Janky electrical engineering
Okay Fediverse, how do I ground a laptop whose power supply brick doesn't have a grounding pin?
Context: I'm trying to start a homelab using two old laptops. One of them, an Asus UX32 ultrabook, is going to be a NAS, so I bought an Orico enclosure to connect disks over USB 3.0. When I connect the enclosure though, it doesn't show up in dmesg. I can hear quiet crackling sounds, I see all frontal LEDs twinkling, and if I look at the USB connection on the enclosure real close, I can see tiny sparks on the outer metal "pin" enclosing the Type B.
The same enclosure works fine with a laptop whose PSU has a grounding pin. I can't use that one for NAS though, because it only has USB 2.0. I gotta make the ultrabook work.
Currently thinking of getting a PSU cable, cutting of the computer-side connector, figuring out which wire is ground (I have a multimeter, so that's easy), and just permanently wiring that to somewhere inside the ultrabook. It has an aluminium body and lots of metal points inside, so this shouldn't be a problem either.
This is a bit scary though. Do I run a risk of causing fires, or shorting something and losing the laptop, the enclosure and the disks? If that's a real risk, I'd rather spend another $100 to get a second-hand ThinkCentre brick or something, and use the ultrabook as a VM node maybe.
@L29Ah I mean I think this entire problem is caused by NAS being grounded. If it were getting its ground from laptop's USB, there wouldn't be sparks, and it'd show up in dmesg etc. Sadly I don't have any power strips or wall sockets without ground, so I can't test this theory. I wonder if I can tape the grounding pins of the Orico power cable, then it won't have a proper ground, so it and the laptop will establish their own?
@L29Ah NAS (the Orico enclosure) seem to be grounded, at least its power cable has the ground pin.
Thanks for the idea about USB! This is way better than finding a random spot inside the laptop, or soldering directly to the chassis.