Ground up or down?

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charlie b

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Staff member
Location
Lockport, IL
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrical Engineer
Two questions:
1. What is a "wall wart"?
2. Did the IT guy specifically ask for two receptacles to be ground up, and the other two to be ground down?

One comment:
I am in the middle of several projects for which IT equipment is to be placed in racks, and for which there is a quad receptacle between each rack. Much of the rack-mounted equipment is plug and cord connected. So in your installation I would not be surprised to learn (if this indeed is true) that the up/down request was based on having some equipment higher than the outlet box and other equipment lower than the box, and based on the IT guy's notion of cord management.
 

iwire

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Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
1. What is a "wall wart"?

wallwart.JPG
 

chris kennedy

Senior Member
Location
Miami Fla.
Occupation
60 yr old tool twisting electrician
Chris, if they asked you to shave (and paid for it), would you do that, too? :grin:

Lets not get carried away.

Two questions:
1. What is a "wall wart"?
2. Did the IT guy specifically ask for two receptacles to be ground up, and the other two to be ground down?

One comment:
I am in the middle of several projects for which IT equipment is to be placed in racks, and for which there is a quad receptacle between each rack. Much of the rack-mounted equipment is plug and cord connected. So in your installation I would not be surprised to learn (if this indeed is true) that the up/down request was based on having some equipment higher than the outlet box and other equipment lower than the box, and based on the IT guy's notion of cord management.

I believe it is spelled 'Wahl wart'.:grin:

These installs are on phone boards and yes, two transformers will be plugged in each. Server racks sit in the middle of the rooms and will be fed from overhead.

WahlWart002.jpg
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
090809-0953 EST

My general argument for ground pin down is:
(1) The plug ground pin is longer than the other two pins.
(2) Most cords hang down from the outlet location.
(3) A plug with the ground pin down and as the plug works its way out of a loose socket the ground pin is likely to disconnect last. Thus, the equipment chassis remains connected to ground until after the power connections disconnect.
(4) If the ground pin is up then it might be possible that as a plug is working its way out of the socket that the hot pin remains energized after the ground pin separates.
(5) In addition to this I think it looks better if the ground pin is down.

In reality there probably is no significant safety problem.

I have been in motels where the sockets are so poor that I can not keep the plug in the socket.

.
 
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