Home Electricians - Question for You
 

I need to ground an Japanese arcade cabinet however, there is no ground prong on the plug (only 2 prong plug).

There is however a ground bolt connecting the chassis, noise filter, earth ground on the harness, and coin mechanism that should be grounded.

Can I just connect the ground bolt (via wire) to the power outlet screw? It says explicitly on the power outlet to not use the bolt as a ground.

Replace the power cable with a 3 prong cable. Run the grounds to the ground lead on the cable (usually green or bare I think) which will ground to the proper ground in your 3 prong outlet.

<I am not an electrician, but this is how I would attempt to burn down my house>

I have done some electrical in my house recently.

Frank

+1.

Technically, you can use the screw on most AC receptacles as a ground, but it's best to replace the power cord with a three-prong version. You can hack an IEC cable apart, or better yet, install an IEC inlet (like what your computer power supply has) on the back of the cabinet.

There are a couple of different standard for color-coding of AC lines. In the US, we typically use white for the neutral, black for the hot, and green (or bare copper) for the ground. In Europe, they use blue for neutral, brown for hot, and yellow-green for ground. Most factory-made cables are of the latter scheme.

Just trace your current power cable and figure our which is the hot lead and which is the neutral, and you'll be able to replace it with a 3 prong cable or an IEC receptacle.

Prolly everything is grounded to everything else on it, meaning you could take any part of the metal frame and ground that. Ive never taken apart an arcade cabnet but on any type of DVD player, or anything similar, with a metal case they always ground it to the case.

ground is a safety mechanism. it provides a path for electricty that goes where it's not supposed to.

you want all the large metal hunks in the machine connected to it because that's your most likely points of failure if a hot lead gets loose. you know, instead of leaving a large hunk of metal or housing electrically hot so you electrocute yourself. oopsie.

hey icantthink, is that car in your sig from carmageddon or somethin?