J
jguk
Hey,
Been trying to add a 37" Sharp TV and PS3 to an existing setup of 21" TV, HD recorder, VHS and digibox.
These are all powered from 2 double 13A wall sockets, with a couple of 3-way bricks and a trailing 4-way.
Initially I added the TV and connected it to the coaxial aerial, the HD recorder via HDMI and the digibox via composite video. All working fine, no problems at all, we watched the footy last night.
Then this morning I added the PS3, connected the PS3 power cable and the HDMI into the back of the PS3 and then went to connect the HDMI to the TV's 2nd HDMI socket. I noticed that when the metal sleeve of the HDMI cable touched the metal chassis of the TV (around the TV connectors etc) there was some small blue/white sparks visible and audible. It smelled like my dads old train set.
Understandably I didn't want to plug the HDMI cable into the TV for fear of damage, so I tried a few things to see what was going on:
- using a digital multimeter i measured the voltage between the TV chassis and the earth on the 13A 4-way - this was 19V AC.
- disconnecting all cables (bar power) to the TV reduced that to 13V AC
- voltage between the PS3's HDMI cable metal sleeve and the TV chassis was 19V AC
- voltage between the PS3's HDMI cable metal sleeve and the earth on the 4-way is zero.
- using a 13A extension with NO EARTH and plugging the PS3 into that prevented any sparking - so isolating the PS3 from the earth cures the problem.
So from that and some googling it must be some kind of earth problem... All the devices are not earthed (2 core mains cables), except the PS3 which has an earth, and according to the manual should be earthed.
I had no problems with the PS3 and TV in their previous location in another house.
Is this normal? Any ideas what I can do to fix this problem please?
Thanks,
James
Been trying to add a 37" Sharp TV and PS3 to an existing setup of 21" TV, HD recorder, VHS and digibox.
These are all powered from 2 double 13A wall sockets, with a couple of 3-way bricks and a trailing 4-way.
Initially I added the TV and connected it to the coaxial aerial, the HD recorder via HDMI and the digibox via composite video. All working fine, no problems at all, we watched the footy last night.
Then this morning I added the PS3, connected the PS3 power cable and the HDMI into the back of the PS3 and then went to connect the HDMI to the TV's 2nd HDMI socket. I noticed that when the metal sleeve of the HDMI cable touched the metal chassis of the TV (around the TV connectors etc) there was some small blue/white sparks visible and audible. It smelled like my dads old train set.
Understandably I didn't want to plug the HDMI cable into the TV for fear of damage, so I tried a few things to see what was going on:
- using a digital multimeter i measured the voltage between the TV chassis and the earth on the 13A 4-way - this was 19V AC.
- disconnecting all cables (bar power) to the TV reduced that to 13V AC
- voltage between the PS3's HDMI cable metal sleeve and the TV chassis was 19V AC
- voltage between the PS3's HDMI cable metal sleeve and the earth on the 4-way is zero.
- using a 13A extension with NO EARTH and plugging the PS3 into that prevented any sparking - so isolating the PS3 from the earth cures the problem.
So from that and some googling it must be some kind of earth problem... All the devices are not earthed (2 core mains cables), except the PS3 which has an earth, and according to the manual should be earthed.
I had no problems with the PS3 and TV in their previous location in another house.
Is this normal? Any ideas what I can do to fix this problem please?
Thanks,
James