Star grounded and it still hums!!!!

[Ross H]

Almost there...I will report back within the next week or so with the outcome.

Ross

[Ross H]

Start by fixing your ground problem. You must have all your grounds bonded at one point in the main panel, no exceptions, this is also where the neutral connects to the ground system. My guess is that you are getting a voltage potential between the isolated grounds and the main ground/neutral system causing noise and/or ground loop problems.

OK...case closed. Ground Problem just as described above and other members had suggested. I hired a master electrician and former county inspector to look at my problem.

He immediately saw the problem and began to curse me and the electrician who first did the work.

First lesson that if anyone is to read this post in the future should know, is not all electricians are created equally...even if they have been electricians for twenty years and worked large commercial projects.

Second lesson, is READ THE THREAD ABOUT GETTING PERMITS AND INSPECTIONS...now go read it again. Yes it's a pain in the ass but the inspection process protects you from potentially huge liabilities.

The electrician gave me a few pointers.

-Remove the carpet from my studio and go hard wood floors. The berber carpet causes static electricity so he said in the meantime, stand on a neoprene mat.
-Remove the plastic mat I have under my studio chair as it also transfers static electricity from the rug, through the chair, into me, where I then touch gear and routinely get a little "shock".
-He cut the line running to the dedicated ground rods coming from the sub panel and hooked my sub panel that has all of the star grounded outlets to the ground going to the main house panel so I now have one common ground for the entire electrical system of both the studio and the house.

Turned it all back on...fired up an amp and turned it all the way to 11 and it was quite as a church mouse

Turned on the dimmers and it started buzzing like a mutha...

...Now that I am grounded proper and no longer in danger of electrocuting myself, I'll go back and request feedback on my original thread about dimmers

Thanks for all the help!!!

Ross

[Eriksmusicproduction]

Glad to hear your finally noise free. And safe

Hopefully this thread will help others avoid similar situations. Shouldn't there be a sticky outlining the proper way to star ground a system? I've read probably all the threads here relating to star grounds and there is a lot of discrepencies.

If you were me you'd replace all dimmers with switches and find the wattage of bulbs that give you the amount of light you need. That's what I did, alot cheaper than variacs.