Grounding an Inverter?
Sorry if this is silly, but I'm not that familiar with conventions of doing electrical work on a vehicle that uses the chassis as the negative conductive path. So, I'm installing an inverter in my 5t...
Forum Discussion
enblethen wrote:
Must be confusing equipment ground with 12 volt negative.
They are the same thing. 12volt negative is bolted to the frame, and instructions say to ground the equipment to the frame. Hence why might it be bad to jumper from the 12v neg inverter terminal to the inverter ground lug?
As far as wire, on page 9 of the Xantrex PROwatt SW 600 manual it says:
"Connect..using a minimum 8 AWG copper wire*..." And then "*Xantrex recommends that the grounding conductor should be the same wire size as the DC cables." And on the next page, it says "Note: Xantrex recommends a size 0 cable..."
Roadpilot and RoyB gave some good feedback on some of the possible RF issues.
I'm unclear as to what safety issues the above method might be skirting.
Since I doubt you all are driving stakes deep into the ground at each boondock campsite, and bonding copper wire to them, the only real "ground" is the contact of the jacks to the surface they are resting on, as good or bad a conductor as it may be. There's no ground at all if you leave it hitched to the truck, and don't put the jacks down. Doesn't seem like the effort to ground 120v things in an RV is all that effective, overall. But perhaps I am just displaying a large gap in my understanding, and could use some continued education? Anyone that can enlighten me, mostly about the 12v neg to the ground terminal question?
