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Old 05-07-2011, 03:19 PM   #1
Mini-Skoolie
 
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Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Anyone doing this, should I?

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Old 05-07-2011, 07:40 PM   #2
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

your talking 120 volts, Im not sure if it would be really needed(,if you have a converter) when you plug in to say a camp site or other supply, that system is already grounded, so for that reason I dont think there is a need for it, I havent grounded and im not sure how I would do it. my converter is grounded for 12v I ran it back to the house battery,
If someone thinks that it should , tell us how to do it.

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Old 05-07-2011, 07:45 PM   #3
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Thanks GB, that was my thought, I just wanted to be sure.
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Old 05-07-2011, 10:05 PM   #4
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

If you ground the 120v to the bus, you need to check the plug you hook up to with a receptacle tester EVERY TIME!!! I've gotten a couple nasty jolts when someone elses cord or tool had the ground and common reversed. You don't wont visiters getting zaped when they touch your bus. I'm going to ground mine, just to be on the safe side.
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Old 05-08-2011, 07:53 AM   #5
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

I have a built in surge protector , it should pick up bad grounds,low voltage, and high voltages, I really recomend one, I blew my first converter up using a generator that went nuts!!

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Old 05-08-2011, 03:58 PM   #6
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

The bus's body is attached to ground at its power panel, and earth ground is done through the power cord by the AC mains.
(White neutral wire is not bonded to bus's power panel ground.)

What you want, electrically speaking, is a return path, so if the black wire makes a connection to the body (ie. a ground fault), the circuit breaker trips. If you did not tie your bus's chassis to ground you could then have your whole bus at 120 volts. Proper grounding helps to reduce that risk.

Of course, all the wiring has to be correct, including the campground's.
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Old 05-09-2011, 08:00 AM   #7
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

From my (albeit limited) understanding, you have to ground your bus 120v system to the chassis and not just the neutral bar or your will trip the campground GFCI outlet. I'm not an electrical expert, but I consulted with one when building my system, and that was his advice.
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Old 05-09-2011, 05:44 PM   #8
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diesel Dan
From my (albeit limited) understanding, you have to ground your bus 120v system to the chassis and not just the neutral bar or your will trip the campground GFCI outlet. I'm not an electrical expert, but I consulted with one when building my system, and that was his advice.
You should NOT have the neutral bar connected to the bus chassis - the campground/donor outlet will have a neutral to ground bond near the meter.

The green (ground) lead, or in its place a metallic conduit, should be connected to all AC devices in the system, such as the third prong of outlets or switch frames. A few people like the AC system to "float" from the bus chassis, most will probably bond the chassis to the green wire system. I don't know what is "code," but then the RV section of the code appears to have been drafted by a committee of Stick-N-Staple makers.
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Old 05-09-2011, 06:52 PM   #9
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Redbear
You should NOT have the neutral bar connected to the bus chassis - the campground/donor outlet will have a neutral to ground bond near the meter.
Correct - neutral to the neutral bar, then a seperate ground bar that goes to chassis. No neutral to chassis otherwise it becomes ground if the ground is also going to chassis. Sorry if my last post was misleading!
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Old 06-15-2011, 05:16 PM   #10
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Can I please get some clarification? I am only using a generator at this point. I have one 30 amp cord leading into the breaker box (to run the rooftop ac only), and one 15 amp cord leading in (to run one 110v outlet); these both plug into separate outlets on the generator. I bought all parts at Home Depot. I used a standard breaker box that accepts two breakers; I'm using two separate 20 amp breakers. There was one "bus" (as I think it's called) that I now realize was riveted to the box, thus grounding it to the bus when I bolted that box to the inside metal wall of the bus; I ran all white (neutral, correct?) wires to this "bus". The hot wires are all direct through the breakers as they should be. But, I took the bare ground wire coming in from my cords that leads to the generator and the bare ground wire that comes from the rooftop AC and the 110v outlet, twisted all of these together and then using a short 6" bare wire (that I also twisted with the rest of the bare wires), and screwed that into the box of the breaker box, directly into the metal of the bus too. So in effect I now realize the neutrals are grounded to the bus, as are the grounds. From what I'm reading above, this might not be correct. Can someone please enlighten me before I electrocute someone? I never have liked messing with power that can kill me; 12v wiring is more my speed. Thanks.
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Old 06-20-2011, 04:13 PM   #11
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Julie- Thank you for taking the time to write all of this (sorry about the late reply, but my spam filter caught this). I am going to exchange the box for the correct box. As this is my first breaker box ever installed, I didn't think to look for two bus bars when I bought it; I obviously bought the wrong box. I was also at Home Depot today and bought "Wiring 1-2-3", as I don't want to kill myself or anyone else trying to wire this party bus of ours. So, thank you again for taking the time to explain. And, I do intend to plug the bus into a 30 amp plug that I am having put into my garage so that I don't have to run the generator at my house when working on the interior of the bus. Not sure how all of that plays in, but I'm hoping my new book might explain it all a little better to me.

For a second question, I'm wiring a friend of mine's trailer and I'm going to put in a Marinco 30 amp inlet to feed the trailer. He does not have a rooftop AC now, but might add one later. I know the rooftop unit draws about 20 amps, so I would still have 10 amps left over for some 110v outlets in the trailer. How do I "split" the hot wire from the inlet plug to feed a 20 amp breaker and a 10 amp breaker (I want to put the AC on it's own breaker, and the 110v outlet on a seperate breaker, like I'm doing in the bus above, but this time I only have one power source, the 20 amp cord coming in). Thoughts? Thanks!
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Old 06-22-2011, 03:42 PM   #12
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Julie- thank you for the reply. Never thought of doing the way you said, but it makes perfect sense. So, when the wire comes in from the inlet, I just wire it to the bottom of the 30 amp breaker. Then I split two wires out of the top of the breaker, one going to the 20 amp breaker (which is what the AC manual calls for, but thank you for reminding me), and the other wire over to the 15 amp breaker? I can't recall if the little "bus bar" that the breaker clicks into has enough room for two wires to come out of it, but I'm assuming I can either split two wires out of it, or one wire out and then wire-nut it to two small "jumper wires" that will feed the other two breakers.

And now that you mentioned Romex, which I used in the bus, should have I used stranded wire? Had I remembered what people have posted about not using Romex because of vibration failure, I would have used stranded. But don't feel like going back now to rewire the entire run from my breaker box to the AC unit on the roof! Thoughts?

Thanks again.
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Old 07-01-2011, 08:45 AM   #13
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Julie- thx again for the replies. Now I know what you're talking about. The two circuit box I bought I may have incorrectly wired the input (thinking I needed the 30 amp cord to run to one breaker and a second 20 amp cord to run to the second breaker- yes, I ran two cords from my generator to the bus. Duh.). I guess on the other hand I have the potential of 50 amps running to the bus at once, if one circuit was maxed out (which will not likely ever happen, as you mention). My generator maxes out at 4000 watts, so I really only have about 35 amps available total. I'll have to see if my little breaker box had a main input spot and if I only needed to run one wire into the bus. If I run the power wire to either of the two breakers, are both breakers powered and protecting the circuits? I guess I was thinking that power had to run "through" the breaker. There definitly wasn't one input spot like on a big breaker box! Thanks.
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Old 07-04-2011, 03:35 AM   #14
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Re: Grounding shore power to the skoolie's body.

Julie- I rechecked my box. It is a two breaker box. The two breakers are isolated, hence me thinking I needed to run two inputs. If I want to keep the same box for now, how do I feed the power to the second breaker? Do I run a pigtail from the output of the first breaker to the input of the second breaker? If i do that, and only want the first breaker to be 20 amp (to feed the AC), wont i trip that when pulling power through it to feed the other 20 amp breaker? Without three spaces in the box, I don't think what I need to do will work (which is your 30 amp main example feeding two 20 amp sub breakers). Or, should I pigtail the 10 gAuge wire coming into the box and feed both power inputs from that input wire? That would allow me to eliminate one of the cords from my generator. I wished the box had a main that fed the subs but I guess with only two breakers you wouldn't have one breaker covering the one right next to it. As I bought all of this at Home Depot, my options were limited (I would have had to buy a much bigger box to have three knockouts). Thanks.
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