DC Ground

jallen

In an ac panel, a bonded box or jumper from neatral to ground is the correct way to wire the panel. Is this the same in dc boxs. Pv, batteries, etc? Thanks

Raj174

Neutral is bonded to ground in the main panel only. All other AC or DC panels are grounded to the main panel ground.

jallen

Doing a seperate dc ground. So would you jump the negative to the earth ground. Was keeping dc away from ac in my setup except in inverter

Raj174

In my system the negative to ground connection is made in the Midnite Classic 150 charge controller. I think it is true for some other brands also. However, if not then a battery negative to ground needs to be made and all grounds are still connected together, whether AC or DC panel or equipment ground. 

BB.

In general, you run + and - solar array leads directly back to the charge controller. Do not ground the array negative lead anywhere (using surge suppressor can be really nice in lightning prone areas).

And, gain in general, if you choose to ground the DC power system, do that from the Battery negative bus to the Cold water pipe/ground rod (generally the same ground rod as the AC ground point/rod.

-Bill

zoneblue

DC side grounding is considered the industry norm for non trivial systems, and required by code in many situations. The cut off is usually when your array voltage goes over 50V-120V depending on jurisdiction.

jallen

Well, i will unhook the array - then. Got to many people saying different things that dont know about a dc system apparently. So battery-, charge controller,and inverter is it?

jallen

I am using a separate earth ground for the c from combiner box. I can just hook into there(after I unhook the negative pv jumper from ground bar