Should I earth my electrics or not in my van?

[KITROBASKIN]

Just a simple dc only system 200w solar and 100ah lifepo4 battery.

RCinFLA is a great resource here on diysolarforums.

 

[Gueyog8a7]

You still need the house battery, leasure battery, connected to the van metal 'earth'. If you fit a DC to DC charger, it will need this to function for most chargers.

Poor connections, failed insulation, faulty 12V devices, can cause current flow and/or return through unwanted paths, metal parts of the vehicle and its equipment. By having the battery negative connected to the metal, protective overcurrent fuses would fail and prevent issues, like fire.

I guess at times you have AC 230v in the van. Again faulty equipment or cables could introduce AC live on the van metal. Anyone outside touching the van , perhaps standing on damp ground, would receive an electric shock. By having the van metal connected to the imported earth conductor, breakers or fuses at the supply point would provide protection.

Issue comes into play when you connect to shore power. Safest setup is grounding stake when connected to shore power.

You never know what might be happening between neutral and ground on shore power outlets. There are long AC distribution lines and some other camper may have neutral and ground connected together pulling ground above real earth ground with their loads. Camp grounds should have GFCI breakers to prevent this but not all do.

You might have an AC voltage between your RV chassis and earth ground when on shore power.

You can get a neutral-hot GFCI breaker to put on your shore power feed to check for balanced current on your neutral-hot feed. If there is a real ground current return bleeding current it will be detected and break shore power connection. It is like two wire GFCI plugs on hair driers.

Not sure what you guys mean. Either I have AC in the van or I don't and I don't have it and don't intend to have it .