Has electricity ground

Ground, earth and ground

In electrical engineering and electronics, terms such as mass, earth, device earth and ground are often used and unfortunately also mixed up. We want to clarify here what exactly these terms denote.


By potential we usually mean a tension. This voltage is raised from the reference potential.
Either "up" towards plus, ie positive. Or "down" towards minus, ie negative.


The "earth" is the potential of the earth. The earth potential is a point of reference for us on the earth. Grounding is a form of ground connection and can serve as a return conductor in a circuit. But, the earth has no zero potential for a circuit.


The ground is a "massive" reference potential. This potential begins from the earth potential and can be offset from a correspondingly predetermined potential. It doesn't have to be 0 volts.
The device earth is a synonym for ground and designates the reference potential of the device.


Ground, GND for short, is just the English name for ground. Sometimes it is also used for "earth".

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