Earthing the Inverter

Hi Utemad,
Why would earthing to an earth stake be dangerous? When I saw the earth point on my inverter seeing as it was producing 240V I earthed it to ground with a tent peg, just as house wiring is earthed.
Does this mean all my christmasses will come at once?
Camper

Sorry I didn't mean that earthing it would be dangerous. I meant that if you had the outer metal casing of the inverter able to come into contact with a 240v wire inside the unit then that would be dangerous as most inverters are not earthed so if something went wrong and you touched the inverter then 'all your Christmases would come at once'.

If you have a metal appliance for example then you need the case earthed as then if the metal appliance case comes in contact with a power wire the power is earthed down the earth wire to the earth stake (tripping the earth leakage switch) and not through you. Inverters are banned on building sites becasue they are not earthed. This is also why appliances such as televisions in plastic cases do not have an earth wire or pin on their plug.

In fact I just checked my small 200w inverter with my multimeter and the earth pin on the 240v socket is not even connected to the case. So except if something went wrong inside the inverter itself, earthing the inverter case would do nothing anyway.

If you have an earth screw on your inverter then I guess yes it would need to go to a stake just in case your appliance had what I mentioned above happen.

Aslo a tent peg would not be a sufficient earth stake. It needs to go right down into moist soil. Many houses use their copper water pipes for an earth stake.

I'm not an electrician but this is what I would consider to be the case from experience in similar areas.

The issue ute is about the potential from the inverter to the actual earth, not from the case to the live wires. The case is connected to the neutral of the 240v anyway so any wire toughing it would blow the inverter fuse and she's all over red rover. The earth on the case is where you are using the inverter in an earthed environment, like outside in the dirt and there is a possibility of having voltage from the earth/neutral of the inverter to the general mass of earth, also known as the dirt on which we walk