Electric shocks from Mother-32's

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Eldho Abraham
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Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:41 am

Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by Eldho Abraham » Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:22 am

Hi., I'm very new here. I have 3 X mother-32's and i don't know why they gives a strong electric shock when i use it these days!! For now I have started using it with the eurorack setup with a separate ground wiring which i believe is not the permanent fix as the company ships it with no grounding point and it is a standalone device!!! Can someone help me understand why is this happening?!! :!:

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ummagumma
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Location: Canada

Re: Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by ummagumma » Sun Jul 15, 2018 1:05 pm

have you checked your electrical wiring?

these little things are essential, I keep one around & never plug anything in until I verify the wiring is safe & grounded properly

Image

what country are you in?

Eldho Abraham
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Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:41 am

Re: Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by Eldho Abraham » Sun Jul 15, 2018 3:48 pm

Thank you for responding
I'm in India. I did check the wiring for it's plug points and by the way how can mother 32 have a grounding when the adaptor itself has only a two pin socket??

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ummagumma
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Location: Canada

Re: Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by ummagumma » Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:32 pm

I was thinking maybe your house/venue electrical wiring may not be correct, in different wall outlets

reversed ground wiring, no ground etc

if you have multiple equipment plugged in ( mixers, mics, amps, synths etc ) you can get shocks between them. hopefully not anything dangerous

sometimes reversing the plug in the offending unit resolves it

in this case, maybe send an email to Moog tech support, they will have a better idea of what is going on!

good luck

Eldho Abraham
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Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:41 am

Re: Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by Eldho Abraham » Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:54 am

I did check the plug points with an electrician. He couldn't find anything other than adding a grounding wire to the mother32 fixes the issue for now. Thank you for your time and the great info. I will send a mail to the company and let you know what happens. Thank you again

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ummagumma
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Re: Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by ummagumma » Fri Jul 20, 2018 10:46 pm

interesting!

glad to help, and good luck

skornjr
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Joined: Wed May 31, 2023 8:17 am

Re: Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by skornjr » Wed May 31, 2023 8:23 am

Hello,

I have the exact same issue...

My power strip / wall outlets are properly grounded (the power strip has a light to check if ground connection is correct or not).
However the adapter that comes with the M32 is 2 pins only so it was not meant to be grounded anyway.
If I seat on a chair with my feet not touching the ground, I don't have the issue anymore, so it's very likely a grounding issue.

I don't have any euro rackcase so I can't use that same workaround you did mention. Is there an easy way to just add grounding while using the original case?

Thanks,

skornjr
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 31, 2023 8:17 am

Re: Electric shocks from Mother-32's

Post by skornjr » Thu Jun 01, 2023 9:29 pm

If that can help anyone, I figured out the issue.

On the other end of my mixer I was using some speakers that are not earth connected.
The speaker set came with a 3 pin plug so I assumed they were, however after opening it I realised that the 3 pin is not used inside the speaker, it is simply "double insulated". Problem with that design is that the current which is supposed to go back to the ground is leaking through the TRS jack instead, sending current to all the other connected equipment via the sound cables.

So in short, the Mother 32 doesn't have any issue, it was receiving current from via its audio output from a badly designed speaker. After changing the speaker set to a properly grounded one, the issue went away.

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