question

fountaiw avatar image
fountaiw asked

Grounding panels before the charge controller???

I have a 2023 Jay Feather 22BH. It is prewired for solar with the sticker on the kitchen wall for the GoPower PMS charge controller and that location can only accept a flush mount option due to clearance from the slide. I'm planning other Victron systems and would prefer that the solar charge controller be Victron for greater solar capacity as well as so they can all talk to each other. However it won't fit in that location due to clearance from the slide. I'm hoping to do the following:

1. Connect the positive and negative wires from the roof and the battery at the pre-wire location with butt connectors ( I've already fished the cut ends out of the wall through a power outlet in the bathroom).
2. Install a Victron Smart Solar 100/30 in storage in the front of the camper and then run 6 AWG the few feet directly to the battery.

The challenge is that the positive wire from the controller pre-wire location runs straight to the front storage area but the negative wire runs to ground somewhere in the belly between the pre-wire location and the pass-through (I can't find where without completely ripping open the belly liner. Spent hours with a borescope with no luck.).

My question is: Can the solar panels at 60+V have the negative line be grounded to the chassis and then attach the charge controller PV negative to the chassis as well? Will the negative side of the solar panels at high voltage attached to the same ground as all of the other 12V systems in the camper cause a problem. In my head, it shouldn't matter because ground is ground but I don't want to fry anything. Thanks in advance.

MPPT SmartSolarSolar PanelGrounding
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2 Answers
Al avatar image
Al answered ·

Bonding the solar panel frames to the chassis is grounding, bonding solar panel negative to chassis is likely to fry something or someone.

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Justin Cook avatar image
Justin Cook answered ·

That is a forbidden installation configuration; see the grounding section of the manual: https://www.victronenergy.com/media/pg/Manual_SmartSolar_MPPT_100-30__100-50/en/installation.html#UUID-9081d1b1-04dd-86ad-98dc-64bdc006a7ce

PV + and - must be connected to the PV+ and - of the controller, it is not permitted to connect PV- to chassis in a Victron environment.

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Related Resources

MPPT product page

VictronConnect manual

PWM or MPPT

MPPT calculator

MPPT codes

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