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Orange hospital oulets
In article ,
wrote: Everytime I visit some one in a hospital or nursing home, or go into a doctors office I see orange colored outlets lately. I know this is a special grade of outlet made for medical use. What I do not know is what is special about them? Are they just made more durable, or do they contain some sort of special protection such as a GFCI (no push buttons on them). Orange outlets are Isolated Ground (IG), meaning that the ground pins on the outlets are isolated from the mounting yoke. They are used for equipment that may be sensitive to stray currents on the ground wire, such as computers and medical equipment. They will normally be wired with a dedicated ground wire back to the ground bus in the panel, known as Star Grounding. The idea is that the grounds are tied together at a single location, with a single ground path, in order to reduce noise induced on the ground bus. IG outlets are designated by a triangle on the face of the outlet, and are normally orange in color, but not always. IG outlets are not always Hospital Grade, which is a separate rating, but are generally at least Commercial Grade, if not Specification Grade. Hospital Grade outlets are designated by a green dot on the face, and may, but are not required to be IG. You may also see blue outlets, which are frequently Surge Protection, or yellow outlets, which are normally Corrosion Resistant. The Surge Protection outlets may also be IG. Other colors generally have no special meaning, although you sometimes see red used for emergency power circuits. -- -- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine -- Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net | | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 | -- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? -- |
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Orange hospital oulets
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Orange hospital oulets
Michael Daly ) said...
That's interesting - thanks for the info. Does that mean that the mounting yoke and box are separately grounded or are they not grounded? I've only noticed orange outlets in computer environments and only for outlets guaranteed to have power in a blackout - that's what I always thought the colour meant. Now I know better. The yoke and the mounting screws are grounded through the box's normal ground connection, but there is an extra INSULATED grounding conductor that connects to the ground screw on the outlet to provide the ground for the grounding pin. This insulated grounding conductor provides a direct connection to the grounding point in the distribution panel, so nothing else shares the path back as would be the case with the "normal" grounding conductor. In an environment I used to work in, it was common practice to wire the orange outlets with 14/3 cable. The white and black were wired to the outlet as usual, and the bare conductor was wired to the box as usual. The red conductor was the isolated ground and was wired to the ground screw on the outlet. -- Calvin Henry-Cotnam "Never ascribe to malice what can equally be explained by incompetence." - Napoleon ------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: if replying by email, remove "remove." and ".invalid" |
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Orange hospital oulets
"Bob Vaughan" wrote in message ... In article , wrote: Everytime I visit some one in a hospital or nursing home, or go into a doctors office I see orange colored outlets lately. I know this is a special grade of outlet made for medical use. What I do not know is what is special about them? Are they just made more durable, or do they contain some sort of special protection such as a GFCI (no push buttons on them). Orange outlets are Isolated Ground (IG), meaning that the ground pins on the outlets are isolated from the mounting yoke. They are used for equipment that may be sensitive to stray currents on the ground wire, such as computers and medical equipment. They will normally be wired with a dedicated ground wire back to the ground bus in the panel, known as Star Grounding. The idea is that the grounds are tied together at a single location, with a single ground path, in order to reduce noise induced on the ground bus. IG outlets are designated by a triangle on the face of the outlet, and are normally orange in color, but not always. IG outlets are not always Hospital Grade, which is a separate rating, but are generally at least Commercial Grade, if not Specification Grade. Hospital Grade outlets are designated by a green dot on the face, and may, but are not required to be IG. You may also see blue outlets, which are frequently Surge Protection, or yellow outlets, which are normally Corrosion Resistant. The Surge Protection outlets may also be IG. Other colors generally have no special meaning, although you sometimes see red used for emergency power circuits. -- -- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine -- Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net | | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 | -- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? -- Isolated wiring is not only for protection of the equipment. If you're having an EKG done, you don't want your arm or leg tied to earth ground. If there were a malfunction and you were tied to ground......you might go bye bye. Bob |
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