Thanks Bobert (and Solarcabin).
FYI, my solar panels are connected in series, so they'll be producing ~70v.
Regarding your statement "If your solar array can produce over 48v you may want to consider earth grounding the frames of the panels if possible" ---> my solar installer has confirmed...
Cheers
Cheers. I'll update my schema with your replies and others.
FWIW, I tried to be productive and went searching for clarity in the background and found your consistent reply in another thread...
Hi All,
Very first post here...:)
I just built my first 12V off grid system (I'm not an expert by any means) and have some questions re: grounding / earthing.
Please see attached images for conceptual system diagram of my system, and also a pic of the actual system.
Note: I had the solar...
For those interested, I have summarised the general feedback of this thread so far as per below.
Grounding takeaways:
AC
There should be only 1 Neutral-to-Ground (NG) bond across the entire AC system
Ground on the AC side (i.e. ground to earth or other grounding system)
DC
'Bond' the...
Oh yes, that's the video that helped me so much, esp. regarding the concept of Neutral to Ground (NG) bonding and how to test if your Inverter has an internal NG bond (I used his 1st test - I think he lists 3 in total?). Thank you for adding that video to this thread.
Hi,
I'm building a 100% off-grid system (i.e. no AC inputs, AC outputs not connected to house wiring or Grid) and have some questions around Neutral-to-Ground (NG) bonding, grounding equipment and earthing.
I've read the grounding PDF manuals from this site and many posts. The purpose of this...
Thanks for the super quick reply.
I choose the Phoenix for no big reason except that it wasn't an all-in-one system from Victron. I tend to prefer the resilience of having separate components in a system as opposed to an Inverter + charger unit. But that's just me. Tbh, I'll probably change...
^ what this guy said.....3000W at 12V and every component / item in your system gets silly and magnified...cost, temp.
Go 24V or 48V guys. I have a 12v 2000W inverter systems and 1 x 24V 3000W inverter system....I like 12V for beginners but not at 3000W...why even bother...just go up to 24V.
Hi Tim,
Thank you for calling out my misuse of DC Negative vs AC Neutral terminology. I now see why it's important to get the nomenclature correct. I should have been more careful with usage of terms as it just ends up adding confusion and diluting the focus of my post.
Just so I'm clear...
So you're saying don't connect the Inverter Chassis to DC Negative.
Ok, so what happens in the situation if the Inverter has a ground fault and the chassis becomes active / hot? How does the ground current get diverted back to the proper path (i.e. DC negative) in the hope tripping a breaker...
Let's do some maths
3000W inverter / 12V = 250A
250A / 0.90 inverter efficiency = 277A (i.e. the inverter will draw 277A theoretically to power 250A of load ----> btw, as if anyone would push an inverter to it's absolute limit in real world practicality).
So let's round it up to 300A for...
From what I know (I could be wrong), a copper wire takes minutes to burn / light up if SHTF......for e.g. a 300A copper wire won't suddenly catch fire and burn down your house because a load suddenly exceeds the stated wire/cable amperage rating......moreover, a 300A rated copper cable will...