Connecting ground from different power supplies...

[Knight]

Hi!

This is probably a dumb question but is it ok to connect together grounds from two different power supplies?

I've seen some schematics where they seem to do that but I'm not quite sure if I'm reading them correctly

Assuming this is ok, would it be ok to do the same with a battery and a power supply (I tend to think that it would NOT be ok...)?

Thank you very much for your help!

Nick

[ifrythings]

Re: Connecting ground from different power supplies...

If your planning on using 2 power supplies in your computer(one for board and other for drives) it is ok to connect grounds.

Also, the cases of the power supplies are connected to ground internally, so if you mount both of them in a chassie you don't need to connect the 2 ground wires as the case is doing it for you.

If you wanted to hook a battery up to a power supply, DON'T, there's too many different problem assosiated with it.

[Knight]

Re: Connecting ground from different power supplies...

Hi!

Thank you for your answer!

What triggered my question are devices connected to the serial/parallel/usb port of a computer... They don't all use the current provided by the pc and frequently have their own power supplies (modem, printer, etc...).

I think that my confusion comes from the fact that for AC the rules are not exactly the same...

Have a nide day & happy holidays!

Nick