Wire size for grounding Battery bank

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Hairfarm
Hairfarm Solar Expert Posts: 225 ✭✭✭
in Solar Beginners Corner #1
Greetings,

What gauge wire should I use to ground my battery bank negative? My battery bank will be 10 feet from the grounding earth rod.

I was thinking 6 gauge bare copper. Also, do I need to attach a ring lug on the end of the ground wire before attaching it to the negative battery lead? Actually that would make a triple stack of lugs: one for the parrallel connection, a second for the 4/0 cable to the inverter, and a third for the grounding wire. Is this ok? Is there a better way to attach all three wires to my battery negative. I'm not using a negative or ground bus in my system.

But 6 gauge wire should be ok though right?

thanks again,

Hairfarm
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  • NorthGuy
    NorthGuy Solar Expert Posts: 1,913 ✭✭
    #2
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    Re: Wire size for grounding Battery bank

    Before you ground your battery bank, I suggest you look at the documentation for your solar charger. Many of them offer ground fault protection which effectively grounds the negative of batteries. For such protection to work, you cannot ground battery bank in any other place.
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  • Hairfarm
    Hairfarm Solar Expert Posts: 225 ✭✭✭
    #3
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    Re: Wire size for grounding Battery bank

    Ok. Good point. There is a GFP so I won't ground the battery negative. One more question though.

    Can I get by with just one ground rod or do I need two of them for code? And are they 8 feet apart?
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