[Elecraft] Grounding negative side of power supply?

[Don Wilhelm]

The AC side should always be connected to the power supply chassis - 
unless it is of the "double insulated" design where no ungrounded 
metallic part can come into contact with the human body.  Yes, cutting 
the AC "green wire ground" is a dangerous thing indeed - the entire 
chassis could rise to the AC mains voltage in the event of a fault.

The power supply negative *can* certainly be floating *if* the designer 
made provisions for doing that.  It requires that all the common 
connections on the secondary side of the transformer are isolated from 
ground.  As I recall, Astrons are not built that way.

73,
Don W3FPR

David Woolley (E.L) wrote:
> Rich wrote:
>   
>> I had a situation with an older (analog) power supply (that had its negative
>> side grounded to the main AC ground) that tripped the Ground Fault Circuit
>> Interrupter (GFCI) in one of the bathrooms.  Eliminating the bond to ground
>>     
>
> I consider this dangerous advice.  If you have an ELCB tripping, you do 
> not treat the problem symptomatically, by creating an unsafer system, 
> you find out what the real problem is and you fix it.
>
> I can't tell what the exact wiring configuration is here, but it is very 
> likely that you have created a situation where there are pieces of metal 
> in reach which have low impedance paths to very different "earths".
>   
>