Did you ground your DIY COB frame? Is it necessary? How do you do this anyway?

Maybe some of the disconnect lies in the fact that the US has 2 (Two)! styles of plugs? Some of our appliances have only two prongs and others plugs have three. When I posed the question I was specifically referring to the three prong style that has a dedicated ground wire.

I intend on connecting a wire directly from the DIY aluminium frame to the dedicated ground wire on the three pronged plug.

@freemanjack does having a three pronged plug with a dedicated ground wire change your opinion on the safety? Please forget for a moment whether or not you believe it to be necessary or not, do you think that connecting the frame to a dedicated ground wire decreases safety in any way or increases any risks?

chromex said:

Maybe some of the disconnect lies in the fact that the US has 2 (Two)! styles of plugs? Some of our appliances have only two prongs and others plugs have three. When I posed the question I was specifically referring to the three prong style that has a dedicated ground wire.

I intend on connecting a wire directly from the DIY aluminium frame to the dedicated ground wire on the three pronged plug.

@freemanjack does having a three pronged plug with a dedicated ground wire change your opinion on the safety? Please forget for a moment whether or not you believe it to be necessary or not, do you think that connecting the frame to a dedicated ground wire decreases safety in any way or increases any risks?

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In the US the negative post of 2 prong plugs and the negative AND earth of 3 prong BOTH effectively connect to ground, the positive being the 'hot' live wire, there is both a potential risk to your hardware, due to potential for direct short circuits to arise or harmful feedback loops to be created AND by grounding your whole rig, you potentially turn every positive dc wire an electrocution risk if you are touching your grounded chassis. All of this will not be true for every configuration and much of the risk will depend on the internal design of your driver but YES THERE IS A RISK OF FIRE OR FATAL SHOCK. Also, why? the only possible reason to earth a dc appliance on the dc side is for RF noise screening or to dissipate accumulated static, in DC there is no such thing as a 'ground' as such but I understand the confusion because the negative trace on most circuit boards will be referred to as a 'ground', more correctly as 'common'. In conclusion, if you are mounting your drivers on the chassis and they require a ground wire, connect one to the driver, if you are remote mounting a driver and only feeding dc to your chassis, DO NOT EARTH/GROUND it may not go bang immediately but why take the risk if the only advantage is your airflow from your fans might induce a small static charge, which naturally bleeds off from and charged surface.