Running a reprap without grounded electrical

So I just found out last week that none of the outlets in my apartment are grounded, despite having the 3-pronged outlets. Looks like the landlord pulled a fast one on me.

Does anybody have experience with running a printer without a grounded outlet? My apartment is kind of ancient and has no grounded outlets. Is it possible to run everything well shielded to itself, or is it really just asking for a lot of comms errors and general weirdness without a true ground?

Would a UPS help in this situation to filter the incoming power from any spikes?

My last resort would be to run the printer in the detached garage- as that has newer grounded wiring. But it's also a total pain since I don't have a computer or any dedicated workbench out there.

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Germanicus

Mine is not grounded. The power supply does not even have a ground.

You can run your own ground.

I have looked into running my own ground. That will involve crawling under the building to attach the wire to a suitable ground source, and given that the building suffered a catastrophic failure of the sewage line (also in the crawlspace) I'd rather find another solution before crawling around in that muck. The new sewage lines are PVC, which means my likelihood of finding a suitable ground connection are quite diminished. I have been looking into getting a suitable ground for my TV and computer, my best option looks like tying into a water pipe- which also means getting into the crawlspace. Fortunately this is an area with very few thunderstorms (about 1 every 3 years) so I am not too worried about that factor.

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Germanicus

Mine is not grounded yet, I might change that one day if I can be bothered

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

... the 'ground' is more protection against electrical shock when a line wire breakes and touches a metallic part, than for filtering spikes and such.

You can shield the electronic with a metallic housing connected to the [-] (or GND) of your power source and use shields around your longer cables.

Connect all logic GND's with short, thick cables to one central point, if you have more than one power source - especially the GND of your USB cable is a canditate for catching spikes ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I was thinking of connecting a wire from the metal frame of my Reprap to a ground spike as the easiest option

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

I wouldn't worry about it - unless you plan on kicking your printer into a puddle, it shouldn't be an issue.