Grounding a portable inverter

[Unicorn Driver]

The manual in my Wagan 400W pure sine wave inverter states the below for both connecting to 12 socket and battery. To be honest I have used the inverter without the a ground.


Was I putting myself in danger?

Connect an insulated copper wire to the ground terminal. The other end

of the ground wire should be connected to a proper grounding point. Use

the shortest practical length of wire. Connect this wire to the chassis of

your vehicle or to the grounding system in your boat. In a city, the ground

wire can connect to a metal cold water pipe that goes underground. In

remote locations, the ground wire can be connected to an earth ground.

In the unlikely event of a short circuit, operating the inverter without proper

grounding can result in electric shock. Do not directly connect this ground

wire to the negative DC terminal

[spyderRV]

Normal AC power has a hot lead (black) and a neutral (white), which is at the ground potential. I have had two different inverters by two different manufactures in my RV. In both cases, both the hot and neutral were HOT and when I "grounded" the neutral lead on the first inverter it let out the magic smoke. It caused me to get a PSW inverter and run the output through an isolation transformer. Less efficient but I felt much safer.

[Unicorn Driver]

Originally Posted by spyderRV

Normal AC power has a hot lead (black) and a neutral (white), which is at the ground potential. I have had two different inverters by two different manufactures in my RV. In both cases, both the hot and neutral were HOT and when I "grounded" the neutral lead on the first inverter it let out the magic smoke. It caused me to get a PSW inverter and run the output through an isolation transformer. Less efficient but I felt much safer.

What surprises me is that they ask for a ground when connected to 12 volt. A lot of folk would use these in a car which does not have a ground wire.
Not unless the 12volt is ground.