Grounding Your Computer in Taiwan

[quote]when I was a baby (around 3-4 years old I think) and inserted a screw I found into the 230V AC outlet[/quote]Try doing that with a UK outlet, can be done if you know how though, don’t get many 3 year olds electrocuted by sticking a key in a socket there, and EVERYTHING has a 3 pin plug.

I just moved from Taipei to Taichung and when I connected my system and speakers (I use my computer mainly for audio productions & watching porn) the sound volume went up and down like crazy!
And I got small shocks from case, mixer, microphone and my synthesizer…
It always annoyed me that my three pronged plug was unused, but now it was more serious than in Taipei…

I contacted a friend that just built a pro studio and had gone thru all these things with Taipower…
He said:

Three wires is no guarantee you have an earth. They can be L1, L2, N (two phases of 110V) for an a/c. My living room a/c socket is wired this way, as is one of the bedroom sockets.

As you have discovered, a Taiwanese “electrician” will laugh heartily at you when you suggest unearthed 220VAC is in any way “dangerous”, or that a computer (or any of its associated spike filters) needs an earth.

When poking around with your multimeter, assume nothing and be careful ! Good luck.

Benjamin Franklin knew more about electricity than the average galley gonging Taiwanese “electrician”. I’ve had one over to my house twice already just to replace a circuit breaker … and as usual, it is never done right the first time … and when half of my house doesn’t have electricity the next day, OF COURSE it is my fault … huh.

First a late breakfast and then I’m waiting for the washing machine.
I

Yea, just put the ground wire in the nearest plant … and whala … you have a power plant.

Now you tell me

Nothing useful, I just had to post a picture of Beeker, the unofficial bad-luck god of experimenters. Good luck! Let us know if you survive.

I thought this subject got a severe thrashing before - My search failed to find it. Most places have a 3 wire supply - lets say 110V (a) and 110V (b) and neutral - almost everything in your house is connected to neutral and 110V (a) or (b). Your air conditioners are most likely connected to 110V (a) and (b) to give 220V. (they also should be connected by the third pin to neutral to earth the case)

In many poorly maintained places your neutral may not be earthed (It should be). In that case connecting an earth wire to a window frame is not a bad idea. Connecting to somewhere outside your apartment can make other peoples problems your own.

I have practiced Electrical Enginering in more than 15 countries and know a little about the subject.

Done!
But I had to modify my original idea…
The wire I first thought was the ground line was nothing else than a sketchy way of connecting 2 sockets with only 2 wires (a parallel connection)…
So I went back to B&Q to get some more wire, a spare three pronged plug (but this time for the AC socket) and a converter (for an

Oh, I am so pissed. Why are Taiwanese so short sighted? … OK, dumb question … I can’t do any work on my Apple PowerBook G4 17" without getting shocked from … yes, you guessed it: touching any part of the laptop. The laptop is metal. The current isn’t much, but enough to be annoying. For a while I thought it was a problem with my laptop, but then a lot of my other appliances do the same, like my PC tower, my Palm Vx when it is in its charger, etc.

What to do? I have no idea where the pipes go in this 26-storey tower. I’m willing to be shocked. I just hope it doesn’t do damage to the internal circuitry in the laptop.

You can ground thru the AC plug…
I did & it works fine!

[quote]All sockets with different colored wires in every box… (Shouldn

mmmmmmm I had young engineers like that before