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Old 01-16-2017, 09:30 AM   #1
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Grounding the House Battery Side and Shore Power

Without having looked, I assume that I have a typical automotive setup on the starter battery with grounding to the body and frame and an engine block ground tying in there too.

So on the house battery side, I can assume that the best ground is the frame, but I am thinking that I could, and probably should ground to the body as well.

My initial plan was to come back and forth through the body to tie to the shunt. But thinking about it, I would probably ground to the body and frame. Might be redundant, but the bigger the ground.....

I am also bringing in Shore Power, 20Amps of 120VAC. I will have a DC ground bus and am wondering if it's OK to also ground the AC to that as well. I have to have a ground some place so they would be tied together through the frame/body anyway. Why not just put it direct?

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Old 01-16-2017, 11:08 AM   #2
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Typically Sportsmobile has connected to the body around the wheel well. You need to go from your battery to your shunt directly and make any other ground connections after that, otherwise you won't be capturing it on your battery monitor.



You can use the same bus bar for your AC ground. My diagram above does not show any AC grounds.


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Old 01-16-2017, 11:30 AM   #3
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Greg to the rescue!! Thanks again, I owe you for sure.

I completely get the shunt thing, the House attaches on one side, loads/chargers and the body ground on the other. That way the monitor sees all charges going each way.

For some reason I had it in my head that the body ground should be a frame ground and that I would be going back through the body to the frame. I know that they are pretty much continuous with the body being bolted to the frame. There's an awful lot of good metal in the body which got me thinking no problem to just use the body.

The AC thing is me knowing just enough to ask dumb questions.......like mixing AC and DC grounds. The AC ground (green) is just a safety ground but it is bonded to the AC neutral at service panel. So I reasoned that maybe there might be some consideration in mixing the two, but then I thought again but figured why not ask the questions here!!

I have a big heavy box in my garage right now full of battery cable, terminal lugs, blue sea ACR and RBS, shrink tubing, Blue Sea Fuse panel, 20Amp shore power plug, terminal fuses, primary wire, 3 wire AC cable, Ring terminals, Bogart engineering monitor and charger, hydraulic crimper, and some various stuff. Right next to it is a Lifeline 4D. Waiting on a Xantrex truecharge2 40 AMP I scored on ebay and I gotta fab the battery box and mounting brackets. But I am ready to start in earnest on the electrical system.

My AC system will be very simple. The shore power passes through the 20A plug to a GFCI. From the load side of the GFCI it goes to the XantrexTruecharge2 and a couple more plugs.
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Old 01-17-2017, 06:04 AM   #4
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Grounding the House Battery Side and Shore Power

I was just under my van the other day and can confirm that SMB grounds the house battery to the body and not the frame (not that Greg's info ever needs any confirming :-). What's amazing to me is that SMB drilled a huge hole in the van floor (like 1.5-2") to feed the ground cable out. This hole underneath the van was just left open to the elements, critters, etc. I close it up with aluminum duct tape every year or so, but this spring am going to figure out a more permanent solution (pass through grommet, etc.) when I redo my electrical a bit (new cables, etc.).
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Old 01-17-2017, 09:20 AM   #5
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Wow Brian, that boggles my mind a bit. I ordered up a handful of Heyco Liquid Tight Cordgrips. You can buy them on Mouser for not much coin at all. Just gotta figure out the proper size. I would think you could mount those grips on a small piece of sheet metal and seal that hole up. I wouldn't want that kind of exposure either. Thanks for the info though.

One of the reasons I asked about the ground is that I do want to limit the number of holes I drill through the van floor. 2/0 cordgrips are on the large side.
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Old 01-17-2017, 09:02 PM   #6
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For whatever reason...on the house side of things I ran both +ve and -ve wires to everything....lights, usb ports, etc all have black wires running back to fuse blocks or the house battery.

...and my house batteries are grounded to the frame/chassis. I fabbed up some fancy insulated pass through connectors to penetrate the van floor.....the heycos will work fine if you are only going through sheet metal.
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Old 01-17-2017, 10:09 PM   #7
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I don't think you can go wrong with running the grounds along with the pos to all the items. Pretty sure that's what Ford does. But you could ground to the body in a pinch.

I have a lot to do

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Old 01-18-2017, 06:12 AM   #8
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That looks like a good bit of work Flux, and it looks like it's going to be a very nice setup. Post up some pics as you go.

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Old 01-18-2017, 08:30 AM   #9
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Flux: Save yourself some time and aggravation and order a second fuse block now..6 or 12 position.....

I ended up with a 12 position and two six positions by the time I was done and I don't have that much stuff going on. I have one on each side in the back, and one in the front passenger footwell to power the radio, seat heaters, fuel inertia switch disble, etc from the house batteries.

...it's amazing how many circuits you'll need once you get going...I started out with one 6 circuit on one side in the back of the van.

Are you planning on any USB outlets and 12V power outlets? Blues Sea has nice ones of both of those.....don't see any in your image above.
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Old 01-18-2017, 09:11 AM   #10
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So far this is just the main power panel. So no outlets shown yet and yes, they will be at every seat in the rear. I am gonna take your advice and get another fuse panel!! Makes total sense and I tend to overdo everything anyway.

I got lucky and scored a few nice deals on ebay such as the Remote battery switch for 100 bucks and a Xantrex Truecharge2 40Amp for 220. The lifeline was delivered to my work for under 600 bucks. The battery is the centerpiece, so I figured I should get the best one I can and treat it right. Trying not to cut corners on this stuff although bestboatwire.com has some great deals on things and they ship fast.

Again, glad I had a plan the folks here to help me out. This got pricey quick, but you get what you pay for.
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