lesjones
New Member
I'm about to install my first panels and a couple of the EG4 solar mini splits. In preparation, I've been trying to educate myself on grounding and wiring to help mitigate lightning damage. I came across a couple of articles last night that had info that I hadn't read before. Would love to hear opinions about these. Here are two excerpts that caught my attention:
"A wire run of 100 feet(30 m) or more is like an antenna—it will receive surges even from lightning in the clouds. Similar surges can still occur even if the wires are buried, but most installers agree that buried transmission wiring further limits the possibility of lightning damage. A simple strategy to reduce susceptibility to surges is the “twisted pair” technique, which helps equalize and cancel out any induced voltages between the two or more conductors. The ground wire need not be twisted with the power wires. For burial runs, use bare copper wire; if you use conduit, run the ground wire outside the conduit. The additional earth contact will improve the grounding of the system."
This was on a ham radio site that was posted by a user. It's specifically talking about the ground wire used between grounding electrodes, but I'm assuming that the same holds true for other types of ground wire.
"Larger wire (at least 6 AWG) is used for several reasons, first of all, the larger the wire, the lower the resistance and the lower the damage in case of a lightning strike. Next, larger wire has much lower inductance and this is really important with lightning, as the change of current versus time (dV/dT) is very high and for a small period of time, the ground doesn’t even appear to be connected! If at all possible, use a stranded wire with fine strands. A good example is welding wire. It is rather expensive but it is designed to give a large current flow with low losses and low inductance."
"A wire run of 100 feet(30 m) or more is like an antenna—it will receive surges even from lightning in the clouds. Similar surges can still occur even if the wires are buried, but most installers agree that buried transmission wiring further limits the possibility of lightning damage. A simple strategy to reduce susceptibility to surges is the “twisted pair” technique, which helps equalize and cancel out any induced voltages between the two or more conductors. The ground wire need not be twisted with the power wires. For burial runs, use bare copper wire; if you use conduit, run the ground wire outside the conduit. The additional earth contact will improve the grounding of the system."
This was on a ham radio site that was posted by a user. It's specifically talking about the ground wire used between grounding electrodes, but I'm assuming that the same holds true for other types of ground wire.
"Larger wire (at least 6 AWG) is used for several reasons, first of all, the larger the wire, the lower the resistance and the lower the damage in case of a lightning strike. Next, larger wire has much lower inductance and this is really important with lightning, as the change of current versus time (dV/dT) is very high and for a small period of time, the ground doesn’t even appear to be connected! If at all possible, use a stranded wire with fine strands. A good example is welding wire. It is rather expensive but it is designed to give a large current flow with low losses and low inductance."
