Hello bonjour,
Very straightforward question, please excuse my less than perfect English, I am from the poopy Celine Dion part of Canada... I currently reside in Philippines, and for reasons that I am not permitted to share I cannot rent a dwelling in one of the 7641 islands, but I've spoken to several officials and I can legally stay in a vehicle, so watching all those US guys van dwelling on YouTube will finally pay off, I want to get a eco flow solar AIO duct tape obscenely large panels to the roof of said car and power my favourite gaming laptop all day long and I'm very attached to this laptop because it cost me 1500$cad back when the cad was above or equal to the USD... But I'm reminded that I lost a desktop computer to no ground.. same as my current apt.. no ground, but i have a cable going from the ground prong going to these metal earthquake beams inside my apt and this desktop is chugging along nicely... Being inside this van.. can I do something identical and tape a cable to any exposed part of the unibody frame inside the van and ground go to that? Since the unibody and actual ground is separated by big car tires, won't the bad electricity just stay in the unibody ??(Car frame for some people) I don't want to damage any car electronics, or damage the pricey laptop... Well there's my question, kindly focus on that and avoid trying to pry into my personal life

Thank you and merci

 

You should be able to. However, you will probably want/need to add a ferrite bead common mode filter to the hot lead to get rid of the noise. Or some other common mode noise shielding/filtering. Or run a piece of coax to the hot terminal of the battery and ground the shield to its neg terminal only.

 

Interesting question. Is the "ground" connection on the external power supply for the laptop computer?? OR are you somehow powering the laptop directly from the battery system that is being charged by the solar cells??
What else is connected to the laptop computer???

 

Interesting question. Is the "ground" connection on the external power supply for the laptop computer?? OR are you somehow powering the laptop directly from the battery system that is being charged by the solar cells??
What else is connected to the laptop computer???

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, the power cable of laptop will go to the ecoflow and a random cable with a ring terminal will make contact with the 3rd prong of that power cable and the other end will make contact with the car body inside the vehicle...

 

I see no problem connecting the laptop (safety) ground to the car chassis if you feel it necessary.
It's purpose is to protect you from a shock due to the rare occurrence of a short from the line voltage to the laptop power.

I don't see what the lack of such a ground would have caused a failure of your desktop computer.

 

I see no problem connecting the laptop (safety) ground to the car chassis if you feel it necessary.
It's purpose is to protect you from a shock due to the rare occurrence of a short from the line voltage to the laptop power.

I don't see what the lack of such a ground would have caused a failure of your desktop computer.

Being as polite as possible, let's just say Philippine electricity isn't perfect, I grew up using hydro Quebec power my entire life and never gave a 2nd thought to using local power, sine wave types, grounding, electrical surges, so on and so forth... But I will be using an ecoflow delta 3.... A (non Chinese) reputable brand... and I think that if there is no ground, that the " bad electricity" will go back via the neutral prong I guess, the power brick of this laptop is beefy about the dimensions of a VCR cassette if any of you are old enough to remember those, and it's power draw can be as high as 180 watts... I just don't want to damage the gaming laptop or any electronics in the vehicle that are touching the car body..... I sometimes watch pirated movies on the laptop and at my age I zonk out, unless it's Deadpool, Canadian movies do not disappoint...

 

If you are powering it from an inverter and solar panels, how can it be affected by the “bad” Philippine electrical grid?

 

If you are powering it from an inverter and solar panels, how can it be affected by the “bad” Philippine electrical grid?

Wondering a similar thing. The EcoFlo Delta 3 is a power source. It has a battery inside. The EFD3 has a charger that can be plugged into the grid or charged from solar. If while plugged into the grid for battery charging it is grounded AND whatever is plugged into the EFD3 is grounded, then from a safety stand point there should be no danger to human life. Computer life is a different story.

Here's what I'm seeing inside my mind: A power plug (into the grid) that drops voltage and charges a battery inside the EFD3. The EFD3 converts battery power into the equivalent of line voltage (approximately 120VAC). Then you plug a laptop power supply that converts 120VAC down to whatever the laptop battery voltage is and charges that. The laptop runs off of either the laptop charger or the laptop battery.

I don't see a need, use or purpose for chassis grounding (grounding to the unibody). You asked if you "Can" ground the laptop. Yes you can. But why? I'm also wondering why you need to convert 120VAC to some unknown battery voltage, convert that back to AC, then back to laptop battery voltage. Every time you convert AC to DC and DC to AC you loose efficiency. 120 AC to 12 DC to 120 AC to 18 DC, seems like a huge waste.

Now, if you're powering the EFD3 from solar then who cares about losses, as long as they don't diminish the power to where you can't use it. And as for grounding while on solar - there's no useful purpose to be gained. The laptop that died before; how did it die? Why did it die? Do you know for certain that grounding would have made a difference? If you believe it would have - I'd have to disagree with that.

You want to ground your laptop? Go ahead. Won't make any difference. At least not that I see.

 

Do we know for certain that the computer in this discussion is a LAPTOP type computer? That uses an external power supply??

 

Do we know for certain that the computer in this discussion is a LAPTOP type computer? That uses an external power supply??

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, the power cable of laptop will go to the ecoflow

Unfortunately we've had to assume a few things.

I have the newest iMac computer. (not bragging). Its power supply is not internal, it's an in-line power source. And to be clear, this is not a laptop computer, it's desk top. So conceivably he could be using the latest iMac and still have an external power supply. We don't KNOW he has an external power supply. NOR do we know his power supply is purely for charging the laptop battery. But he DID say it was a laptop.

 

If you are powering it from an inverter and solar panels, how can it be affected by the “bad” Philippine electrical grid?

Call it a harmless precaution... 1 do I really need ground? 2 will I damage anything if I contact the grounding prong to the vehicle metal wall ?

 

Unfortunately we've had to assume a few things.

I have the newest iMac computer. (not bragging). Its power supply is not internal, it's an in-line power source. And to be clear, this is not a laptop computer, it's desk top. So conceivably he could be using the latest iMac and still have an external power supply. We don't KNOW he has an external power supply. NOR do we know his power supply is purely for charging the laptop battery. But he DID say it was a laptop.

No worries sir, nothing about apple products is bragging.. I had an iMac some time ago too but the plug that went into the wall was only 2 prongs.. my laptop power cable has 3 prongs, indicating a need for some sort of ground.. the laptop power cable is like any other, but the rectangle in the middle is about the size of a VCR cassette.. if that is external.. there's your answer.. laptop model is MSI GF65 thinue10.. Canada version... Has an Intel i7 latest gen and Nvidia 3060 gpu if that helps you find it

 

Call it a harmless precaution... 1 do I really need ground? 2 will I damage anything if I contact the grounding prong to the vehicle metal wall ?

Yes, it is harmless. No "Need" for grounding that I can see, I don't expect any damage by grounding.

 

Yes, it is harmless. No "Need" for grounding that I can see, I don't expect any damage by grounding.

No damage to laptop or vehicle components ? Just want to make certain... Of course, there's lightning but I'll have a gigantic solar panel on the roof of the vehicle.. 3 total but I won't bore you with details

 

Um - no damage to the laptop, no damage to the car.

Unwatched.

 

Um - no damage to the laptop, no damage to the car.

Unwatched.

Thank you for your input

 

Wondering a similar thing. The EcoFlo Delta 3 is a power source. It has a battery inside. The EFD3 has a charger that can be plugged into the grid or charged from solar. If while plugged into the grid for battery charging it is grounded AND whatever is plugged into the EFD3 is grounded, then from a safety stand point there should be no danger to human life. Computer life is a different story.

Here's what I'm seeing inside my mind: A power plug (into the grid) that drops voltage and charges a battery inside the EFD3. The EFD3 converts battery power into the equivalent of line voltage (approximately 120VAC). Then you plug a laptop power supply that converts 120VAC down to whatever the laptop battery voltage is and charges that. The laptop runs off of either the laptop charger or the laptop battery.

I don't see a need, use or purpose for chassis grounding (grounding to the unibody). You asked if you "Can" ground the laptop. Yes you can. But why? I'm also wondering why you need to convert 120VAC to some unknown battery voltage, convert that back to AC, then back to laptop battery voltage. Every time you convert AC to DC and DC to AC you loose efficiency. 120 AC to 12 DC to 120 AC to 18 DC, seems like a huge waste.

Now, if you're powering the EFD3 from solar then who cares about losses, as long as they don't diminish the power to where you can't use it. And as for grounding while on solar - there's no useful purpose to be gained. The laptop that died before; how did it die? Why did it die? Do you know for certain that grounding would have made a difference? If you believe it would have - I'd have to disagree with that.

You want to ground your laptop? Go ahead. Won't make any difference. At least not that I see.

The PC that died before was a desktop computer, that apt had no ground whatsoever, and 2nd floor so quite literally no way to ground anything... Or it was my sheer stupidity, not certain why I did this but I was charging a solar battery and using a DC to Ac inverter, thinking that I was isolating my pc from the nasty power grid, welp I was wrong
One day I tried to boot the desktop and the PC said Nuh uh...had to replace the motherboard and CPU and RAM... But the PSU is unchanged

 

The PC that died before was a desktop computer, that apt had no ground whatsoever, and 2nd floor so quite literally no way to ground anything... Or it was my sheer stupidity, not certain why I did this but I was charging a solar battery and using a DC to Ac inverter, thinking that I was isolating my pc from the nasty power grid, welp I was wrong
One day I tried to boot the desktop and the PC said Nuh uh...had to replace the motherboard and CPU and RAM... But the PSU is unchanged

I see no evidence that the lack of a ground caused your PC’s failure.

that apt had no ground whatsoever, and 2nd floor so quite literally no way to ground anything

I guess your apartment had no plumbing then?

 

I see no evidence that the lack of a ground caused your PC’s failure.

I guess your apartment had no plumbing then?

Plumbing done with any of the types of plastic pipe does not work for grounding,

 

Plumbing done with any of the types of plastic pipe does not work for grounding,

Of course, but somehow, I do not picture the guy living in a van in the Philippines previously living in a modern apartment building with non-metallic plumbing.