I'm a little stuck on how I should ground to my van

I’m using a Victron Lynx Distributor and have a question about my grounding setup. Currently, I have the chassis ground from my SmartSolar charge controller and the chassis ground lug from my MultiPlus II both connected to the center negative lug on the Lynx Distributor. From there, between the Lynx negative input and the system side of my SmartShunt, I’ve run a single ground wire to the van’s chassis. This means all chassis grounds are routed through the Lynx, and the Lynx itself is grounded to the vehicle frame. Is this an acceptable grounding setup?

Should I instead install a grounded bus bar and run all chassis grounds (MultiPlus II, SmartSolar, AC panel, etc.) directly to that bus bar, with just one wire from the bus bar to the chassis?

Attached is my exact diagram if that helps. If you see any other issues, please let me know.

The DC should be ok. The fifth bolt in the lynx distributor is usually used for ground, but what you have should be fine. You should look at a common ground on the Orion. The AC side often has local laws and regulations, so it’s harder to comment. You already have a busbar in the form of the distributor.

Looking fine. Hope you thought about corrosion protection.

And well what can I say :clap: for your drawing. Nice work :+1:

Yeah the AC side is the part I’m worried about. From all of the other diagrams I’ve found, they’ve all done similar or even less than what I have.

I’ll update my diagram with these changes though. Thanks for your input.

Where I live, one of my rain worries is corrosion. I’m going to use Ox-gard.

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Ground, bonding AC earth will all be different, it depends on where you are from. AC electricity in Australia is far more dangerous than other parts of the world so you might have different standards and safer electricity, so consult a local, and if it’s safe it’s all good.

Hi Tinrobot. I agree with everything that you did and other folks have commented on. HOWEVER I will share one important thing (I’m an EE). Yes, ground the Lynx GND bussbar to the chassis in only one spot, but if you are using Orion XS DC-DC converters to allow charging from your alternator, you should not ground the Lynx bussbar way back in your garage. That forces the Orions to use the chassis to pass heavy charging current from the vehicle battery (probably located up front) all the way back to the lynx chassis ground. It’s very likely those two grounds will not be identical when the alternator is charging your LiFePO4 batteries. Instead, run a very large ground conductor from the Lynx in your equipment area all the way up front as close as you can get to your starter battery ground. (unfortunately this wire will not be cheap - I’m going to use a 1/0 gage)

In my 2020 Transit, the vehicle BEMM shows where all of the preferred chassis ground locations are throughout the cargo area. It showed I can make a new chassis ground point very close to the CCP (Customer Connection Point). By doing that you will eliminate potential ground loops. The AC EARTH connection should also go to the Lynx negative bussbar which eventually connects to the chassis up front.

For me to understand better I wrote a very long prompt to Google’s Gemini AI and described basically the same thing you are asking because I had the same question - as have lots of other people. It’s answer was very thorough. What I really like is that it provides links to the webpage sources it used to answer my questions.