Victron MPPT 100/50 Smartsolar - chassis grounding?

[West Coast]

Query for the electrical gurus here

I am fitting a Victron MPPT 100/50 Smartsolar controller at the moment. Installation is on a typical 10 year old 43' AWB with 12V systems and I plan to use this to charge the house batteries only.

There is a separate chassis grounding connection on the side of the case, not part of the main cable connections. Checking the installation instructions, it is not clear if a connection to this chassis connection is required or not, it just says that "Chassis grounding: A separate earth path for the chassis ground is permitted because it is isolated from the positive and negative terminal"

Should I be connecting the chassis ground to something, and if so, what?

Many thanks!

 

[VicS]

ITYWF, at least according to the manual, the comment about chassis grounding only applies to the 30 amp model.

If however your 100|50 does in fact have a case earth terminal it could be connected to your main earthing point, but is is not part of the shore-power system, there is almost zero possibility that it could become live and I am sure cannot be considered to be an "extraneous conducting surface " so I don't see any need to ground it.

.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Query for the electrical gurus here

I am fitting a Victron MPPT 100/50 Smartsolar controller at the moment. Installation is on a typical 10 year old 43' AWB with 12V systems and I plan to use this to charge the house batteries only.

There is a separate chassis grounding connection on the side of the case, not part of the main cable connections. Checking the installation instructions, it is not clear if a connection to this chassis connection is required or not, it just says that "Chassis grounding: A separate earth path for the chassis ground is permitted because it is isolated from the positive and negative terminal"

Should I be connecting the chassis ground to something, and if so, what?

Many thanks!

As Vic said, no need to ground it.

 

[West Coast]

Thank you both, much appreciated

 

[Close hauled]

I had the same unit and didn’t ground it. Worked fine.

 

[VicS]

I had the same unit and didn’t ground it. Worked fine.

It won't have any effect on how the controller works.
I think the earthing terminal is there to comply with US Coastguard/ABYC requirements.

 

[Close hauled]

I’m sure that you are right.

 

[Alex_Blackwood]

ITYWF, at least according to the manual, the comment about chassis grounding only applies to the 30 amp model.

If however your 100|50 does in fact have a case earth terminal it could be connected to your main earthing point, but is is not part of the shore-power system, there is almost zero possibility that it could become live and I am sure cannot be considered to be an "extraneous conducting surface " so I don't see any need to ground it.

.

It won't do any harm to "Equipotential" bond it to the mains earth connection. I would be inclined to ! Not saying Vic is incorrect, just waht I would be inclined to do.