FloatingPoint
New Member
I'm now to this Solar stuff. I have a Renogy 400 Watt 12 Volt Solar W/MPPT Charge Controller system running parallel solar panels and two 12V 100Ah Smart Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries in parallel. The problem I'm having is actually with the inverter which is a Renogy 2000W 12V DC inverter. This system is in a shed that is not connected to the house or house grounding. The shed has an earth ground rod, and the inverter is connected to the earth ground rod via its ground terminal.
However, when I plug in a tester into the inverter socket it shows an open ground fault. Now, I thought it was just the inverter itself and purchased another one different brand but got the same problem. So I'm back to the Renogy 2000W.
I did a multimeter test from the hot (live) to ground and it gave me 62.9V, then the neutral to ground gave me 56.4V and hot to neutral 119.9V. This kind of indicates to me that the system is unbounded (floating neutral). So, it looks like it's not a good idea to connect the neutral to the ground busbar via the AC Terminal Block.
The manual is not really that helpful when it comes a completely off grid system (in a shed). However, the manual says at no point should the chassis ground and the neutral conductor of the inverter be bonded. It goes on in another paragraph to say… At no point should the chassis ground and the neutral conductor of the inverter be bonded. Bonding the chassis ground and the neutral conductor of the inverter or connecting the inverter to household or recreational AC distribution wire will damage the inverter and void the warranty.
The other thought I had was to just get another inverter that is internally bonded (NTG), True Ground like the Wagan EL3808 and forget about the Renogy 2000W. I'm thinking maybe there is something else that needs to be done to make the Renogy work without an open ground fault, but I don't know exactly what. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
However, when I plug in a tester into the inverter socket it shows an open ground fault. Now, I thought it was just the inverter itself and purchased another one different brand but got the same problem. So I'm back to the Renogy 2000W.
I did a multimeter test from the hot (live) to ground and it gave me 62.9V, then the neutral to ground gave me 56.4V and hot to neutral 119.9V. This kind of indicates to me that the system is unbounded (floating neutral). So, it looks like it's not a good idea to connect the neutral to the ground busbar via the AC Terminal Block.
The manual is not really that helpful when it comes a completely off grid system (in a shed). However, the manual says at no point should the chassis ground and the neutral conductor of the inverter be bonded. It goes on in another paragraph to say… At no point should the chassis ground and the neutral conductor of the inverter be bonded. Bonding the chassis ground and the neutral conductor of the inverter or connecting the inverter to household or recreational AC distribution wire will damage the inverter and void the warranty.
The other thought I had was to just get another inverter that is internally bonded (NTG), True Ground like the Wagan EL3808 and forget about the Renogy 2000W. I'm thinking maybe there is something else that needs to be done to make the Renogy work without an open ground fault, but I don't know exactly what. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
