Grounding a "small RV system" but in a house

[MattWilcox]

I have a typical "RV" system - two 120W solar panels, an MPPT charge controller, a battery, and an inverter. However, this system is intended to be used in an upstairs office to power a home computer. How should the inverter be grounded correctly in this situation? I can't drill through the wall and run a wire to a grounding rod, my house doesn't have a chasis as it's not a vehicle, and I have a suspicion that I should not be wiring the standard house power socket's earth terminal to the earth of the inverter.

What to do?

 

[Rednecktek]

Do you have a regular wall outlet up there? A male plug with only the ground wire connected and stuck in the wall will ground the whole thing to your house grounding system.

 

[MattWilcox]

I do yeah, ok so that *is* the right thing to do? Huh, I didn't think it'd be that simple. Thank you!

 

[Rednecktek]

On super rare occasions, simple actually works. ?

 

[KITROBASKIN]

If you are going the informal route of making ground through a wall outlet, seems prudent to give the home electrical wiring a good look/see to get an understanding that everything is done right. If your personal knowledge is lacking, find someone?

Are your solar components of good quality?

Did you ground your solar panels?

Do you live in an area with lightning? Do you have surge protection?

Clearly this thread was way too simple; explains the obnoxious entanglement of this post.

Likely, plenty of people who just go simple with a ‘portable’ system like you have, do not get involved with the residential wiring. But ungrounded panels on the roof (or wherever) might invite some high energy mischief inside. Not sure a puny ground wire in a socket is up for a task like that.

Hoping some additional informed diysolar members will contribute here, ‘cause I could be off on this.

 

[HRTKD]

I'm not experienced on the residential side of things, so this is me thinking out loud...

An RV's 120v AC system isn't grounded (earth ground) until it is connected to shore power. On shore power, the ground from the pedestal becomes the RV's ground.

I'm not sure that you can use the residential ground if you aren't actually connected to the residential AC.

@timselectric would have the right answer here.

 

[timselectric]

If the system is installed in the home. It should be connected to the homes grounding system. Any part of the homes grounding system will suffice. As long as the conductor you are connecting to is adequately sized for the additional appliance. Since you said that the inverter is small. The nearest properly grounded outlet should be fine.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

"installed in home" would imply that the inverter is hard-wired. Is this the case here? If not then is it an appliance that may not require a chassis ground?

 

[timselectric]

"installed in home" would imply that the inverter is hard-wired. Is this the case here? If not then is it an appliance that may not require a chassis ground?

If it has any exposed metal parts. They should be grounded for personal safety.

 

[timselectric]

But, we don't actually know what your system is.
Can you post a picture?

 

[MattWilcox]

Thanks all, very helpful! To be clear about my own set-up, it really is "the super simple RV thing" but I'm looking to mount the two 120W panels outside on the wall and run the wire through and into the room (replacing an existing telephone wire that I don't need). It's just a dead simple 2-panel outside, wire run through inside, and then a Renogy 20A MPPT, two SOK batteries, and fuse box, and a 1200W Pure sine wave inverter.

It's literally just a hobby thing and to see if I can effecitevly power my office computer during the summer while I'm working from home, and maybe every other day during the winter months. It's also just some practice for if I ever am able to afford a campervan.

Alas, my location, tiny house, and general circumstances mean I'm not able to get roof-mount solar and proper "house" stuff