PD 4045 & 12 volt grounding

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PD 4045 & 12 volt grounding

Postby noseoil » Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:03 am

I'm finally getting around to having to think about the 12 volt system & have a question for the people who have used a PD4045 in their trailers. It's a nice unit & I've figured out how I'm going to use it, but there are no provisions for grounding of the 12 volt circuits in the box. It looks like the internal lugs are all for the AC power.

Are people using a separate grounding block, lug or plate in the general area of the box to run a common ground point for the negative (-) side of their 12 volt systems from the battery?

Second question, the PD4045 uses the shore power inlet to feed the 120 volt breakers, but there are no provisions for running power to the "left" side of the device to run the battery charger & 12 volt stuff. The black wire of that side (left, charger, etc.) goes to the 120v lug in the AC side, but how are you pulling power from the inlet (shore power inlet, breakers) to that 120v lug? Are you using one of the breakers to feed the 120v side? Thanks, tim
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Re: PD 4045 & 12 volt grounding

Postby Gunguy05 » Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:37 am

I have the PD4045 and all of my grounds are grounded to a common lug that I mounted in my converter / battery area.

Yes, for the converter, it is wired in its own breaker, slot, the first one.
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Re: PD 4045 & 12 volt grounding

Postby Padilen » Thu Oct 29, 2015 9:59 am

I used a ground block for 12v neutral/ground. I used a terminal block for 12v positive to connect the leads from PD4045 to my wire run's. I do not recommend the cheap block I bought. Many of the "brass" connectors broke. The 12v side of the PD4045 is powered by a breaker, from the AC side.
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Re: PD 4045 & 12 volt grounding

Postby noseoil » Fri Nov 06, 2015 7:54 am

Here's my solution for a ground on the 12 volt system. This is not attached to the 110v system ground, it is completely separate & isolated from the shore power side of things. Figured it should be in the general area of the power panel for the sake of simplicity, so it's an electrical panel buss from the local "Home Delay" store. Just screwed it into place on a cabinet edge & hooked up the grounds. There are plenty of extra holes if I ever need them. The battery (-) connects to the bottom lug & then the rest of the ground wires are fastened to it. I need to put a few zip ties in here now & clean things up, but it's functioning well enough and should be good for whatever I need in the long run.

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Re: PD 4045 & 12 volt grounding

Postby noseoil » Wed Nov 18, 2015 7:27 am

Just a follow-up to this post for anyone who's interested. I met Rick Beach this weekend in Pahrump & am glad I did. He's the guy who wrote about solar & trailers, a great read if you haven't seen it. http://toponautic.blogspot.com/2015/05/ ... lding.html

After doing the initial setup of the PD4045 & reading the "installation directions" carefully, it seems they have left out something fairly important. There is no mention of grounding of the unit to the trailer frame.

Any stray electrons, leakage current or bad circuits can energize the frame with 110 volts. If you grab something like that, it's very bad & can ruin your day in a hurry. Standing in the rain & bumping against the frame comes to mind. The frame, PD4045, inverter, aluminum skin & anything with electricity should always be properly grounded to the frame. Rick explained it this way, if anything happens & there's a bad circuit, the frame will act as a ground for the whole system & cause the circuit breaker to trip before there's a problem. It makes sense to do it this way, I just never thought about it in these terms.

Hopefully this will help someone stay out of trouble in the future, myself included!
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