BurbMan, may I compliment you on your gentleman's style approach to puzzlement :) Heavy on Style...
This is a DIRECT CURRENT disconnect.
3:00AM. KA-BOOM! I wake up to a thunderclap and slashing of rain on the patio roof. It doesn't "rain" down here, the water gets into a contest with air molecules to see which one can crowd out 90% of the other. Bad? Even in daylight the rain is so heavy a person simply cannot see the ground. The platter and spatter bounces upward three feet. At night it is dangerous even with a powerful light. I have to make it (200') to the shed and back and cut off the power. No way Joser. The inverter gets cut off, 12" from the output. I have run ground ionization feeders downstream (12 gauge wire running to a ground stake). The electrodes parallel the lugs at a .050" distance. A ground path for a lightning strike. With 1K 10 watt resistors. Sure there's a chance the bolt will fry the MOSFETS. But it won't get to the inverter. Fuses help. And I have a manual switch disconnect on the house end, plus another ion path ground stake.
Thunderstorms EVERY DAY in the summer.
When I leave to go on a trip, I do not have to hike, unlock and re-lock the generator/battery/inverter shed door. Click, it all goes off.
One neighbor had a bolt blow a 20" hole through cinder block. The branches went into the kitchen and fried every connected appliance. The lightning traced INSIDE the house parallel to buried wiring. One went into the bedroom and blew the huge mirror over the dresser into tiny shards. Another caught a Puebla rug on fire.
On top of the hill another storm. A bolt hit the henhouse and killed a few dozen birds. Nothing like the mega aroma of Kentucky Fried Feathers.
If the motion detector light goes on, and I think something's wrong, "click!" another channel. 350 watts of LED lighting turns an a half hectaria into a futbol stadium.
Wanna suck all the flying insects away from the door before I exit. "Click!" and 10 watts of UV LED on the far end of the patio goes on for 3 minutes. Timed via a 555 single shot timer. Geckos await their evening snack.
The driveway is a pain. Not.....any.....more
Low voltage 10 watt LED's line the twists and switchback now, like an airport runway. Also on a timer. Click!.
But mostly, I do not like getting sopping wet at quarter to three.