️

my house was made in the 50s and has screw in fuses. looking at your 'fuse box' is like something from a spaceship.

thank you so much for touching on this subject!

7:39 That's truly a PCB torture machine!

Well, Great Scott, that was a Great Tutorial. Much better then the lessons in school about 45 years ago.

Thanks for clearing this out. I have heard other people complaining but it did. It really sink in completely before. Thanks again

8:40 this was the best explanation i’ve ever heard on grounding. Thanks

Very nice and clear explanation. I was taught to have separate grounds for analog and digital parts of the same circuit and only tie them together at one point, where the common entered/left the board. But then, I'm a dinosaur. Thanks for sharing.

Finally one of my greatest mystery is solved! Thank you!

Man I wish I could have a teacher like you, you are better than my entire ee department faculty. Nice video! This was also one of the concepts I had difficulty grasping when I started out hobby electronics. Especially the difference between earth ground and chassis ground and voltage reference grounds.

Thank you for this excellent learning video!

Thank u for expleaning this thing, It Always got me in the past.

Some more things I'd add: - Static discharge can start fires, especially if there are any frisky substances in the air like petrol or natural gas. - You sometimes see circuit/signal ground marked as "COM" for "common" to emphasize that it may not actually be ground. - Another thing that is generally grounded is your plumbing, if your pipes are copper (or lead). Thus, most of the water that comes out of taps in your house is likely to be at ground potential.

I do enjoy a "dont try this at home" episode 👍👍

Shoutout to your ABB electrical cabinet ❤

I have seen a triangle symbol used for common connections. The commonly-used ground symbol (3 decreasing length horizontal bars as in your video) is then reserved to show the connection to the earth.

Some old televisions had what was called a “live chassis” in which an isolation transformer was pretty imperative to use while performing service work on them to protect the technician from a lethal electrical shock. It is worth noting that a respectable repair shop would perform a leakage test by measuring either the resistance of any exposed metallic pieces on the set to the neutral and live spade on the plug. Or, perform a voltage test of any exposed metallic piece to earth while the set was plugged in and on. . These types of tests were completed before the set was returned to the consumer.

Toasters generally don't have a protective ground in the US. This has always bothered me, since the electrically live heating elements are exposed.

Great one Scott! You should probably make some telsa coil drivers, ZVS circuits etc. High voltage circuits

Thanx for explaining this, it explains a lot about why losing earth is dangersous. Your electrical system in Germany is very similar to our Country's one.

I can see your good work all the way from Africa. 👏👏👏

Really great explanation! Thank you

Great video! Grounding has always confused me a bit, and it's great to learn this from someone who shares my electrical grid. I just didn't quite understand why the neutral is connected to Earth. 8:56 Hope this means a more in-depth video is in the works!

Finally, the explanation I was looking for, thanks!

PEN, nice. A sensible country. I've got 3x230 where I live. Every wire is live all the time. Except for PE, which is completely separate and virtual from all 3 phase wires. Truly fun stuff

Unexpected topic but everyone needs to know Clear explanation super bro 👍👏👍

Holy cow! I wanted somebody to do a video like this. You read my mind mah dude!

This video was very informative. I remember being very confused by grounding when I first started off in electronics and the differences between the schematic ground symbols and Earth ground. It took me a while to gain a better understanding of it. Your video is going to help clear it up quite a bit for electronics beginners. The only video that I've come across that is even remotely similar was the video "EEVblog #279 - How NOT To Blow Up Your Oscilloscope!" by Dave Jones of the EEVblog channel. That was somewhat related because it addressed the importance of placing the ground properly for an oscilloscope probe and whether or not it is actually connected to Earth ground (and the consequences of not connecting it properly if that oscilloscope is actually connected to Earth ground). Thank you for being willing to tackle such a difficult subject.

Can you make a video about different kinds of grounding? I don't really understand that topic. For example how do we ground electronics in cars which are isolated from the ground? What's a floating ground?

Great video, ElectroScott 💥 ! 😉👍

Beautiful video.

Good topic my friend 👍👍🤝

5:10 The RCCB or residual current circuit breaker is the equivalent to a GFCI or ground fault circuit interrupter in North America.

Very very good content, and i apreciate that you are doing experiments, is fun, and a lot of new thinghs to discover in them. You are a very good young teacher for many peoples, and your job is getting better with every new video!👍👍👍

Next part of The vídeo please teach us about the absorbing properties of our beloved ground from EMP's, and protection from undesired interferences, thats other plus when using a bottom layer ground at PCB design!!

After watching this video, I am glad, this guy is still alive 😅!

I'll just add that a RCD is great, but won't save you if you do something dumb like touching both live and neutral (and are insulated from ground, idk, carpet/ fur slippers). Then it won't trip as you will be just another "regular" load.

In Canada we like to live dangerously. My metal toaster has a two wire ungrounded plug.

That's crazy watching you.Draw something so neat and tidy with your left hand

Another important reason why everything is bonded to ground: isolated systems are impossible at the scale we use it, e.g. the wiring from your transformer to your house but also to all neighbors in the street. Every device, power outlet and wire is galvanically connected to each other within this subsystem. With hundreds of meters of cable you always get a significant capacitive impedance to ground and thus there is always the chance for current (high enough to harm humans) to flow as soon as the circuit gets closed at another point. Ungrounded systems are used for example in operation rooms because the surgery has to continue even if one appliance has an electrical fault.

You did an excellent job explaining it!

Ground is important for way more things than electricity. It's one of my favorite things for standing on too.

loved the video but amazed about your wood stove. so amazed that I couldnt write a comment and ask it to you. then paused and sccreenshot google lens helped. so it seems a masterflemme stove from a czech company. very effective and aesthethic design! hope they deliver to turkey! would love to see other devices in your home :D

Very nice explanation 😁👏👏👏👍

more videos like this please. was great help understanding

Thank u Sir

nice video! it's almost midnight and this video is a feast for my tired eyes

Super Video mach weiter so!

Difference is when talking 230VAC it's earth, when its digital electronics it's ground, which simply is 0V common reference. Interested to see your take on PEN though 👍 Also, it is usually good practice to flood any layer with ground.

The apartment we rent is so old it doesn't have a Schutzleiter...yaaay. But well, in the current situation you have to take what you get.

thank you.

Great video! Nice explained ❤❤❤🇸🇪

I had an electronic teacher in high school showing a somewhat lost girl how to ground an input by shoving the wire into the plant next to the us. He was great.

I have some smart home switchable outlets with a 5v dc circuit inside. Depending on the L/N connection, the DC 0 reference is 230V.

Thank you for Explaining not my questions are cleared ❤

I like the idea of individual circuit breaks on each power and light circuit. This way he lights stay on when the toaster gets a shock to its left cheek. Might cost more but in a home at least the fridge still running and the lights stay on

Fantastic video, dude! Thanks a bunch for all the explanations!!! 😃 (Sorry I just commented today... I was traveling with my family. 😊) Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Thank you!

Very Interesting!

also want to add not only soil or the simple dirt, playdoah does pretty the same thing. I have done it before during one of the electronic projects with my group

6:18 Electricitiahh😌

nice explanation.

6:40 for more info on earth as a conductor, look up SWER Single Wire Earth Return. Used in some remote areas in Australia and New Zealand, possibly others.

Very interesting video!

I'm probably too late and there's likely already a comment pointing this out, but: The PE on your mains connection is especially important in Germany because your plugs are never polarized. Since even the earthed ones can be inserted both ways, you can never assume which wire is neutral and which is live. This is not true in North American wiring (for example), where there is supposed to be a guarantee of which one is neutral. Thus, for example, you can put your device's switch and fuse on just the live wire. In practice, though, that's not something that's good to rely on for safety since it's fairly common for them to be reversed by mistake.

"With such a long rod you usually get a pretty low resistance" True, unless it scares her off.

Wish america's grid and electronics were more like that, clean and deterministic, maybe except the 230V

Now i understand why i was often grounded by my parents when i was a child. To protect those around me

Good stuff

9:14 I had a design which used such a system as a sort of ground. Basically replacing the dirt with a dense source of electrons.

Nicely presented. Understanding terminology for AC vs DC is important but can be confusing. Many years ago as I was learning about electronics the fact that so many things were marked as "ground" (such as car battery, DC electronic circuits) confused me. It was only when I learned that such "grounds" were really DC "returns" did it make much more sense to me. So when working with battery or DC circuits I now understand that it is really "return" to the source supply and not an earth "ground". Some people I know who insist on calling it "ground" don't get why it is important to me to call it a "return". The distinction helps me understand that someone knows why the two are different. If someone insists on calling it "ground" then I tend to think they really don't understand the concepts and are just regurgitating what they've heard without knowing why. This approach works for me. Your mileage may vary. A point of view from the U.S.

In French, ground usually has two names. If the ground is the earth itself, we will call it earth, and if it’s not (like in electronics), then we call it the Mass, I guess as it acts kind of like a mass that attracts potentials, or something like that, referring to how it’s the 0V point

In Germany, i think, the connection of the neutral to the earth is only allowed in old installations where they had only four conductors ran to the house, now they have to include a dedicated earth wire and the connection of neutral and earth is not allowed

We get 220VAC from transformers which takes 11 - 13.8kV as input. Transformers are just 2 coils with a couple cm gap between HT and LT. If somehow a phase from HT gets into contact with LT which isn't properly earthed, Nothing will blow up, everything will work properly between phase and neutral but the moment anyone gets close enough to electrical fittings, 6.4KV will zap right through them. Grounding also ensures every substation in an interconnected grid measures the same voltage in each phase wrt to earth, that's essential for fault finding.

Could you please bring a COB designing video series / or one video regarding the COB parameters such as VIA , traces , how to choose planes etc☺

ElectroBoom will be proud of that spark and the breaker tripping

Grounding helps alot with Analog sound equipment, record players needs a ground or else there electric motor can be heard in the cable threw the amplifier. the ground ties to the amplifier to your tuner deck and because the motor noise is canceled threw the Preamp or tuner deck, cannot hook the ground on record players right to ground as they will pickup AM radio waves and there tick or noise can be heard. is why the ground is separated on the plug cause you only want the sound receiver to cancel the motor noises and terminate from that point not earth ground as AM can make added noise. anyways nice and informative stuff there glad someone talked about this as i found alot of homes are not grounded anymore, especially in Canada for some reason.

My understanding with ELCB is as you say, measures current in Vs current out, but it also helps diagnose causes of issues.. so normal fuses and CB are protection for overload, so essentially too high current draw on a circuit or, there is a live touching neutral/Earth.. an ELCB measures or identifies leaks on the neutral and earth lines since even if the live is off, a neutral touching earth will still cause it to trip.. because there is still a potential between neutral and earth even when the live is disconnected from a circuit.. when you're fault finding, that kinda detail helps a lot..

Grounding of equipment is a highly complex issue in a wide range of experimental science and instrumentation, in particular at very low signal voltages and large installations. Ground loops can be the bane of an experimentalist and although one possible solution is to have floating equipment i.e disconnected from ground, this can have serious safety issues, since in many applications you have mixes of very high voltages in the 10's of kV range and signal voltages and currents in the 10-6V or pA ranges. I once had an experimental system which worked extremely well and achieved very high sensitivities without any ground noise issues and then I had to change a few components and power supplies and from one day to the next every thing went to pot and it took me a month to find the causes of the new ground loops being introduced by swapping out equipment.

In the US, the grounding electrode in the actual earth caps the voltage rise from induced currents due to EMP from lightning and also when large inductors (motors) are shut off. The moderate resistance between the building grounding electrode and the one at the transformer on the pole creates an always available path for when the induced current hits an open switch or loss of the combined neutral/ground on the triplex from the transformer that would result in a high voltage spike and possible arcing causing damage or fire. It began as a way to reduce arcing between the windings in large motors. In the past, an induced current on the "hot" side would pass through. motor winding or resistive light then be capped on the neutral. With electronics, we use surge protectors which pass voltage spikes to the bonded neutral rather than let the voltage arc through the transistors and such.

without earth or ground aka an IT-System we would actually be safer (thats also why its mostly used in hospitals). without any connection to earth the live wire can come loose and onto the housing or rather speaking you could touch one wire without anything happening. if its an checked system (hospitals) electronic devices detect the problem and shutdown the connection or bring an alert if it cannot be turned of. (ie. if its someones life support or simmiliar) if it is unchecked then nothing happens until an second problem occurs (ie. the neutral wire comes also loose or another phase).

In the UK we tend to call the green AC ground "earth" and DC Black negative "ground"

If you wanted to trip only the RCB (FID) you should have connected the Neutral wire to the case of your Toaster instead of Live wire.

Proof that Great Scott is becoming electroBOOM

Hey we have same socks 😅 please do more videos with topic of electrical power grid it's very interesting.

In my parents house in the 90's we had one water pipe that sometimes gave you a bit of a zap. It was an outside tap. So i wrapped copper around a half meter mild steel rod, drilled a hole in the concrete to expose soil, and drive that rod into the soil with the back end of an axe. Other end of the wire I wrapped around the copper water pipe for about 10cm, then welded it with lead and a torche with way to much flux. It worked. Come to think of it now.... that was maybe not the correct fix. It is only hiding a bigger problem somewhere. I was 15 when i came up that that idea.