What the heck does that third prong on a Western Hemisphere power plug do (the “ground”) if it isn’t necessary for all electronics?

Question

Hell, I’ve even seen people rip them off to fit 3 prong plugs into 2 prong extension cords. I’m sure it’s not safe, but I dont know why and why they would be necessary sometimes and sometimes not.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Three wire configuration: 1 the “hot” wire, 2 the neutral wire, and 3 the ground wire.

In normal operation, the hot wire brings power to the device and the neutral wire is the return path to the fuse/breaker box in your house.

The ground wire is a second return path for safety reasons.

Both the neutral wire and the ground wire are connected to the same ground bar inside your fuse/breaker box.

So if there’s a short in your device so that the path to ground via the neutral wire is broken, the ground wire provides an alternate path. Otherwise when you touch your device, YOU would be the alternate path to ground.