Multymeter.com-Electrical Engineering: Grounding is an integral part of an electrical circuit because it serves to reduce the risk in the event of a troubling. Grounding itself is widely used in various needs such as in electronic circuits, household electrical installations, PLN networks, electrical transformers, substations, high-rise buildings, industry, lightning rods and many other examples.
Grounding for lightning protection needs cannot be arbitrarily plugged in grounding sticks. Grounding sticks must have a grounding distribution resistance value that must be known in Ohm units, for that we need a tool to get the ohm distribution resistance value, namely a grounding tester or Earth tester meter.
The earth tester meter is the main device in the installation of lightning rods, namely for testing the feasibility of grounding lightning rods, besides that this tool serves to measure and find out how much resistance the soil spreads in the area and how much ground resistance value is obtained.
The best ohm value for lightning rods is a maximum of 1 Ohm, so that the electric current that can reach millions of kilo volts generated by a lightning strike can be channeled to the ground optimally. In addition, avoid installing grounding cables forming an angle of 90 °. And if you haven’t found a value yet. below 1 Ohm, it means that the depth of the grounding stick needs to be increased.
Here’s how to use the Earth Tester Meter
- Prepare the Earth Tester Meter
- Plug in 2 iron “T”, with each 5 meters distance from the grounding stick to be tested.
- Connect the green test cable to the grounding stick that will be tested for its Ohm_value.
- Connect the yellow wire to the “T” iron 1.
- Connect the red wire to the “T” iron 2.
- Turn on the Earth Tester switch, select a value of 20 Ohms.
- Search until you get a value below 1 Ohm, if it doesn’t work, plug it deeper into the grounding stick.
Thus a brief description of how to measure grounding sticks for lightning rods using the Earth Tester Meter. Hopefully it can be understood, and useful.***