Inverter earth ground - I’m confused

[Glenn]

This is probably an easy one for most of you…… I have never owned an inverter.

I picked up an 1100W pure sine inverter. It came with a small earth ground cable which I’m guessing is the same as case ground.

I’ve read multiple threads, but find myself still confused. So the easy part- the DC Pos and Neg go to their respective inverter battery posts.

But there is a small earth ground wire it says to hook to chassis. The videos I’ve watched and blogs I’ve read say hook up the DC ground and the AC inverter earth ground to the chassis.

I’m having a hard time getting my mind wrapped around having those shared neutrals oh the chassis especially with the truck having an ECU and other sensitive electronics.

But every source seems to say the same thing, unless I’m misunderstanding. I am simply wanting to make a short pigtail that plugs into my outlet on the inverter and hard wired to a duplex outlet on the camping box to make things look stream lined. No service box or panel for AC, just the inverter and two outlets.

The manual from the manufacture is pretty much useless.

Advice on the grounding issue is very much appreciated! I’ve included pictures of the inverter and circled in red the “earth ground” in question

Thanks everybody

Post Edit: I see in the picture their identifying it as Ground Terminal (red circle) and not earth ground as I had read elsewhere.

 

[Glenn]

Probably going to answer my own question but I found another thread and just talked to one of our EE electricians here at work.

On the latest thread I read it was stated “ with a digital volt meter set to Ohms, check the DC negative post (incoming on inverter) and the AC ground and they are probably already connected”

If this is correct then the connection is already there and the earth ground on the inverter is just another “safety” by hooking it to the chassis.

 

[Jon R]

That wire is not serving as a neutral return - it’s a safety ground. One of its purposes is to ensure that, if the AC hot wire shorts to the likely conductive things in the vicinity, you get a large fault current that is safely routed and quickly blows the circuit protection device to cut off the power rather than having that nearby conductive object stay hot and be a shock hazard. On a vehicle you want to connect it to the chassis.

While cars and trucks use the body as a common return for small loads with only a positive wire routed to those loads, that’s not a good practice in an RV. Your ac and dc loads should have a dedicated neutral or negative wire to carry the current. You then want to tie the neutral and negative to the safety ground at one location only to prevent “ground loops” or unintended circulation of current.

One potentially problematic situation is when you plug into shore power and then have both your inverter safety ground and ac neutral and the camp site source neutral and ground all connected to the chassis. I haven’t thought through the possible failure effects for that arrangement but my initial reaction is not to like it.

Vic has experience with inverter installations, and hopefully he can offer more information.

 

[Dadocut]

This is a great topic. Lots of people working on electricals get grounding issues wrong. My goto source for RV grounding are several tutorials on the DIY Solar Forum. See https://diysolarforum.com/resources/grounding-made-simpler-part-1-ac-houshold-grounding.157/ to download part one of a four part tutorial.

Glenn: Your comments about needing a "NG Plug" (a plug w/ a neutral - ground connection installed on the inverter output) is important. Many inverters don't bond the neutral to the ground. Some do, some do only when the AC input is lost. Unfortunately inverter manufacturers don't typically specify what they do with the inverter neutral output. Most manufactures do however attach the input grounding connector (ie the green wire) to the inverter case. THe DIY solar forum has a document listing the behaviour of certain inverters (see Grounding details for specific make/model of inverters )

Connecting the 120v to shore power affects this also. IF shore power is connected, you don't want the NG Plug connecting shore power neutral to ground. WIth shore power the NG connection is instead made in the distribution panel of the RV park and you don;t want a second NG connection in your truck. I solved this problen by using a multipole transfer switch that connects my plugs to either my inverter or to shore power. THe transfer switch has a center off position. THe transfer switch has multiple poles and I switched both the hot and nuetral. (note the green "grounding connector" is not switched. IT's ok to attach the RV parks grounding connector to the green wire in your RV's 120v electrical.)

Hope this makes sense, it's a broad topic.

 

[Glenn]

Thank you for the Links to grounding.

 

[Dadocut]

Glen, part 4 of the grounding tutorial covers mobile installations like our campers. It's worth reading. It includes detailed schematics that show exactly how to hook up the inverter.

Long story short: you'll need the NG plug if your inverter doesn't ground the neutral internally.