Mark:
Your question is kind of vague and this makes it hard to answer: Who is pushing back and what are they pushing back about? What is your “stand alone power supply” comprised of and what will it be connected to? Lacking specifics, I will try to provide some generic advice. In cases like this I fall back on two principles of electrical design: Understanding the fundamentals and using good practices. Fundamentals: Bonding and grounding systems are two different things. Both are necessary to protect safety of life and from damage to property. A grounding system will allow static electricity to route into the ground to prevent lighting damage. It is also necessary to prevent a difference in potential between the ground (and anything buried in the ground) and equipment and structures from becoming a shock hazard. A bonding system has two functions: To prevent two objects that can simultaneously come into contact with a person or animal from having a difference in potential which creates a shock hazard and, to provide a low-impedance fault path to allow high current to flow momentarily in order to trip an over-current device in the case of a fault. The NEC deals with the issue of portable power generators in various sections. You need to be well versed on the NEC—for me it is a subject for a lifetime of study. Mike Holt <https://www.mikeholt.com/newsletters.php?action=display&letterID=2682> will spoon feed you the information. There are a ton of resources on the internet. Here is one example <https://eepower.com/technical-articles/national-electrical-code-2023-basics-grounding-and-bonding-part-9/>. Osha has a good paper <https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/grounding_port_generator.pdf> on the subject. Practices: I would avoid the use of any kind of sheet metal screw. Those are expressly prohibited in the Code. I would research problems with dissimilar metals and find readily available solutions for the problem. These is likely no problem one of us can face that has not been faced before by someone, somewhere. Find out what others have done. Once you educate yourself you will then have the tools to modify your approach, if needed, or to argue your case if you are convinced your approach is correct. I hope this helps. William Miller Miller Solar 17395 Oak Road, Atascadero, CA 93422 805-438-5600 www.millersolar.com CA Lic. 773985 *From:* RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] *On Behalf Of *Mark Frye via RE-wrenches *Sent:* Tuesday, January 28, 2025 12:33 PM *To:* RE-wrenches *Cc:* Mark Frye *Subject:* [RE-wrenches] Attaching Ground To Steel Frame Folks, I am going to have a steel frame for my stand alone power supply to be dropped on the ground out in the elements. I was planning to weld a stainless bolt to the mild steel frame to provide a corrosion resistant point of connection. I am getting a lot of push back on this. What are other folks do to create a connection for a system grounding electrode conductor on a piece of equipment like this? Thanks, Mark Frye
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