Positive ground solar pannel

Solar panels have a "Ground"? You isolate the panel from ground, the frame can be Positive or Negative but you isolate it when you mount it and then who cares what polarity the frame is?

Good thing you checked that out. All very mysterious. You still have the RV battery neg grounded, but the existing set-up must allow for that somehow. Perhaps being "internally positive grounded" means they are not "externally" grounded to the RV so the battery being neg grounded doesn't matter. No idea about the controller.

So what will you do? Parallel or series the second panel (also internally pos grounded?) to the existing controller and battery or just what?

Lots of people have those Grape solar panels, but this topic has not come up. Any more info on all this would be interesting.

So it sounds like they bonded the chassis to the positive wire like Mex says. To the OP, is there a wire or something connecting the chassis of the panel to the positive wire?

BFL13 wrote:
Email them again and ask if you can parallel or series the panel with another as long as you don't try to ground them.

Grounding of the solar panels and solar controllers is for when you have them on the roof of a stick house. You don't ground them at all with an RV installation, so it doesn't matter if they are built to have positive or negative grounding.

My EP Solar LandStar 2024 PWM controller was built to have positive grounding too, which caused me some confusion with an RV that has negative grounding batteries! Turned out you just ignore all that.

Yes, Go-Power is expensive compared with what you can buy in the States at "outlets" where you can pick them up yourself with no shipping costs.

This is the e-mail I got back from Go Power
































Hi Chris,



"The panel is positively grounded internally that is how we can get 95 Watts in such a small foot print." I looked online & Grape solar says they are positive ground. Thanks

I hope it should go without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that before adding a panel you should disconnect any grounds the original owner might have had on the panel and controller there now.

Of course you might want a different, higher amps controller anyway if you expand your array.

You are not married to Go Power over priced solar. If you are paying more than a dollar per watt you are paying too much. I would be willing to bet you can start over and come out ahead.

Check the drawing here of my 130w panel. Distance "E" to the "ground"

I used this panel (not grounded) with my LandStar controller(if grounded needs a positive ground) and my neg grounded (to frame of RV) battery bank, with no problems.

http://files.sharpusa.com/Downloads/Solar/Products/sol_dow_ND130UJF.pdf

Scroll down to page 10 here for the drawing. See how they have the battery positive grounded. I did not attempt to ground the panel nor the controller and the battery was neg grounded. Everything worked.

http://blog.digit-parts.com/pdf/ls10242024.pdf

Is the bond removable?

The CTI-95 I found is for an RV, not a house.

Panels have a "grounding lug" on the frame. Kind of like the "chassis ground " on an inverter or deck-mount converter. Not to be confused with the pos and neg terminals.

ISTR the US NEC gets into this when your stick house roof is "grid-tied" Might have come up with that business of the hazard to fire fighters stomping around your roof panels spraying water putting out your chimney fire too, can't remember details.