Earthing a powder-coated rack chassis?

[exclamationmark]

I recently came across a cheap 2U rack mount chassis that I couldn't pass up. It's one of those flat pack assemble your own type deals and comes with 6 different panels that screw together. The back panel is painted, the side/bottom/top panels are powder coated and the front panel is anodized (quite a mix!). As soon as I assembled I realized it didn't come with any earthing tabs and didn't have continuity between all panels. I scratched off the coating around all the mounting holes and managed to get pretty good continuity, but somehow this still makes me uneasy (given the previous situation of none of the panels actually being connected!).

I want to run dedicated earthing terminals on each panel, so I was wondering what exactly is the best way to do this? I was thinking of just sticking a small countersunk screw in each panel, so it would be relatively benign from the outside and run all the connections back to a star point at the back panel (my IEC earth is bolted to the back panel).

[Steve Conner]

On many occasions, I've just scraped off the paint around the mounting holes and used star washers under the screws, and nobody died. However, an earth jumper wire is probably more code-compliant.

Try to include a quick disconnect in the jumper wire for whichever panel you'll remove for servicing, like a 1/4" Faston tab, otherwise you'll soon tire of unscrewing it every time you want to lay the lid to one side.

[Zipslack]

Dremel tool - grind off a little coating down to the bare metal where the fasteners are. Use a star-washer for extra insurance. Shouldn't be any need for a connecting wire, or at least I don't remember UL requiring one (but it's been years since I've dealt with UL and my memory ain't what it used to be).

[loudthud]

My car has a wire that grounds the hood (engine cover or bonnet or whatever it's called).