Re: [Thinkpad] Power outlet

Ooooooh, shame on me for forgetting that! I must have been blocking out the fact that in a
couple of old rental properties I used to have about 80 ungrounded outlets -- and 12 years
ago I got this very same lecture!

Deanna

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Van Tuyl" <wvantuyl@mynewroads.com>
To: <thinkpad@stderr.org>
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 20:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Thinkpad] Power outlet

> The caution here is the boxes on many old 2-wire systems are not
> grounded. So connecting the metal tab or wire to the middle screw does
> not provide an earth ground. Use the adapter and a 3-wire circuit
> checker (cheap one available at Radio Shack, etc.) to find out if there
> is an earth ground to the box. If there is no earth ground then you
> have to decide if it is worth connecting to another place such as a
> metal water pipe. The third prong (round one) is connected through the
> power brick to the Thinkpad (at least on the trapezoidal plug type I
> just checked with an ohm meter) so the lack of an earth ground could
> present a hazard in somes cases.
>
> Some err on the side of caution, some bungie jump without checking the
> length of their bungie.
>
> Bill
>
> Deanna Berman wrote:
>
> >And the "wire" Julian mentioned is often just a little metal tab on the adapter that
has a
> >hole in it positioned to be right over the outlet-plate screw. You just take out the
screw
> >and insert it back through the tab and into the outlet screw hole and you have a
grounded
> >circuit. Fast, cheap safety measure.
> >
> >Deanna
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Julian Thomas"
> >To: <thinkpad@stderr.org>
> >Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 19:32 PM
> >Subject: Re: [Thinkpad] Power outlet
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>In <685115763.20040531195723@fastmail.fm>, on 05/31/04
> >> at 07:57 PM, Adam typed:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>The power adaptor that plugs into my Thinkpad, and plugs in the wall has
> >>>a three prong plug. If you want to use it for a while at a second
> >>>location that only has a two prong outlet, can you manage with that?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Assuming you are talking US plugs, any hardware or electrical store has
> >>adapters that plug into a 2 prong outlet, allow you to attach a grounding
> >>wire to the screw between the two outlets on the plate, and take a 3prong
> >>plug.
> >>
> >>While this is to be approached with some caution for heavy appliances and
> >>the like, a thinkpad adapter is probably quite OK with this, but don't sue
> >>me if I'm wrong.
> >>
> >>--
> >> Julian Thomas> In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State!
> >> Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org
> >> -- --
> >> There is no such thing as luck. 'Luck' is nothing but an absence of bad
> >> luck.
> >>
> >>
> >
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> >
> >
> >
>
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Received on Tue Jun 1 04:10:04 2004