The Ultra Ground, by Ultra Life Reef Products

I have no personal gripe against the manufacturer of this product, and am not a disgruntled customer. Being an electrician I can rectify this easily enough on my own. However, I shouldn't have to modify safety equipment to make it acceptable for its purpose.

That being said.. . .


I received and installed my ground probe today. I'm disappointed in the design of this probe. The probe end is titanium, which is good, but the opposite end has the wire terminating in an eye ring; designed to go inside the center screw of the receptacle cover plate.

This is not the best way to go. If your electrical work is done properly, this would be merely acceptable. Unfortunately, the center screw is not continous to ground 100% of the time. For example, if your receptacle had those tiny plastic washers on the mounting screws, or the square insulating pieces of paper sometimes found on the yoke, this would render the receptacle's body NOT continuous to ground, setting up a hazardous situation should a ground fault occur.

If you find yourself the owner of this ground probe, you should run a continuity tester from the mounting screw of the plate, to the 3rd prong on your receptacle to make sure that screw is grounded. Better yet, return it for a model with a termination that plugs into your receptacle somehow. As for mine, I'll be terminating this device into the ground screw of the receptacle itself.

BMShehan's has a model that terminates in a cord plug where the hot and neutral are "dummy" prongs, and the ground actually plugs into the 3rd hole. This is a much safer design.


As an electrician, one thing you learn over and over, is that a ground path MUST have 3 characteristics:

1. it must be permanent and continuous,
2. it must be of lowest possible impedance (resistance) and
3. it must be able to carry any fault current likely to be imposed on it.


The problem with this probe's cheaper design, is it doesn't satisfy the the 2nd and 3rd requirements. Since it's just an eye for a screw to go through, it's not as conductive as if it were a piece of wire plugged into the ground prong directly. The "joint" created at the point of contact between the eyelet and the screw simply doesn't have the same throughput, or ampacity as a piece of solid wire. This means that a fault current seeking ground through this device must be squeezed through that ineffective, consequently high resistance joint. High resistance joints lead to arcs and sparks, and that's not good.

So the ground path through this device is less likely to carry amply, (no pun intended) any fault current imposed on it. As a result, the bottleneck in this circuit does not have the lowest possible resistance.

What angers me is that this is a safety device. It's tantamount to making a fire extinguisher that must shoot through a drinking straw, or a seatbelt made of twine. If you're going to make a product whose purpose it is to save lives, make it well, and make it right!

Thumbs down on the Ultra Ground by Reef Products.

 

I bought this same ground probe and was also less than impressed with the eye ring.

Here is what I did... I went to Home Depot and bought a 3 prong DIY replacement plug like this:



... and wired the eye ring to the ground connecter (located inside the plug) and presto - a more reliable ground probe!


Z

 

Good thinking, Zzippper.

I spliced mine into one of the receptacles via the ground screw behind the cover plate.



(I made my power center.)

 

Thanks for the tip spark. How is the tank looking now since you instaled the ground probe?

 

I installed it about 3 hours ago. No difference, Smitty.

 

Yeah , well 3 hours huh?: I guess not then.

 

Thanks Spark. I got one with the ground plug and the dummy prongs. However, the plastic prongs do not allow the ground plug to go in all the way. Does it make a difference? Don't know. I am going to Home Depot, get a part and make sure. Thanks for the thread.

Peace.......John.

 

Thanks, I got the same one you did and though I was all right. I guess I'll have to show my hubby this and have him fix it. It a shame that Co can get away with this, you think you have taken care of something and it seems you haven't .

 

Thanks Sparky.

I will go check mine shortly.;D

 

I don't think so. As long as it's in more than 3/4 of the way you should be fine.