Its a standard 3-wire system: "0", "phase", "ground", I am from Bulgaria, but I think all of Europe uses this system.

If you connect 1 end of the DC battery to ground, nothing will happen, if you connect both ends than yes it will work, and like mentioned in the previous post dont do it!

And if you connect just one end of an AC source to ground, nothing will happen.

 

And if you connect just one end of an AC source to ground, nothing will happen.

And if you connect just one end of an AC source (the phase) to a light bulb (yes this is what I meant) it will work!

What you need is a carrier of electricity (the phase) and this electricity has to go somewhere (a standard grounding spike from the shop will do).
I meant "ground" not "earth". The ground has the lowest resistance possible 10 on -7 about. The fact that the generator is connected to "0" means nothing.

The electricity also goes from the places of higher concentration to the places of lower concentration (ground).

 

"If you connect an "AC" wire to ground, electricity will flow (by ground I mean a stick of iron buried If you connect a "DC" battery nothing will happen."
Not sure I understand that at all?
BTW here a "stick of iron" is a copper coated ground rod, at least 6ft long .
Max.

Just take into account the "AC" part. Phase to light bulb to ground without "0" will work!

 

What is the "0" you talk about?
It seems you are saying stick a conductor in the ground and it will support/energize a load (lamp) with just a live conductor connected without any other reference to earth??
Max.

 

'0' is the standard wire that you get in your house (you get phase, "0", and for safety reasons grounding). When you stick the meter in the wall connector on the first hole you get 230V, on the second hole you get nothing.

I am saying that if you buy a grounding stick from the shop, put it in the ground on the appropriate depth, than connect a lightbulb to phase and to ground, with no " 0" connected, it will still light up, but keep your distance as it might blow up if there is a spike of current (not very likely, but still safety first!).

 

To me what you are describing is shown in the ground conducting picture in this pic from Univ of Penn, in your case it is a ground referenced neutral at the service source.
Nothing magic about that.
Max.

 

I never said that its magical, just that it works. And even without the "0" wire, but just connecting the phase to ground, you will still get the light bulb to work. I have even seen connectors with phase and ground, no "0", the "0" pin is removed.

 

'0' is the standard wire that you get in your house (you get phase, "0", and for safety reasons grounding). When you stick the meter in the wall connector on the first hole you get 230V, on the second hole you get nothing.

I am saying that if you buy a grounding stick from the shop, put it in the ground on the appropriate depth, than connect a lightbulb to phase and to ground, with no " 0" connected, it will still light up, but keep your distance as it might blow up if there is a spike of current (not very likely, but still safety first!).

It will ONLY work because the AC source (the transformer in most cases) is ALSO referenced to the ground with another spike at the transformer. If it weren't, the you would have a floating system and it would not work.

 

And if you connect just one end of an AC source (the phase) to a light bulb (yes this is what I meant) it will work!

No, it will not. Go find an AC source that is not ground referenced at the source and try it. You can't try to do it with the AC source in your home because that AC source IS ground referenced.

But what you CAN do is get an isolation transformer and then connect one end to your light bulb, the other side of the light bulb to your ground spike, and then get a flash light so that you can see because the light bulb will be dark.

What you need is a carrier of electricity (the phase) and this electricity has to go somewhere (a standard grounding spike from the shop will do).
I meant "ground" not "earth". The ground has the lowest resistance possible 10 on -7 about. The fact that the generator is connected to "0" means nothing.

The electricity also goes from the places of higher concentration to the places of lower concentration (ground).

Higher concentration of what?

What you need is a potential energy difference in order to get current to flow. If the AC source is not ground referenced, then there is no way to create the necessary difference. If you only have a single ground connection, all that happens is that the floating voltage on the far side of the generator goes up and down relative to Earth.

 

I am saying that if you buy a grounding stick from the shop, put it in the ground on the appropriate depth, than connect a lightbulb to phase and to ground, with no " 0" connected, it will still light up, but keep your distance as it might blow up if there is a spike of current (not very likely, but still safety first!).

In the factory where I worked, you could literally touch the "phase" wire without any harm done to the human body. How can you explain this?
Did you ever heard abou IT earthing system?

 

What for do I need to do this "No, it will not. Go find an AC source that is not ground referenced at the source and try it. You can't try to do it with the AC source in your home because that AC source IS ground referenced."?

I never said the source isnt grounded, I said you dont need "0"!

 

What for do I need to do this "No, it will not. Go find an AC source that is not ground referenced at the source and try it. You can't try to do it with the AC source in your home because that AC source IS ground referenced."?

I never said the source isnt grounded, I said you dont need "0"!

This stemmed directly from your claim that, "You also need to know the difference between "AC" and "DC" current. If you connect an "AC" wire to ground, electricity will flow (by ground I mean a stick of iron buried in the ground). If you connect a "DC" battery nothing will happen. The battery needs both ends connected for electricity to flow." You then used an your house wiring as an example of such.

If you want to now somehow claim that you weren't talking about a difference between "AC" and "DC", but that by "AC" you were only talking about a ground-referred AC system, go right ahead. But then if that's the case, why aren't you also referring to a ground-referred DC system, in which case you can connect as "DC" wire to ground and electricity will flow. If you don't think so, read up on high-voltage DC monolines.

 

Thank you all so much for the input. It was all very interesting and very insightful reading all the posts and the back and forth discussions.
Sorry for the late response I was traveling and I wanted to read all the posts in case some of the later posts answered some of my questions.

So the earth is basically just a conductor of electricity (a decent conductor I suppose? - much better than humans in any case). Not a sink or source it's just a big conductor with lots of circuits that happen to connect to it.

One would think that since there are many things connected to earth there must be SOME path to another positive terminal somewhere else, and so create the necessary voltage, if I connect only the negative of a battery to ground but WBahn seemed to touch on that subject and I'm going to read the link he put to get more info about that.

 

One would think that since there are many things connected to earth there must be SOME path to another positive terminal somewhere else, and so create the necessary voltage, if I connect only the negative of a battery to ground but WBahn seemed to touch on that subject and I'm going to read the link he put to get more info about that.

Yes, do read that blog because it addresses this very question. One thing that it doesn't say explicitly but is relevant to what you say here, the ONLY thing you know about the positive terminal of a source such as a battery is that it have a positive voltage RELATIVE to the negative terminal. It's voltage, both magnitude and polarity, to any other point is defined only via the connections and what is happening with them, particularly the currents flowing.

 

You have a couple of misconceptions that are interacting, so let's see if we can chip away at them.

.......

The bottom line is that as soon as any net charge flows onto or off of a circuit or component (from or two single ground connection, for instance), the circuit develops an overall net charge that tries to undo this. The forces involved build up rapidly with even just a minute amount of charge flow so that any such flow stops almost as soon as it starts.

Thanks for the very detailed answer. That really clears a lot of confusion. Also the blog post was very helpful.

 

Yes, do read that blog because it addresses this very question. One thing that it doesn't say explicitly but is relevant to what you say here, the ONLY thing you know about the positive terminal of a source such as a battery is that it have a positive voltage RELATIVE to the negative terminal. It's voltage, both magnitude and polarity, to any other point is defined only via the connections and what is happening with them, particularly the currents flowing.

So that's specific to DC batteries because of the specifics of their internal chemistry. What if we had a different type of DC source (is there such a thing?) or even an AC current (one that is not purposely grounded at the source) and we connect one end to ground. It would make sense that the electrons would find their way to another receptor positively charged receiver somewhere in that universe of ground-connected components. I guess that's what static charge does ha?

 

So that's specific to DC batteries because of the specifics of their internal chemistry. What if we had a different type of DC source (is there such a thing?) or even an AC current (one that is not purposely grounded at the source) and we connect one end to ground. It would make sense that the electrons would find their way to another receptor positively charged receiver somewhere in that universe of ground-connected components. I guess that's what static charge does ha?

It has virtually nothing to do with AC or DC. A source of voltage is a source of voltage. I used the example of a battery only because that is the easiest thing to visualize. In fact, I originally said "source of any type" but changed it because in an AC source the positive terminal doesn't tell you that the positive terminal is positive relative to the negative terminal, since it usually alternates polarity. Instead, it tells you how to find the polarity at a particular moment in time.

 

So that's specific to DC batteries because of the specifics of their internal chemistry. What if we had a different type of DC source (is there such a thing?) or even an AC current (one that is not purposely grounded at the source) and we connect one end to ground. It would make sense that the electrons would find their way to another receptor positively charged receiver somewhere in that universe of ground-connected components. I guess that's what static charge does ha?

Nothing mysterious about the earth, it is just a large circular conductor 12,000km in diameter.
If you think of it that way, there is less confusion.
Max.