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My device lives in the soil, in a flower pot, or other garden container. It is about 16" long, has a 40-50mm diameter and runs on 5VDC. My question, how much soil does it take to develop a viable earth ground? If that kind of volume will sink current, how long a spike would I need to access it?

Tim Cerka
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    What is the purpose of your grounding? Is it for lighting protection? Supply ground-fault protection? As one of the two supply conductors a-la SWER distribution? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 30 '23 at 00:36
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    Wait, earth ground in a flower pot? Like, inside? – pipe Jan 30 '23 at 00:42
  • So pipe, you're saying you need alot more soil then a container. – Tim Cerka Jan 30 '23 at 01:03
  • The purpose is to provide a better ground reference than the floating ground plane of the device. – Tim Cerka Jan 30 '23 at 01:06
  • Certainly more than this: https://ehssafetynews.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/image0032.png – Bryan Jan 30 '23 at 01:14
  • think of a minimum size as a 12"-16" flower pot that is 12 " deep. – Tim Cerka Jan 30 '23 at 01:21
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    If you have a 5V battery or mains operated device, the ground planes it has have little to do with earth or soil. Please give some background info why you ask this question. Like why you think your device must have soil or earth connection. – Justme Jan 30 '23 at 01:35
  • @JustMe The way I'm thinking, which may be wrong is. Ground is a signal, a 0V signal, but still a signal, with inherent noise and fluctuations. The floating ground of a small battery powered device does not seem to provide as clean a signal as earth ground. – Tim Cerka Jan 30 '23 at 02:21
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    @TimCerka So, your theory is that tethering any and all circuits to Earth will make their observations less noisy -- so therefore it will make your circuit observations less noisy? Have you tested this idea? I wonder how the James Webb Telescope makes its measurements... – periblepsis Jan 30 '23 at 02:29
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    **How much earth? Just one, Earth.** If it's not electrically connected to the planet it's not earthed. I guess you need something different, but what? – Jasen Слава Україні Jan 30 '23 at 06:34
  • @TimCerka If your design has noise due to how ground plane is designed poorly, you need a better ground plane. Connecting a poor ground plane to earth will do absolutely nothing. – Justme Jan 30 '23 at 06:57
  • It reads to me like you're hoping to run a 5 V supply wire to your pot's electronics/load and to avoid a second ground return wire by using the earth i.e. mud. Is that right? – TonyM Jan 30 '23 at 09:10

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Sorry not an answer, but maybe it helps regardless in what you are trying to achieve:

Attaching circuits to the Earth has nothing to do with signal integrity and noise, but is used to make various devices agree on a common voltage level if they must exchange signals over a galvanically connected interface.

Besides chassis are often attached to Earth potential to prevent them from being powered to dangerous voltage with respect to Earth.

tobalt
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