I have a old brick shed,and I have installed solar panels on the roof and have them connected to my charge controller which charges my 12v deep cycle battery bank.I have a total of about 500ah and i wanted to connect my power inverter to the incomer of the consumer unit i have done test and it does work but is it safe i wanted to know because my 12v power inverter does not have an earth i have made a earthing point which is a copper pipe going into the ground this is connected to my earth buzz bar so any faults or earth leakages will go to my copper pipe right
I have have connected 5xflood light s to the lighting breaker and my sockets to any other breaker it all seems to work but is it safe
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
What is “incomer” ? you use it twice, so it’s probably not a misspelling.
And a “buzz bar” is what? bus bar?
Re safety, it depends on what you have connected to the inverter output. I’d tie the inverter ground to your earth ground.
If you are just running lights, you might think of using 12 volt lights and eliminate the inverter.
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You seems to have taken the necessary safety precautions. But for added precaution, I assume that as you’re in the US that your invertor has the 2 pin outlet; therefore I would suggest that if you invertor is cased in a metalic case then find away to connect from you earth busbar (not buzz bar -although if you hear it buzz then you’ve a problem!) to the case.
12V . 500AH battery is safe to touch those terminals but it is extremely DANGEROUS if both terminal SHORTS together. It can make a large pliers turns into RED HOT in 3 seconds. Or if the SHORT happened at the feeding cable, cable becomes red hot and fire withing 10 seconds.
As for the inverter itself, technical speaking,it is OK to touch any one output without getting shock. Because both output lines were insulated from EARTH GROUND. It is not the same AC HOT line comes from utility company,one of its output was buried into the earth ground. Therefore,running power from DC to AC converter does not need earth ground wire,because it does not shunt away the leakage power to earth.
FUSES insert both battery and converter output sides are very important to protect your house getting fire if OVER LOAD happen to the 500AH power source. And do not forget, rechargeable 500AH cell pack produces harmful gas during charging.