I ground to a rod but it’s about 20ft from my powder coating setup so I have a 10ga wire running from the rod to the shop and ground to that. I started using a standard practice of attaching the powder coating gun to the hook that I hang my parts on. I get better results with the ground rod though. I had installed it for a laser cutter I had that was just a mess with regards to the electronics so I had it handy to hook to the gun.
Is the rod copper or could I use a six foot piece of rebar?
And my other question is - does the wire coming from the gun go to the part I’m doing or at least the hook it’s hanging from?
The rod is copper. You can find it in the electrical department at Home Depot. Solid copper rod, 8ft long, 1/2 inch diameter (I think) and a hardened sharpened point on one end. Drive it into the ground until there’s about 6 inches sticking out, add a grounding clamp (right next to the rods) to hold the wire to the rod.
You run the ground wire on the gun to the rod and another wire from there to the hook your part is hanging from. It cleans up all the RF and other interference that can be present in an AC wiring scheme in a house.
If you don’t do the rod but just clamp your gun’s ground to the part hook, you’re using the house ground (the 3rd wire in the outlet) to eventually run back to the grounding wire that the house is attached to (a similar copper rod). The difference is that the rod the house is attached to is far away in terms of all the rest of the wiring in the house where the one you pound into the ground outside your shop is right next to the gun so a short path to where it can drain any spurious signals.
You do not want two grounding rods earthed close to each other though as that sets up eddy currents and other bad interference which you were trying to get rid of in the first place. Your house one is probably very close to your electric meter. If your shop is 20 feet or so away you should be good with a new dedicated ground for the gun.
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“RF” ?
“Spurious Signals” ?
“Eddy Currents” ?
Jim, are you sure you’re not an amateur radio guy??
This kind of speak sounds all too familiar… LOL
Well said though. !! Spot on!
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James does amaze me quite often! And btw if you know your local phone guy …they have rods and clamps. I have a few out in the shop for electric fence grounds. Or Electric company also.
Started out as an Electrical & Computer Engineer - moved to the darkside of computer software though 
Growing up, my neighbor was the local Elmer so I was subject to a bad influence early on. Got me interested in electricity, radio, anything electrical or electronic.
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Awesome thanks for the advice. My setup is near a window but not sure the wire from the gun is that long - so maybe splice more wire to it??
My setup is also about twenty feet from my meter (outside) and panel (inside) - so hopefully it will work out.
I’ll pick up the stuff I need from Lowe’s because they are closer. The reason I’m concerned about my ground is because I’m running off an extension cord with an multi outlet plugged into it - all I have in terms of outlets on that side of the shop/garage.
Thanks again Jim.
I was able to get about 7 feet into the ground. This is right outside where I gave my powder booth setup.
Can I use this as a universal ground for other stuff as well? Like my plasma table, welder, etc.
Yep as long as you’re not using them all at the same time. The plasma can be “noisy” electrically speaking. The new inverter welders are pretty clean.
I ran wire from the rod to my shop that I attach the gun clamp to. Figured that was better than splicing in more wire on the gun side. I used 10ga (stranded) which has much more capacity than the ground wire the gun has. BTW I used stranded wire because the electrons flow on the wire surface so there’s more capacity on the stranded than the same size of solid. Either works for this purpose though.
What about 14 gauge solid wire? That’s what I bought as recommended by the manufacturer.
That’ll work fine. I went oversized because I figure more capacity is always better and if I upgrade my gun again I’m pretty sure I’ll still be okay. My original gun was an Eastwood model and your 14ga is larger. I think it had an 18ga wire on its ground clip 
I have a user ground in my shop foundation. I hooked a 10g wire with an alligator clip to that. Connect gun ground to this as well. Did all this in main panel with cut in box below for the 10 g wire exit.
should have said ufer. Spell check again
Got my redline yesterday and set up today. Awesome gun compared to Harbor Freight. Put 2 pieces next to each other and ex50 was far and away a smoother finish. Well worth the $
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Yeah I went with the 10gauge stranded for my ground. My oven (old residential oven) rubs hot so I’m trying to get that dialed-in. The interior of the oven isn’t as big as I’d like. But it will do for now. I like how easy the whole process is. Low PSI, not much fan needed to suck powder to the air filter behind my setup and not much room needed for what I’m coating. I’m gonna try doing something a little larger tomorrow.
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Nice booth set up you have, I certainly need to do something like that.
A little hint on your air supply, that’s quite A lot of stuff hanging off of your gun making it a bit awkward to handle, mine was set up almost just like yours.
What I did was use a 10’ air brush hose I bought at harbor freight. You will need the proper adapter and hook it directly to the gun. Put a dessicant in line filter and quick connect on the other end and now the gun is much easier to move around while coating plus putting less weight and stress to the gun’s handle and fittings.
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Hey Gunny, that looks like horse heads in your booth? have you ever seen a switch plate cover with a horse on it? I found one, maybe on PS and had to modify it a little bit so I can’t take credit for it but it cuts pretty good, let me know if you want it and I’ll send it to you when I’m at home and remember. One of them is like this where the holes are where the plate screws onto the switch and the other one the screws actually hold the switch and cover to the box in the wall.
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Awesome - and yes, I’d love to get my hands on that. I’ll just tell my wife I did it. Lol
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Thanks for sharing that. I’m gonna rig that up this weekend. Makes much better sense.