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New Fender American Standard...Should I Return It?

#41
Hopkins said:
Those adapters are designed for older receptacles without a ground terminal. Notice the brass eye at the bottom, that is designed to ground the device being plugged into it through the screw on the outlet cover. The ground prong should never be disabled on anything equipped with one. 120 volts can kill you.

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It's not the voltage that would kill you, its the amps. You can survive a jolt of 500 (or more) volts but half an amp across your heart will kill you.

So, why all the High Voltage signs then? Easy. 120 (or more) volts is more likely to make you think. A sign stating "Danger 20 Amps", likely wouldn't impress anyone who doesn't know that Amps are what kills, not volts.

Amps are the driving force in electricity, the current. I studied three years in a vocational high school in Electrical. Electrical safety was drilled into us.
 
#42
ProgRocker said:
It's not the voltage that would kill you, its the amps. You can survive a jolt of 500 (or more) volts but half an amp across your heart will kill you.

So, why all the High Voltage signs then? Easy. 120 (or more) volts is more likely to make you think. A sign stating "Danger 20 Amps", likely wouldn't impress anyone who doesn't know that Amps are what kills, not volts.

Amps are the driving force in electricity, the current. I studied three years in a vocational high school in Electrical. Electrical safety was drilled into us.
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I would be much more afraid of sign that said Danger 20 amps seeing as though 1 amp can kill you dead.

You are absolutely right about amps killing you, but house hold 120 volt power is pretty dangerous because it can make your hand clench down to where you cant let go. 240 usually knocks you off. I worked many years in the I&E field, while I do mostly instrumentation, I have done plenty of electrical work as well. I've terminated 480v three phase motors that run at about 100 amps.
 
#43
dmusic148 said:
No, it doesn't. Not even a little. The fact that some parts of his bass are in fact grounded(noise goes away when he touches certain parts) says that by definition his house ground works fine. There's no question about it.
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Then why is the noise not present at the music store? On every residential breaker panel I have ever seen, the neutral and grounds are terminated into the same buss bar. So yes his power is getting to ground through the neutral (the white wire). That doesn't mean that the ground (the green wire) is connected properly.
 
#44
Hopkins said:
Then why is the noise not present at the music store? .
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He has a noise source at home that doesn't exist at the store.
My point is that he's able to drain it away when he touches the knobs or jack. But not when he touches the strings. This means that the strings aren't connected to the other parts. Which means that the bridge ground isn't functioning.
Whatever the state of his home wiring ground may be, it would be good enough if the bridge ground was functioning. But it isn't, it really can't be.
 
#45
dmusic148 said:
He has a noise source at home that doesn't exist at the store.
My point is that he's able to drain it away when he touches the knobs or jack. But not when he touches the strings. This means that the strings aren't connected to the other parts. Which means that the bridge ground isn't functioning.
Whatever the state of his home wiring ground may be, it would be good enough if the bridge ground was functioning. But it isn't, it really can't be.
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I said that he most likely has a bad bridge ground. But I also said it sounds like he has something in his home wiring making extra noise as well. I also said that if you have a meter it is a very easy diagnosis to check the bridge ground.

I live in an apartment building that was built back in the 50s, even though all the outlets have been upgraded (state law) at one point to a three prong outlet. Some of my instruments are noisy at home and quiet in other places. No amount of shielding in the instrument can fix the problem. The only time its a problem is if I am working on a customers guitar that has a noise issue. Sometimes its hard to tell if I fixed the problem and the remaining noise is just coming from my apartment. I have to go to a friends house to make sure everything is correct.
 
#46
Hopkins said:
I think he very well may have a bad bridge ground. That is easilly diagnosed with an ohm meter. But the fact that it is fine in the store points to a bad grounding in the house.

He may have more than one problem. I have a few basses that are rather noisey in my apartment (old building, not surprising) That are dead quiet other places. I just live with it.
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No, that says nothing. You have to make a difference between electrostatic interference and electromagnetic interference. The latter is a much bigger problem but only occurs when electric power actually does something (aka amps are flowing, as opposed to just voltage sitting there). This is typically the case with electric motors (such as in fridges), neon light components and similar.

A lot of homes have things that produce electromagnetic interference and the GC might just be low on it.

I survived hundreds of shocks in the 5000-8000 volts region. 10 points for whoever guesses the source (not uncommon, not static in your home either, equipment connected to power lines).
 
#47
BTW, the house ground question is completely irrelevant, too.

The shielding around your guitar cable and by extension the bridge, strings, your fingers and your belly works by putting one conductor on mass in the amp's circuit. It doesn't need a connection to house ground at all. What do you think how old amps with 2-prone plug worked without humming like mofos? (*)

The shielding is all about encapsulating whatever wire you declare the hot wire. The two wires out of a plain pickup are identical, it's A/C. So you (the guitar maker) randomly decides that one of them is "hot" and the other one gets connected to surface conductors all around the hot one. Your belly, the strings, shielding in the guitar if any, the cable's shield and then the amp casing. So the hot one is surrounded by "the cold one" at all times, right into the amp and it never leaves the shield before it has way too high power for interference to matter - when it goes out of the power amp to the speaker.

But that shield does not have to be connected to house ground. It doesn't matter for the purpose of avoiding picking up audible interference, whether it is electrostatic or electromagnetic.


(*) you can also easily test that today by getting a $0.50 adapter from 3-prong to 2 (for old outlets) and run your amp with it. Won't change anything about hum or buzz
 
#50
dmusic148 said:
You appear to know more about this than I, so I'll ask- why IS IT connected to house ground? Why bother if it isn't needed? And wouldn't it be safer?
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It is connected to house ground, in case something shorts out power will go straight to the ground/neutral buss instead of getting to ground through you.

Ever play your bass through an amp, and sing through a mic connected to a PA that are on different ground circuits? If you have you probably got shocked in the lips. Its not very fun, its power going through your body to the other ground. So for him to say that a guitars ground doesn't make it to the ground/neutral buss is connected to is wrong.
 
#51
worxforme said:
Spark plug
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Actually automotive ignition coils can make voltages upwards of 100,000 volts, but at minimal amperage.

The worst shock I have ever gotten was from an old single phase 277v lighting circuit at chemical plant I used to work at. I tagged it out, but there was no way to put a lock on it. Some jerk turned the power back on while I was replacing a light on the circuit. It went through the palm of my hand and out of my elbow into a steel beam. It didn't feel good, and I had a tingle in that arm for a few days.
 
#56
dmusic148 said:
Right, but it is. I'm asking why.
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Well, it has to be connected at some point to the circuit, but honestly all that is beyond my knowledge. I see what you are saying now, and I would like to know as well

dmusic148 said:
That's on the DI. Not the same thing.
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My old Carvin amp had a ground lift, that would help with the noise problem in my apartment.
 
#57
dmusic148 said:
You appear to know more about this than I, so I'll ask- why IS IT connected to house ground? Why bother if it isn't needed? And wouldn't it be safer?
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The amp's chassis, like all metal chassis of modern devices, is connected to the house ground so that the fuse (the house line fuse) blows when one of the hot wires touches the chassis. It has nothing to do with shielding from interference.

This is one reason why I don't like abusing the player's belly as a shield like most guitars and basses do. If the chassis comes under power you are in a very dangerous situation. You don't only get shocked, you cramp up, and your left hand at least cramps around the strings. Disconnecting the strings of ground and properly shielding inside avoids this situation. The 3-prone plug doesn't make this much better because now the ground wire in the 3-conductor power cable could theoretically come loose and touch a hot wire, which would instantly put power on the strings and disable the house fuse safety at the same time. I have been told that this has happened in the real world. Just think of what kind of "experts" repair many guitar amps.
 
#58
...aanyway, the problem is simple, the OP's bass doesn't have the bridge ground connected. whether the house is wired right or not is a secondary issue, as uOpt pointed out.

(also, i've seen plenty of those '70s gibson guitars where they thought they could just shield the crap out of everything including the jack and the 3-way switch and get away with leaving off the bridge ground; they were mistaken :spit:

i have to routinely add the bridge ground back in to get them to behave.

EMG seems to be the only stuff that can really get away with no bridge ground.)
 
#59
walterw said:
...aanyway, the problem is simple, the OP's bass doesn't have the bridge ground connected. whether the house is wired right or not is a secondary issue, as uOpt pointed out.

(also, i've seen plenty of those '70s gibson guitars where they thought they could just shield the crap out of everything including the jack and the 3-way switch and get away with leaving off the bridge ground; they were mistaken :spit:

i have to routinely add the bridge ground back in to get them to behave.

EMG seems to be the only stuff that can really get away with no bridge ground.)
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I never said that the OP didn't have a bad bridge ground for the record.
 

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