Hi Glen,
The documentation on your inverter is ambiguous. On one page it says it has a GFCI, but then in the detailed section it leaves off any discussion of GFCI. So one of two things is true:
Try the NG plug and a small load. If the output works fine and all is good. Success. You've followed the grounding strategy set forth in the DIY Solar forum tutorial.
If the inverter output immediately trips off, we can assume the inverter output has a GFCI and you can't use an NG plug. In this case, continue to ground the inverter case (to the 12v neg bus bar) but let neutral float relative to the camper battery 12v neg bus bar. Assume the internal GFCI will cover any issues of the hot wire touching a grounded piece of metal. It's not necessarily the best approach but it would be good enough and certainly the way the inverter was designed to operate. I suspect most people operate with their small inverters like this (no bonded neutral). And all too many don't even tie the case ground to the camper's 12v neg bus bar. Arguabley not the best, but it would still work. I wish the industry did a better job with this topic.
Good luck on your hunting trip. I'm sure the electrical will work great. If you're out having fun in a camper you should certainly have easy/safe power.
As part of the purpose of this forum, and others like it, is to provide insight and solutions to problems I wanted to expand on the finished corrective action.
In another thread I said the inverter worked either way, with or without the bonding plug. And indeed it did.
But, Dadocut was spot on - that if it had a floating neutral it wasn’t correct…….thank you Sir!
I bought one of these:
Without the bonding plug plugged into the inverter the middle amber light on the tester was on, the inverter still worked but it wasn’t right. I underlined in the next picture what was shown with the tester plugged in:
I read that an open ground can also be attributed to a floating neutral which is what Dadocut had been instructing me on (earlier in this thread and was very much appreciated)
I took his advice and made my own bonding plug without the fuse, plugged it into the inverter, and then plugged the tester into the available outlet next to it. I underlined the next picture of the change and resulting readout of the tester with the bonding plug installed:
Both amber lights were on indicating that the circuit was now wired correctly. It’s great to know now that it’s wired safely.
I then removed the tester from the inverter and reinstalled the cord (yellow) going out to the 115V receptacles
Maybe this will help someone else down the road looking for answers, as I was.
Glenn
