Power cable questions- 3 holes to 2 prongs safe?

[HoshiChiri]

So, I was digging around through various cables & such of the in-laws, & figured out one of the 360s in the house wasn't hooked up at all, & set about fixing that. Found the AV, the spare connect, digital sound adapter, power brick... but not the cable that goes from the brick to the wall. 

 

But this should be easy, right? It's a standard cable, common on printer bricks, I'll grab one at a thrift store. Which I did- only 75 cents! Got home, and that's when I learned there's more than one 360 power brick. Oops.

 

Anyway, based on my research, the cable I picked up is a '3 prong shroud female', and the brick's only got 2 prongs. Is it safe for my to use this setup? I imagine the 3rd prong goes to ground. Part of me thinks it should be fine- there's just an unused hole, right? Part of me worries if any current heads down that third line with no prong to guide it, it'll bounce around the brick & fry it. Should I be hunting down the right cable instead?

[CapitanClassic]

On 6/6/2021 at 6:17 PM, HoshiChiri said:

the cable I picked up is a '3 prong shroud female', and the brick's only got 2 prongs. Is it safe for my to use this setup? I imagine the 3rd prong goes to ground. Part of me thinks it should be fine- there's just an unused hole, right? Part of me worries if any current heads down that third line with no prong to guide it, it'll bounce around the brick & fry it. Should I be hunting down the right cable instead?

All the power bricks I have seen are three prong male to a cable that is 2 prong to the wall. Not sure I understand your situation though… you have a 3 prong cable, but the power brick only has two male prongs (I.e. the power brick is missing a ground prong. I am no electrical expert, but the purpose of the ground wire for an appliance is to protect you from touching an electrically charged metal case and shocking yourself fatally. Since the power brick is all insulation, it wouldn’t shock you (maybe the system could).

 

It is confusing to me how OEM power bricks ship with a 2 prong power cable anyway (image below). I assume that if some electrical fault occurred within the console that the power brick would blow before the whole XBOX case became electrified, so maybe that is why it doesn’t need a 3-prong plug, where a PC with the power supply inside the case does need it.

 

I was disassembling a garage lift and accidentally connected some wires on the motherboard to the metal case. Because the lift was connected to a ground wire, the Ground Fault Circuit Interrupt (GFCI) in the garage immediately triggered (or maybe the breaker box, don’t remember), and power was instantly shut off.

 

 

 

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/question110.htm

[HoshiChiri]

On 6/22/2021 at 2:56 PM, CapitanClassic said:

All the power bricks I have seen are three prong male to a cable that is 2 prong to the wall. Not sure I understand your situation though… you have a 3 prong cable, but the power brick only has two male prongs (I.e. the power brick is missing a ground prong. I am no electrical expert, but the purpose of the ground wire for an appliance is to protect you from touching an electrically charged metal case and shocking yourself fatally. Since the power brick is all insulation, it wouldn’t shock you (maybe the system could).

Short version is: I have this plug on the brick;

So I need this cable to use with it;

But this is the cable I found:

 

So the question is- how safe is it to use that cable? In theory, if the 3rd hole is just a ground it'll run fine... but if a surge comes up through the plug, it has nowhere to go & could hurt the system. At least maybe? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

[CapitanClassic]

19 hours ago, HoshiChiri said:

So the question is- how safe is it to use that cable? In theory, if the 3rd hole is just a ground it'll run fine... but if a surge comes up through the plug, it has nowhere to go & could hurt the system. At least maybe? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

This part doesn’t make sense to me “if a surge comes up through the plug,” the ground-wire in your house is connected to the ground/earth. Electricity takes the shortest path (path of least resistance) to get to ground. If a power surge were to occur, there is much bigger resistance in going through the 3-prong cable, jumping through the air (huge resistance), and connecting to the XBOX system to eventually find its way to ground. I don’t think your situation could ever occur.

 

 

[HoshiChiri]

On 6/27/2021 at 9:30 AM, CapitanClassic said:

I don’t think your situation could ever occur.

Probably not, but I'm paranoid- partially because Xbox's website says not to use the 3-hole plug on a 2-prong brick (but not why), & partially becuase in my old setup I had to use a converter plug on my PS3 becuase without it there was a nasty feedback buzz (meaning somehow there was power coming through the ground to the system.) I've never had to convert mid-cable before, so I have no frame of reference for it.

[copperboy]

On 6/27/2021 at 12:30 PM, CapitanClassic said:

This part doesn’t make sense to me “if a surge comes up through the plug,” the ground-wire in your house is connected to the ground/earth. Electricity takes the shortest path (path of least resistance) to get to ground. If a power surge were to occur, there is much bigger resistance in going through the 3-prong cable, jumping through the air (huge resistance), and connecting to the XBOX system to eventually find its way to ground. I don’t think your situation could ever occur.

 

 

Personally, I haven't understood this either. Why would a surge come through the plug?

If I have a chemical battery, such as a Duracell alkaline 1.5 V, where is the 3rd wire?

It doesn't make sense. There should be 2 wires only.

I know that the 3rd wire is ground but why? Is it in case lightning comes through my window and hits my computer case?

Is the ground wire really connected to something? The motherboard? Or does it just connect to the case?

Another bizarre thing with AC is that one wire is called hot and the other wire is called neutral. I think the neutral connects to the center tap. If you touch the neutral, you don't feel anything. If you touch the hot wire, you feel a buzz (Please don't try this).

 

PS: your XBox 360 power supply does not have neutral. Mine is like yours. Also, I am using a PC power cable (3 prongs).

[vintagegamecrazy]

I've done that several times. You're not going to hurt anything. The power supply you're using is ungrounded anyway. Only very early model power supplies had three prongs coming out of the jack. You're not going to hurt the system unless you had a whole house surge that fried everything in the house along with the system. At that point nothing will help protect it.