Grounds on a grand scale
Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 12/1/2004
Practical Grounding, Bonding, Shielding, and Surge Protection, by G. Vijayaraghavan, Mark Brown, and Malcolm Barnes, Newnes ( www.newnespress.com ), 2004. 237 pages. $49.95.
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Although the book's primary audience is "electrical" engineers, electronics engineers will gain insight into how a building's electrical-distribution system interacts with electronic equipment both inside a building and with the Earth. The authors teach you that good ground connections run all the way into the soil, and they further explain how soil resistivity and concrete affect "ground."
You can, therefore, use this book as a guide to building a lab. Through numerous schematics and figures, the authors show you how to build a room, from the floor to the ceiling, so any equipment installed in it is both safe to use and resistant to electrical disturbances. You'll learn how to build a ground plane, how to connect and run signal cables and AC mains cables, how to use isolation transformers, and how to connect and use AC receptacles. You'll also learn how wiring and construction can route disturbances from lightning and power surges to your equipment; the book shows you how to protect your equipment from these disturbances.
In some places, the authors could have provided clearer diagrams. For example, the book contains a series of figures that show how to segregate AC mains circuits to reduce interference.
In one figure, the authors introduce a transformer but don't label it. You can figure out their intent, but you should not have to work that hard. (Disclosure: The book is published by a subsidiary of Test & Measurement World's parent company.)
