EcoFlow River Pro Grounding Issue, Please Help

[khbaur330162]

Hey all.

I recently bought an EcoFlow River Pro, it has yet to arrive. My question is, how do I ground my equipment that I plug into this thing? The outlets simply have a giant hole for the ground pin on US male plugs to sit inside, no electrical connection, see here:



I will be plugging in expensive hi-fi equipment to this battery backup and some of it is grounded. Sometimes I touch my equipment and get a small static shock. If my equipment is not grounded properly I am worried about damaging it.

I also bought this cable. There is a grounding screw on the side of the River Pro that this cable can run to and then just plug into the wall for grounding purposes, see here:


However that doesn't change the fact that the outlets on the River Pro are still un-grounded. How would I go about safely grounding my audio equipment?

This is especially important to me because I DIY'ed my own power cables for my audio gear and they have what's called a "drain wire" that spirals around the neutral and live wires (outside the insulation but inside the shielding) and connects to ground on the wall end (not device end so as to not contaminate equipment ground). This supposedly drains RFI and EM waves from neutral and live wires to ground, so I'd really like to maintain this feature in my DIY'ed power cables despite hooking up to battery power.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated guys. I really don't want to ruin any of my equipment with shoddy DIY wiring, I've spent a lot on this equipment, so thanks for any insight you can give. Hopefully it's an easy workaround.

Best Regards,
Matt

 

[DarrylG]

Since you are creating your own DIY'd power cables for your audio gear, I would think if you are plugging your audio items directly into your delta pro with home outlets still nearby, you could create an adapter plug that takes ground only from a nearby house plug. Similar to how the Hot and Neutral plugs are made of plastic on the cable you bought. It will be interesting to see what the experts say, but I don't expect an issue if you are not connecting the Ecoflow to your house.

Years ago I made my own grounding plug cord that came out to a bead chain I would put on my ankle before working on computer equipment.

 

[khbaur330162]

Since you are creating your own DIY'd power cables for your audio gear, I would think if you are plugging your audio items directly into your delta pro with home outlets still nearby, you could create an adapter plug that takes ground only from a nearby house plug. Similar to how the Hot and Neutral plugs are made of plastic on the cable you bought. It will be interesting to see what the experts say, but I don't expect an issue if you are not connecting the Ecoflow to your house.

Years ago I made my own grounding plug cord that came out to a bead chain I would put on my ankle before working on computer equipment.

This is what I was thinking. I could take that cable I bought, splice off the Titanium rod because I don't have an aquarium, and then solder the wire to the ground pin on an adapter like this. I'd plug my gear into this modified plug and the ground pin would run straight to the wall. So you think I'd have a ground loop or something if I then plugged my River Pro into the wall? I would be charging at night from the wall, but should be using battery power only to run my equipment.

That cable I linked to... could I just ground the chassis to my equipment with it? I only have one piece of equipment that has static issues. Could I just unscrew a screw on the chassis, slip that washer from the grounding cable underneath it, plug the grounding cable into the wall and be done?

 

[DarrylG]

In my opinion, all of this sounds fine. I would think that if you plugged the Ecoflow into the wall, the ground pin on the Ecoflow would probably be connected to the ground from the AC input internally. Use a meter to test. However, If you are charging and pulling-the-ground from the same outlet or circuit, I don't think there would be any ground loop issues.
But look at these types of ground pin adapters: https://www.amazon.com/Maximm-Grounding-Adapter-2-Prong-Outlets/dp/B07MGJ4JGZ They might be easier to connect a wire to. Of course single versions of this might be picked up at your local hardware store.

The idea of modifying the Aquarium cable with a spade end this placing this under the Ground Lug on the Ecoflow and a wire from the Ground Lug to the above mentioned ground adapter sounds best to me. Or just from the Ground lug to the adapter if you can keep the Ecoflow plugged in and the ground is passed through the AC input.

Again, I would like to hear an experts opinion.

 

[khbaur330162]

In my opinion, all of this sounds fine. I would think that if you plugged the Ecoflow into the wall, the ground pin on the Ecoflow would probably be connected to the ground from the AC input internally. Use a meter to test. However, If you are charging and pulling-the-ground from the same outlet or circuit, I don't think there would be any ground loop issues.
But look at these types of ground pin adapters: https://www.amazon.com/Maximm-Grounding-Adapter-2-Prong-Outlets/dp/B07MGJ4JGZ They might be easier to connect a wire to. Of course single versions of this might be picked up at your local hardware store.

The idea of modifying the Aquarium cable with a spade end this placing this under the Ground Lug on the Ecoflow and a wire from the Ground Lug to the above mentioned ground adapter sounds best to me. Or just from the Ground lug to the adapter if you can keep the Ecoflow plugged in and the ground is passed through the AC input.

Again, I would like to hear an experts opinion.

Ok, thanks so much. I will check with multimeter if ground lug and ground on AC input is pass through and report back.

 

[khbaur330162]

CONFIRMED: Ground lug and AC input ground are passthrough!

This is not what I need, however, because I will be powering my hi-fi equipment with the River Pro UNPLUGGED so as to reduce line noise.

This is the adapter I made today:



I was thinking I'd be hooking my equipment up to the ground lug, however then it hit me, I need a ground WITHOUT AC input... So I will be modifying this 2-prong to three-prong adapter to accept that grounding cable I previously linked/mentioned. This will allow me to plug my DAC into the River Pro and run just the ground into the wall. Any experts out there? Am I performing a huge no no? Please advise if you see this in time to warn me.

I will report back if I have any ground loops or hum issues with the River Pro plugged into the wall as well as not. River Pro arrived today, but I have yet to give this baby a listen, it's still charging. I want to "slow charge" the unit and hopefully increase life cycle count, so it's taking a while. Only charging to a little less than 80% (again, to preserve battery life) so should be ready soon. I will try it on the amp first (un-grounded component) and see if I can hear a difference. After I get the grounding cable sussed out I will hook up the DAC as well and that's where things should get fun.

 

[khbaur330162]

River Pro with no signal has cascading distortion; fuzzy waves of noise every second or so. However with music playing, it's best I've heard. Wholly musical, great attack, peers deeper into stage, and generally very clean with nice character throughout the spectrum from low to high. However this distortion ruins quiet passages in classical or delicate intros in classic rock such as Pink Floyd - Meddle - One of These Days. I have contacted EcoFlow support to see if my inverter is faulty. I can't see why there should be this much noise on a pure sine wave inverter. If it weren't for distortion I'd be 100% sold already. Plugging the unit in is even worse: noise beyond belief, not even useable. But this is not why I bought the unit, I bought to use for 100% battery powered pure sine wave inverter, so it doesn't worry me as much. But the cascading distortion worries me about even plugging in my digital to analogue converter, grounded or not. Would this distortion wear out my digital processing board? Analogue components are a bit heartier, I'd imagine, so the amplifier is not so big a deal. I will see if EcoFlow is willing to trade out my unit for another River Pro or even a Delta series unit, hopefully we can get this distortion under control.

 

[pralinebuckets]

I'm curious if you found a cause or solution to the noise issues

 

[jjchvl]

Hey all.

I recently bought an EcoFlow River Pro, it has yet to arrive. My question is, how do I ground my equipment that I plug into this thing? The outlets simply have a giant hole for the ground pin on US male plugs to sit inside, no electrical connection, see here:
View attachment 122262


I will be plugging in expensive hi-fi equipment to this battery backup and some of it is grounded. Sometimes I touch my equipment and get a small static shock. If my equipment is not grounded properly I am worried about damaging it.

I also bought this cable. There is a grounding screw on the side of the River Pro that this cable can run to and then just plug into the wall for grounding purposes, see here:
View attachment 122263

However that doesn't change the fact that the outlets on the River Pro are still un-grounded. How would I go about safely grounding my audio equipment?

This is especially important to me because I DIY'ed my own power cables for my audio gear and they have what's called a "drain wire" that spirals around the neutral and live wires (outside the insulation but inside the shielding) and connects to ground on the wall end (not device end so as to not contaminate equipment ground). This supposedly drains RFI and EM waves from neutral and live wires to ground, so I'd really like to maintain this feature in my DIY'ed power cables despite hooking up to battery power.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated guys. I really don't want to ruin any of my equipment with shoddy DIY wiring, I've spent a lot on this equipment, so thanks for any insight you can give. Hopefully it's an easy workaround.

Best Regards,
Matt

Could you simply take a length of copper wire(like strip a 4 or 6 foot length of bare copper ground wire out of some household 12/2), connect it to your River's ground screw and loosely coil and then bury the rest of the wire?