How to hook up ground wire for RJ45 suppressor

Kewlx25

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I was looking around for RJ45 surge protectors and I see they tend to have ground wires, which makes sense. But how does one go about hooking one of these up?

Say I have a cable modem, so no computer case to hook to? An example of what I'm talking about is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CI3w5smA6LsCFa9cMgod4hEAYA&Item=N82E16812106054

I'm hoping that there is a simple and safe way to hooking these up that does not involve stripping wires or taking apart an outlet.

Thanks :)
 
I am going to bet you will end up having to build a special plug or disassemble a outlet. This device I appears to want to connect to the center screw on a outlet plate. Problem is a lot of those screws are now plastic and/or they are isolated from the outlet. It is not really that hard but if you do not understand how to safely find the ground wire in a outlet then you should not attempt it.

Not sure how useful stuff like this is. Power lines can get a surge into the house from may causes and even from stuff from within the house like a big AC unit. All ethernet cable is already completely isolated from the outside world. When you start to worry about a lightning strike close enough to the house to introduce a surge into a ethernet cable I would be more worried about it burning my house down that blowing out some network equipment.
 

tgumina

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Jan 5, 2014
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The screw that hold the wallplate to the receptacle is a grounding point as long as there is a ground to it. Even most 2 prong outlets use this screw as a grounding point. Just make sure the underside of the screw isnt covered in paint so it can contact the fork connecter on the suppressor.
 

Kewlx25

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My one experience with lightning causing damage to my equipment was my friend's computer plugged into my, at the time, $200 8 port 10/100 switch. Heard a "BANG" outside and the lights went really bright for a split second. My computer and switch was on a surge protector and didn't have a single hick-up. My friend's comp shutdown. He turned it back on, and all was working, but he couldn't get on the network. His computer did live on until it's useful days were long past, just with one dead integrated NIC.

I tried plugging into his port and noticed the link light would not turn on. Yep, his NIC and my switch port was now dead, but he had two NICs, so all was well for him. Every few days, a new port would die, until the entire switch was dead.

Well, I'm looking to purchase a new switch. If a $20 device may save me headache in the future. I've had good experiences with surge protectors.
 
Gets kinda expensive if it is $20 per port and then another $20 if you want to protect the computer or whatever on the far end.

I still suspect the having to connect all these to a ground is going to be a huge pain in the butt since you would have to run a extra patch cable to these devices which need to be near electrical outlets.

I guess if you got hit once it may make you more worried about this. We never use anything like this in commercial installations and I have many 100,000s of switch ports we continuously monitor and I have yet to see one fail due to some kind of surge.
 

Kewlx25

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I bet you have UPSes and surge protectors on nearly every device. I will soon be getting TV service, which my ISP just started offering a $15/month basic for their new all digital HD line up with DVR functionality. The ONT is on a UPS and my computers and all other plugged in equipment are on a surge, but once the bring in the set-top digital tuners, those will be plugging into the ONT. This means if a surge hits, it could go through the set-top boxes, to the ONT, and into my main computer network. Placing a surge between my ONT and main switch will alleviate most of my concern about that.

But it sounds like there is not a simple way of grounding these things. Quite annoying.

Oh-well, it was worth asking.

TY :)