My belief is the ground block thing is in NEC code for an antenna cable entering the building, and I think it's not required for a low voltage cable (i.e. Doorbell, camera, ethernet, etc). If Starlink uses ethernet to the outdoor unit then it's probably not actually required to have the ground block.
________________________________ From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <khoh...@kwom.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2025 11:44 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Equipment Ground Wire Sizes I personally think some people treat R56 as some sort of gospel that it doesn’t deserve. The latest edition is dated 2005 but it originally came out in 1987, and while it’s used as an industry standard, it was developed by one company (Motorola). Lots of good stuff in it, but do you believe everything from 1987? In some cases, documents like this serve as a CYA in case you get sued for something, you can say you followed industry standards and are therefore not liable. Like, there are lots of people who predict the end of the world as we know it unless you provide a “grounding block” where any wire enters a building. But Starlink installs don’t do this, so apparently we are all doomed. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2025 10:15 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: [AFMUG] Equipment Ground Wire Sizes I found some code references saying that an equipment ground wire should be either equal in size to the power conductor to the equipment or based on the amperage of the circuit protection device. For example, a device on a 20A breaker would use the larger of 12ga or the size of the power conductor to the device. But then you have things like R56 calling for nothing smaller than 6 gauge. And then I have manufacturer installation guides which may go a step further and call for 4 gauge or 2 gauge. So why the apparent overkill? Is it for mechanical robustness? Performance even if connections are corroded or incorrectly torqued? I'm ok with all of that, I'm just wondering if they just want a big safety margin or if there's some electrical reason why I'd need a 2 gauge ground for a piece of equipment with 70A @ -48VDC breakers. -Adam
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