- #1
Mogan
- 4
- 0
Overview:
I've made a grounding mat using a piece of copper speaker wire attached to the grounding prong on a wall plug (I removed the other two prongs). The other end of my copper wire is attached to a sheet of aluminum which I set on the floor like a mat. I checked to make sure that my wall outlets are grounded before plugging it into the wall.
I have 2 appliances which trigger my volt meter alarm. If I hold the volt meter in my right hand (away from the appliance) then touch the appliance with my left hand, the meter is once again triggered as the voltage travels through my body.
While I'm standing on the grounded mat, I cannot trigger the meter by touching an appliance... I thought everything was good...and yet...
Something seems wrong:
-The aluminum mat itself triggers the volt meter alarm. The plug does not.
-When I am in contact with the mat, the hand-held meter becomes about 3x more sensitive to surrounding appliances.
-When the appliance and the mat share the same grounded power strip, the appliance registers at a lower voltage rate, and the mat registers at a higher rate (just sitting side by side)
-When the mat triggers the voltage meter, I can stop it by touching the mat with my hand
Is this unusual for a correctly set-up grounding mat?
I split the speaker wire in half as demonstrated in a couple of online tutorials. The tutorials indicated that I only needed to use the copper half of the wire. Should I have left the wire intact?
Thanks!
PS: I could not find my regular voltage multi-meter, so I was working with a no-contact volt meter.
I've made a grounding mat using a piece of copper speaker wire attached to the grounding prong on a wall plug (I removed the other two prongs). The other end of my copper wire is attached to a sheet of aluminum which I set on the floor like a mat. I checked to make sure that my wall outlets are grounded before plugging it into the wall.
I have 2 appliances which trigger my volt meter alarm. If I hold the volt meter in my right hand (away from the appliance) then touch the appliance with my left hand, the meter is once again triggered as the voltage travels through my body.
While I'm standing on the grounded mat, I cannot trigger the meter by touching an appliance... I thought everything was good...and yet...
Something seems wrong:
-The aluminum mat itself triggers the volt meter alarm. The plug does not.
-When I am in contact with the mat, the hand-held meter becomes about 3x more sensitive to surrounding appliances.
-When the appliance and the mat share the same grounded power strip, the appliance registers at a lower voltage rate, and the mat registers at a higher rate (just sitting side by side)
-When the mat triggers the voltage meter, I can stop it by touching the mat with my hand
Is this unusual for a correctly set-up grounding mat?
I split the speaker wire in half as demonstrated in a couple of online tutorials. The tutorials indicated that I only needed to use the copper half of the wire. Should I have left the wire intact?
Thanks!
PS: I could not find my regular voltage multi-meter, so I was working with a no-contact volt meter.