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power brick safe in a drop ceiling??
squirrellydw:
I was just going to put it in the box to protect the ceiling incase something might happen, no wiring needed.
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: BobA on October 24, 2007, 06:32:56 pm ---Ground the box to the green or bare ground and it will not go live.
--- End quote ---
Gotta double check the ground it's connecting to, though... lots of houses have three prong outlets but ground isn't even connected. Hell my house varies by circuit depending on when each one was put in.
johnperkins21:
You've got two worries in this matter:
1) Sparks from a short causing a fire. The enclosure of the PSU should be enough to handle this, but I'd recommend putting it in some sort of electrical box.
2) Heat. The drop ceiling tiles are going to be susceptible to burning from the heat causing the tile to weaken and dropping the PSU on someone's head eventually. They should actually be flame retardant, but I've seen them burn before.
Therefore, my suggestion, if you do go with this option, is to enclose it in a box and tie that off to the t-bar hangers in the ceiling keeping it off of the tile. Do this and you can feel 100% confident in the safety of the solution. Honestly, you'd probably be fine just throwing it up there, but a half-hour of your time and thirty of your dollars is worth the peace of mind.
Here's a sample enclosure that will suit your needs.
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on October 24, 2007, 09:21:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: BobA on October 24, 2007, 06:32:56 pm ---Ground the box to the green or bare ground and it will not go live.
--- End quote ---
Gotta double check the ground it's connecting to, though... lots of houses have three prong outlets but ground isn't even connected. Hell my house varies by circuit depending on when each one was put in.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, my old rental cottage was exactly that way. I was assured, several times, that the socket in the bathroom was GFCI protected. Sure, ground is connected, but I must've tested that circuit fifteen ways till Sunday and never could trip the so-called GCFI. I had to buy an el cheapo circuit tester so I could figure out what was what. Even purchased those little colored dots and marked the sockets with what was wrong. Red for no ground. Yellow for reversed polarity. Green for kosher.
I spent months getting shocked and tracing down errant behavior on an ungrounded PC before I figured out the socket was causing the problem.
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