Solar Grounding Essentials. These important safety features are often forgotten.

foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] the weather is so nice it is in the middle of winter we've got 25 degrees today no wind the ideal conditions to work on the roof as you have seen I have already finished my railing system on the west roof exactly that's the West rule so we are close to putting the solar panels on this side of the roof and I cannot wait to get another 25 watts out of these solar panels I'm really looking forward to it so I have already mounted my extenders to my rail system because I'm using these aluminum extenders here to lift my rail system up by probably 120 millimeters to get better access underneath the panels for cleaning purposes and maintenance as well but before we can install the solar panels we need to talk about the grounding and usually you connect the ground cable to your solar system and the other side to your main ground to your main Earth bar and that's pretty much it and then your solar system is earthed but how do you do this correctly how do you do this in details so I thought let's have a closer look so these are the main Earth locks for the rail system on my roof here um I bought a whole bunch of them because I need to redo the earthing of the other existing panels as well and but I just don't know why they need to contact separately in these plastic containers here this is so much plastic can there not be like in a cardboard box and that's it what a waste foreign [Applause] I have done the earthing of the rail system like this cable coming in I've got a ring lock crimp to it and it goes with a star washer directly onto the aluminum this is all anodized aluminum because it makes it stronger it basically increases the the strength of the material and you need you need to get these Tire washers to pierce this layer to get down to the aluminum um apparently this is not the proper way of doing it as per the regulation here in Australia we definitely have to use these Earth or ground locks and they are not cheap so and now we have two options to mount them into this world system here one is the side mounting possibility like this um but I don't really like it because as you can see these um these two notches here they actually don't fit into the rail system it's either the top one or the bottom one but they don't fit both so I don't think that's a good solution and the other possibility is of course from the top if we feel in like this and then and then you can see the two notches actually fit perfectly in between the rail system and the other screw here is where your cable goes in your Earth cable so you tighten this one up and then the other screw is where your Earth cable goes through and this could actually sit underneath the solar panel so the height is exactly designed to sit underneath I think this is exactly the way we have to do it and interestingly is uh yeah you can see there see these two spikes up there there's one and there's another one and they are exactly for piercing through the anodized aluminum layer here again to make good contact with the aluminum see these two spikes yeah and we wouldn't have and we wouldn't have good contact with these spikes to the aluminum if we would put it like this the whole bracket was a bit on an angled end and this is just not going to work even this is an option in the regulations to put it sideways or on the top this is a really bad solution so I'll go for the top mounting and then we've got these two spikes there and they can Pierce really into the rail system so we need one Earth or ground Point per rail system here if we don't have any joints but as you can see um no this one is one piece oh here yeah yeah here we've got a joint see I've got one I've got one rail system here which has one and two joints so this is the whole length I need and I don't have these in one piece anymore so I have to front and stand this together here to make the length I need so the regulation says that we need one of these Earth flux per rail system even if they are joined but only if the joint is coming from the manufacturer of the rail system if you use anything else you need to have an earth Bridge across your joint see this is the original joint which is for the weight system you can probably see the profile there there you can see it so this one actually slides into the rail system and then you use these two screws to clamp it and this is pretty much joining these two pieces of aluminum rail and this is a valid Earth connection because it is coming from the manufacturer of this rail system so if I use my own Joiner I use the square aluminum bar which exactly fits into this Gap here and had two screws on each side going through the aluminum with star washers tighten this all up but apparently this is not enough to make a proper Earth connection I think this is totally because this is a far better connection than just clamping it on the outside so in this case I'm totally disregarding the regulation and we will join these two together with this little aluminum bar inside here two screws on each side and we'll use only one Earth lock here for this rail despite the fact we have two joints in here but I really don't see the point see here here this is one of my self-made joiners for this rail system here you can see the screws there two of them and this is how long the aluminum bar sticks inside of this rail system there yeah there are Star Wars on the other side here which really peers into the material and I think this is a far better joining in terms of electrical contact than the joiners provided by the manufacturer of the rail system but I may be wrong I don't know yeah but definitely these ones will get only one Earth luck over there so if I put this here where the actual feet are ah this should give me enough access away from the corner yeah that's perfect that is a good location this is one piece of aluminum rail anyway here totally fine with one Earth lag cool these little spikes there they will pierce into the aluminum when I tighten them now [Music] see this here oh yeah yep yep it was really down [Music] yeah it is flash now so the spikes are now piercing into the aluminum here to give us the best contact possible [Music] a bit wobbly here you have to check the screw here so I will I will undo all these ones here on my Earth cabling for the existing solar panels here this all needs to go and then I use these ring locks as well so I need to lift the panel up a little bit put these Earth locks in interestingly I'm also allowed to use one cable now starting from there going through all the Earth locks to all the panels and then finally go down into the garage onto the main Earth bus bar and that's it that's my whole earthing of the system then well not quite because we need to Earth the single solar panels as well with these washers yeah these ones here these ones are the solar panel earthing washers you can see these four holes in each corner here and they have really sharp edges here and this is for the exact same reason it is to pierce the anodized aluminum and have the best contact possible so they're going onto the rail system like this and they've got the sharp edges on this side for the solar panel and on the underside for the rail system and we need to have four of them per solar panel so on each corner they're going underneath here and then when you clamp them down they're really getting pierced into the aluminum four times at the bottom and four times at the top and this in each corner of the solar panel and here I got um two bags full of them I don't think I have actually enough for all of the solar panels because at the beginning I thought two would be enough but apparently we need four one on each corner of the solar panels as for the regulations I'm just seeing this well different ones they have actually four on each side here so we've got eight contact points and they've got these sharp corners on each side one for the rail system and one for the solar panel to pierce through the anodized layer so I probably need to um reorder some of these as well yeah they are definitely not enough definitely not then there is another bizarre thing in the regulations and this is about the Corrosion Protection of these ring of these um Earth locks here so when they are mounted foreign so when they are mounted and you have your cable in between here clamped down to this terminal obviously over time there will be corrosion happening especially your plank copper cable will corrode and will start getting green and brownish and gray and potentially has not a good contact anymore to this earth lag so the regulation says using some sort of protection then to prevent corrosion and they actually they actually advise to use this cold gel coating is it called so this prevents actually galvanic corrosion on metals after welding or Drilling so this is what they are saying you should paint over your connection between the copper and the aluminum ground or Earth lack copper aluminum and then this stuff on top of it so and I'm now putting this um 20 millimeter conduit in between the solar panel rows this is to protect the cables from the UV light so I need a bit of conduit between these two and a longer conduit over here and I will feed all the cables from this Row from this string and this string over to this side this is where the cable goes inside the roof and this is where the combiner Box sits so I probably drilled another hole just next to the existing one and fit these two new strings here in the same location inside the garage over there I wanted to do it over here and run inside the garage but what's the point right it is far easier to work here have all the cables running on top of the garage and then going in where the actual combiner box sits so much easier [Music] all right bomb and fist so we are now going to fit our first Earth cable here I've already Twisted these cables together this is a six millimeter building wire Earth ground okay so there we have it this is our first Earth connection nice and then we feed the cable across the solar panel on the underside in a in a split tube so it's protected again and then we go to the other clamp on this side there [Music] so I'm trying to cut off the insulation now in between these two points watch my fingers yeah there we go it comes off sorry now I have enough slack in this cable here to get this organized under the solar panel then later on and we just continue doing that so we now need to feed the cable through this conduit here because this is the exposed area between the solar panel strings and then we attach it over here and do the same Loop until there so and here's our earthing system because from one Earth lag to the next one and then we end up here because we need to redo all these ones all these rails here so and this is exactly the corrosion problem they were talking about because the copper is now exposed to the air here and will just turn green and this obviously prevents good contact with the Earth luck so I'm not sure about this paint stuff I thought about it last night but what about if I use silicon now yeah make a really big splash of silicon around it seal it completely and that should do the trick as well yeah I bought this 100 meter drum here because I thought well we've got more solar projects to do I will use it so we will have an mc4 connector here positive negative on this side and this is where our solar string connects for this area here this goes here all the way down here and then I've got one meter of cable to go down through the roof it's probably another 200 millimeters or something from here to the actual combiner box and then inside the combiner box so one meter should be totally fine all right that is the plan okay so now we have both cables here to recognize them later I've cut off here one of the cables a bit so we've got this step in here this is our first solar panel string and this is the last one in the row well first one second one just need to remember that oh a cable is long enough hopefully well I just came to cut it here done so I've got the little step in here and there's the same Mark now as on the other cable there just to distinguish them so I think we've got all the pre-cabling done for our two additional solar strings here it is now early in the morning and just just another day on the roof and I just realized that actually in the morning hours we have some sun here on this end of the garage while all the other panels are in yeah sun coming under under the tree under the branches onto this part of the garage so there might be actually a benefit of winter here to having panels in this area of the garage of the roof that is interesting to see okay let's do some book okay as you can see I went for the Silicon option here to prevent corrosion from our Earth clamp is all nice and sealed now there should be no moisture going in anymore no corrosion happening and you can relatively easy take it off again and and scrap off the Silicon again if you need to but this should be fine all the Earth clams are now sealed with silicon here and the next big challenge will be to get these Earth clamps underneath these rails here underneath the panels because I cannot really lift these panels anymore um I can do it on this side because the cable run is over there but I'm not sure how far I can lift it on the other side to get these clamps in and I've got three strings ah should be fine plenty of space all right no big deal [Music] foreign [Music] here's another point where we have to splice these two Earth cables together so so far this is all one cable and I just cut out the insulation in between where the clamp is but this was an off cut I have reused now we have to twist them together here and then put them in the clamp and from here on it will be one cable all the way to the solar panels and then all the way down into the garage onto there you can see it there there is our main Earth bar this will be one cable ideally you want to have this in one piece because this lowers your resistance already you can splice it you can splice it from one clamp to another in short pieces as well that will be working as well and is as per regulations thank you okay there you have it this is the old Earth cable so this one I will take this one off once everything else is connected seeing the Silicon also stays flexible when you move the cables around a bit while if you just paint them with this cold gal paint whatever it is the paint may come off then and exposes the pure copper again and then you've got corrosion so I think silicon is the better way [Music] option of the time lapse I've got some problem here because the rail is painted there was a used rail from one of the from the many pickups we had and this one is painted so I need to get some sandpaper and sand it off in this area where the actual Earth clamp sits because this is really bad [Music] foreign [Music] between these panels here like a young deer [Music] Okay so we've got the first panel first string is now connected to our main Earth cable with two claims on one of each side and I have now to continue these two as well the same way I probably don't do a Timeless it's too boring you know how it looks like so see you in a couple of hours actually a couple of days because I have to stop now because we are getting some visitors in an hour and I have to clean up all this Messier this tool explosion but now I've got a good understanding how it works so shouldn't be too hard and then we see us again when we run the cable down the other side and into the garage that'll be an interesting task because I'll show you then [Music] foreign [Music] s we have now the conduit connected under the solar panel and I have a piece of flexible conduit here as well to go over to the other side and we've got another saddle here to go in so this one sticks in there it will be silicon going in and then yeah it will be somewhere like this so it looks pretty much yeah like this it's like this could be it come on yeah that's it then um what the heck is this now what if I have a loop here oh no okay uh so now I've got everything right I actually had to pull the cable three times back and reorganize them so it actually fits and looks nice so there we go this is how it will be and um well let's get some silicon and get this all sealed and then we can go to the other side and push it down into the garage [Music] foreign [Music] ing [Music] I can see I can see and hear the water drops but there's no Cloud there's nothing I don't know where the rain comes from so it is this conduit coming from the top and this is where our Earth cable comes in unfortunately there are three two for the east side and one for the west side and I don't know of course which one is which so we have to take out all three of them and then pull the West the old west roof cable back and then we push the new one through get it connected and it's done it's that easy right yeah I wish it would be it would be a nightmare to get through here okay let's um undo these ones and see how we go okay let's pull them all out so we get this conduit straight otherwise we have no chance to get the cable through Bend this back it says straight as possible and now we can pull the old Earth cable for the West roof back I've pushed the um the new one in already but it's somewhere stuck I think we are very close here to This Little Bend here that is too bended okay let's um keep pushing and twisting until he comes out is it there is it there oh yes it is here nice yeah a little bit of twisting that made the difference oh I need to go up again foreign place that is a victory guys nice okay I'll leave this one as long as the other ones a little bit of a little bit of Slack okay oh we're done all right we have now officially earthed or grounded our new West roof six millimeter cable I'll put a label here on the cable as well once we finish the whole grounding situation here because we have to we have to pull a new Earth cable for the east roof as well I want to connect them the same way with these um Earth clamp connectors for the solar rails once they are all installed we will have only two cables here one east roof one West roof all connected to the main Ground Bar done so we know actually which one is which [Music] a beautiful sunset again to accommodate the end of the video as well well guys we have now successfully connected our rail system and the solar panels to our Earth or ground system here in the offcut garage and in the next step we need to test this we need to test and make sure all the solar panels all the rail systems have good contact to our ground and Earth bar how do you test this well with a con with a content with a new continuity continuity con with a nudity with A continuous test it please how can I make a video here it's not like we are living close to an airport here so but well so we have to measure the continuity between all your items you have connected to your Earth cable on the roof and your main Earth bar and we will do this in the next video here I'll show you how this works and I'm really Keen to test how good our connection is now with all these Earth washers and Earth clams on the roof now well and thank you so much for watching thanks for all your support you on the channel and until the next video guys you stay charged stay safe and thank you again for watching see you then bye continuity I think this is correct

Channel: Off-Grid Garage

Views: 103,078

Keywords: DIY Solar, DIY solar battery storage, DIY battery storage, beginner solar battery, off-grid solar, DIY off-grid, off grid solar, off grid battery, off grid garage, off-grid-garage.com, LiFePO4 battery, LiFePO4 DIY Battery, LFP battery, build you own battery, Victron Energy, solar grounding, solar earthing, solar earth lugs, solar earth washers, solar grounding washers, solar grounding lugs

Id: dSez5WrEZFI

Length: 30min 30sec (1830 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022