They don't build them that way any more. They used to put capacitors from each side of the outlet to the chassis for RF suppression. The problem was that this put the chassis at 55 volts. It really should not have caused problems to short the grounds together even at that. May be better to do it with things unplugged thought so you don't have the charge in the capacitor to short out. That is probably what fried your traces.<div>
<br></div><div>I once had a similar set. The little thing in my bathroom that puts the drain down in the sink kind of wrapped abound the spout. When you turned it, you could see sparks. It was caused by the grounding of the TV going through the water pipes and somehow having a path through that sink spout. It was freaky.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Allen</div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Darrin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mtv@aperature.org">mtv@aperature.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="Ih2E3d">On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Robert Johnston <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anaerin@gmail.com" target="_blank">anaerin@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
<br>
* Connect the grounds of the two devices together. This should eliminate<br>
the Ground Loop, but may not be possible, as the TV may not have a<br>
grounding screw/jack (The "Ground" on a PC is the case).<br>
<br>
* Finally, if none of those work, you'll need to get an isolation<br>
transformer.<br>
<br>
For more details, see here:<br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_%28electricity%29" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_(electricity)</a><br>
--<br>
<font color="#888888">Robert Johnston<br>
</font><div></div></blockquote></div><div><br>I'd look for an isolation transformer before I tried hooking the grounds from 2 separate devices together. Some devices use a hot chassis, so attempting to connect them together could cause a short circuit. <br>
<br>When I was young and stupid, I once connected the ground probe of an oscilloscope to a television set I was working on. When I turned the TV on, I vaporized over 12 inches of copper traces on the board, blew several components in the power supply section, and set the fire alarm off in the building. Needless to say, I never did that again without having an isolation transformer on hand. It won't happen very often, but when it does....<br>
<br>--Darrin<br></div></div><br>
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