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Live Ground Shocked 5 Year Old

SAVE YOUR DAUGHTERS LIFE!!!! DO NOT TRY AND FIX THIS WITH HELP FROM THE INTERNET!!!!

I'm a retired master electrician. I've tried troubleshooting over the phone with halfway knowledgeable Maintenace workers and it just doesn't work!! Online IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Please hire a bonified electrician to fix your F***-up before she gets killed. Harsh yes but she did get shocked, so I'm point on.
 
STEP 1. Shut off the inverters.

STEP 2. verify EVERY PANEL, INVERTER AND METAL COMPONENT IS CONNECTED TO THE SAME GROUND BONDING SYSTEM AND INTO A PAIR OF GROUND RODS.

Step 3, take LOTS of pictures in focus with flash...
 
The MOST likely scenerio is improper grounding and she was barefoot, and touched the different potential of an energized container. Likely it was only 60V tingle...
But in wet conditions... she could have died.

Hopefully the lack of response from OP means he is following our advice and is focused on finding the issue.
 
touched the different potential of an energized container
I know you know this, but just to add for others. It takes two faults to tango. Just energizing a container won't give you a container to earth potential if the source is left floating. My first suspicion is that this wasn't a true earth fault, and her feet or other hand was somewhere else.
 
The first thing to understand is that wiring something to a ground rod is not the key part of safety. The key part is wiring all metal objects together.

The first (1) point that matters is that all metal chassis must have wires connecting them together (including between multiple trailers, storage containers etc.) "bonding"

The second (2) is that no currents from any circuits is allowed to flow through those bonding wires. All circuits have their own power wires and return (or "neutral") wires, forming a loop from source (battery or inverter) through loads and back to source. The circuits do not use "ground" or "bonding" wires to carry current.

The third (3) is to have one or more ground rods and connect the bonding wires from (1) to that ground rod. Also connect any pipes like water, gas, etc. All exposed metal is pulled to same voltage as the earth with ground rod.

A fourth (4) is to use GFCI outlets for any wet locations including outside. (not the issue in this case)

The shock may have occurred because a life wire had a path to the container your daughter touched. Alternatively, the container may have had a path to chassis of equipment, but a live wire had a path to earth, so earth and container were different voltages.

One of your photos shows PV panels on the roof of a container or trailer. This situation has caused shocks for a number of people because inverters like yours superimpose AC voltage on PV+/-. There is capacitance between PV cells and PV frames, causing high voltage but low current. For that reason, The First (1) rule to bond metal together, PV panel frames to container back to inverter chassis to building inverter is in and to a ground rod.

Then test everything on AC and DC scale, voltage to chassis and voltage to earth.
That was a very well written, focused and informative comment…lot of good info in one tightly wound package..thx…
J.
 
I’m making assumptions and they can be dangerous, especially remotely.
You have two Growatts, single phase in parallel to Growatt auto transformer for split phase. Correct me if I’m wrong but the neutral and ground must come together(bonded) one place and that’s after the split phase transformer in the main breaker box. All inverters, breaker boxes and auto transformer chassis must be grounded. Ground at transformer appears missing. Neutrals from inverters should not have any bond to ground before the transformer. If you tied the inverter neutrals together on a buss at the inverter breaker box, is there a bonding screw in place by accident? Be aware if that’s the 5000 watt version auto transformer it may be on the small side and won’t tolerate much phase imbalance. Again have a qualified electrician look at these points.
 
I admit it's been so long that i've already forgotten but what is it about the ground screw needing to be removed in SPF5000ES's? I did mine, but ive already forgotten if this was changed along the way and no longer needs doing on newer versions?
 
Connect 60w light bulb to same spot where you measured 120V. If it lights up then you have a problem. If it does not and voltage drops to near zero then ground the container to your ground rod. It would help us figure out your problem if you drew a circuit diagram of how you have everything hooked up.
 
Hi All,

I have a shipping container that I’m building an off grid system for. I have 2, Growatt SPF 5000 ES inverters purchased from Alibaba connected in parallel and a Growatt auto transformer that’s powering an outlet that’s jumping another outlet that’s in a metal box screwed into the shipping container.

Yesterday I finally finished wiring the system and powered the 2 outlets and everything was working fine till I turned off the circuit breaker and later my 5 year old daughter touched the shipping container and got zapped. I grabbed my multimeter and measured from the ground to live wire and even though the breaker that was feeding that live wire was in the off position and disconnected from the panel I showed a reading of 120v. This is extremely alarming because the whole case of the shipping container was energized due to the grounded metal box screwed to the shipping container! That’s an 40’ by 8’ area that’s energized by this live ground. I’m lucky my daughter was not seriously hurt by this.

I wired an independent ground all the way from the ground rod to the subpanel ( panel on the right) that it’s being fed by the auto transformers output wires and I still was getting a live ground reading.

Can anyone help? I need to figure out a solution to this live ground problem.

The picture below shows the 2 growatt inverters powering the panel on the Left.

A 30A breaker feeds the wires going through the panel on the right and straight up into the auto transformer on the “IN” side

On the output side you have the live1, neutral and live 2 wires going straight down to the panel on the right.

Then on that right panel you just have a 20A breaker that’s feeding the outlet on the right that’s jumping another outlet that’s in a metal box screwed to the shipping container.

Any constructive criticism is welcomed as well. I’m new to this Solar world and any suggestions to better my system is welcomed
Where is neutral to ground bond? When you say autoformer , it's job is to nudge the neutral around so it stays centered between the two 120v hots. If you had only a small load on one leg and a heavy load on the other 120v leg (unblanced), then the autoformer would be moving the neutral around (voltage wise, please bear with my analogy).

Rule is ground and neutral bonded at ONLY one point, usually the first load center in the structure. This gets aggravating when off grid because the "ground neutral bond" needs change when you run on grid vs on a generator.
The other rule is all metal boxes are GROUNDED. Remember , ground should never be a current carrying conductor. That's the neutral's job.

Years ago I was in a communications trailer and it was plugged into a plug on a lamp post. Well, turns out someone had climbed the pole and tapped off one leg of the nightlight for the plug we were using. This meant the trailer chassis was floating at 120v just as you've described. My solution was to ground rod the trailer for our event. The correct solution was to provide ground neutral bond at that plug (it was the first point of service).

And finally.... cute kid. Mine used to be that little.
 
Where is neutral to ground bond? When you say autoformer , it's job is to nudge the neutral around so it stays centered between the two 120v hots. If you had only a small load on one leg and a heavy load on the other 120v leg (unblanced), then the autoformer would be moving the neutral around (voltage wise, please bear with my analogy).

Rule is ground and neutral bonded at ONLY one point, usually the first load center in the structure. This gets aggravating when off grid because the "ground neutral bond" needs change when you run on grid vs on a generator.
The other rule is all metal boxes are GROUNDED. Remember , ground should never be a current carrying conductor. That's the neutral's job.

Years ago I was in a communications trailer and it was plugged into a plug on a lamp post. Well, turns out someone had climbed the pole and tapped off one leg of the nightlight for the plug we were using. This meant the trailer chassis was floating at 120v just as you've described. My solution was to ground rod the trailer for our event. The correct solution was to provide ground neutral bond at that plug (it was the first point of service).

And finally.... cute kid. Mine used to be that little.
Hey I just read your oringial post again... those growatt inverters are not for the US market. They have a ground neutral bond on one end, not correct for split phase. I think there's a screw in the chassis that needs to be removed. Check will prowse youtube for that screw. It was all the rage about 2 years ago.....

More info: If your autoformer were to fail or pop it's breaker, you would apply 240v to all your 120v appliances... is it worth it? A wife flipping the wrong breaker for example could cause the microwave and fridge to get fried.... is it worth it?
 
There can be ways to make the auto-transformer work and not fry things, at least if not also connecting to grid.
It involves shutting off all loads if auto-transformer gets overloaded. Victron auto-transformer takes care of that. Some Growatt configurations may also. Can also be done with small 120/240V loads panel and large 240V only panel.

But done wrong, could fry 120V loads, brown-out (and fry) 240V loads, overheat transformer, etc.

Better to get US equipment meant for split phase, but it may be possible to safely use the 240V European models.
(There are US products which also rely on external auto-transformer.)
 
Rule is ground and neutral bonded at ONLY one point, usually the first load center in the structure. This gets aggravating when off grid because the "ground neutral bond" needs change when you run on grid vs on a generator.
Is this because the generator has a N-G bond? Hence not true when the generator isn’t bonded? My Honda EU3000iS does not have a bond…
 
SAVE YOUR DAUGHTERS LIFE!!!! DO NOT TRY AND FIX THIS WITH HELP FROM THE INTERNET!!!!

I'm a retired master electrician. I've tried troubleshooting over the phone with halfway knowledgeable Maintenace workers and it just doesn't work!! Online IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Please hire a bonified electrician to fix your F***-up before she gets killed. Harsh yes but she did get shocked, so I'm point on.
Normally I would not agree with this statement but Growatts, Autransformers and a metal shipping container plus a Child involved make this one kind of unique.
I AGREE: Get a professional electrician in and have him check this out. Either that or get your Wife and Daughter out of there while you work this problem.
 
Normally I would not agree with this statement but Growatts, Autransformers and a metal shipping container plus a Child involved make this one kind of unique.
I AGREE: Get a professional electrician in and have him check this out. Either that or get your Wife and Daughter out of there while you work this problem.
Im of the opinion that it is a completely resonable statement givin the circumstances, ive smacked an old lady who was about to touch a live buss bar. Id bet hed rather have hurt feelings and bruised ego than a dead wife/daughter
 
SAVE YOUR DAUGHTERS LIFE!!!! DO NOT TRY AND FIX THIS WITH HELP FROM THE INTERNET!!!!

I'm a retired master electrician. I've tried troubleshooting over the phone with halfway knowledgeable Maintenace workers and it just doesn't work!! Online IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Please hire a bonified electrician to fix your F***-up before she gets killed. Harsh yes but she did get shocked, so I'm point on.
Thank you for the concern, much appreciated. I disconnected completely the outlet and wire that ran to the metal box screwed to the shipping container to limit the circuit to just the inverters, circuit breaker panels and transformer. This would allow me to trouble shoot within that specific space. Ive been reading up and the issue seems like its a ground/neutral bond from the inverters. Apparently there is a US version and a European version.
 
I admit it's been so long that i've already forgotten but what is it about the ground screw needing to be removed in SPF5000ES's? I did mine, but ive already forgotten if this was changed along the way and no longer needs doing on newer versions?
Where did you find instructions on how to do this? did removing that ground screw help your system?
 
Normally I would not agree with this statement but Growatts, Autransformers and a metal shipping container plus a Child involved make this one kind of unique.
I AGREE: Get a professional electrician in and have him check this out. Either that or get your Wife and Daughter out of there while you work this problem.
Thank you for the concern, much appreciated. I disconnected completely the outlet and wire that ran to the metal box screwed to the shipping container to limit the circuit to just the inverters, circuit breaker panels and transformer. This would allow me to trouble shoot within that specific space. Ive been reading up and the issue seems like its a ground/neutral bond from the inverters. Apparently there is a US version and a European version.

Access to the shipping container has been revoked for both my wife and daughter till this issue is solved! Thank you everyone for the concerns.
 
Thank you for the concern, much appreciated. I disconnected completely the outlet and wire that ran to the metal box screwed to the shipping container to limit the circuit to just the inverters, circuit breaker panels and transformer. This would allow me to trouble shoot within that specific space. Ive been reading up and the issue seems like its a ground/neutral bond from the inverters. Apparently there is a US version and a European version.

Access to the shipping container has been revoked for both my wife and daughter till this issue is solved! Thank you everyone for the concerns.
Please…

Before you attempt ANY troubleshooting, get good lighting, and take detailed pictures of everything connected to the container, let us see the boxes, wires junctions everything.

We may see the issue right away, and save you a lot of headache.
 
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