Motor Home System setup - last minute concerns

[pierregf]

Hi:

I am installing a medium solar system on my 35 foot bus conversion motorhome.

I recently bought the following items, and am just starting the installation.

Magnum MS2012 Pure Sine Wave Inverter
Magnum Energy Mini-panel
Conergy 250P solar panels, 4 of them for 1000 watts 2 strings of 2 in series
Midnite Classic 150 MPPT controller
Surrette 6 Volt 460 ah AGM batteries times 2
Remote control and battery monitor for the inverter
Midnite combiner box small one
Most of the wire and breakers

The questions and concerns are:

I forgot to get the surge protection. It looks as though the MNSPD-300 would be the one of choice. How many do I need? I thought maybe 1 for combiner box, 1 for classic 150, 2 for mini-panel?

What do I do for grounding on unit - do I just ground all, AC and DC to the frame of the vehicle?

Thanks for any help on this.

Pierre

[Westbranch]

Not sure if it would work if the bus is NOT grounded.... that lightning likes to take the easiest path and without 'ground' there is no path to follow.

[zoneblue]

And for converse reasons you are probably at less surge risk, by not being attached to exterior wires of any length, and by having a big metal cage around you.

What i would do, in any install as well, is make all pairs of wires run close togther, a slight twist from time to time cant hurt, and keep the plus and minus, the hot and neutral, equal length in each pair. That way surges tend to cancel out.

[pierregf]

So since it is on rubber tires and not grounded to earth, the surge risk due to lightning is fairly low. Possibly a MNSPD-300 on the shore power input to the inverter?

[zoneblue]

Shore power's another matter, nice big long ligthening antenna there, and the inverter ac inputs/outputs are considered the most vulnerable part of the inverter. But ill leave the recomended spd config for that to someone who knows.