"/On the Manzanita Micro charger, when I look at the AC plug, I see a grounding pin and 3 other blades. I assume that the unit is "grounded". On the recharging end, I see a small Anderson connector and a green wire which I assume is a grounding wire./ "
The white neutral wire is clipped off and not connected to anything inside the charger. The charger enclosure is connected to the green ground wire. /"If the unit is grounded, what is the danger or dangerous act?/" You touching a battery terminal and vehicle chassis ground at the same time since the pack is at the potential of the AC outlet to which the charger is connected. I dropped a lead on a cell log8 datalogger when connecting it to my pack while charging with a PFC30. When it touched the grounded steel battery box it triggered the GFCI breaker in my subpanel, but the cell log 8 was destroyed (doesn't take much). Now I connect the cell log8 to cells THEN turn on the charger using the switch on the front of the charger. "...if the pack is being recharged and the case is attached to the car frame , what should I **not** touch? What can I touch and not be in danger?" As above, you can't touch both a battery terminal and chassis ground. You also cannot touch any exposed conductors connected to the input of the Regbus and ground simultaneously, as the Regbus also has AC on it while the charger is connected to AC. "If I can't touch the car, then that **is** very very dangerous." You can touch the car all you want, as long as you don't touch a battery terminal or connection to one at the same time. You also do not want to leave the pack or wiring with AC on it exposed while charging so someone else can touch it. This is not a problem if you have your batteries enclosed in boxes as I do, with no exposed conductors. Just remember the charger circuitry is at the potential (voltage) of the AC you have it connected to and the ground of the charger circuitry is connected to the charger enclosure which is usually bolted to the vehicle chassis. So if you connect yourself between the charger circuitry (via regbus or output) and chassis ground, you give AC a connection to ground through your body. "/If the charger is plugged in and **not** recharging, what is the danger?/" There is no AC on the plugged in charger circuitry unless the switch on the front is in the ON position. If it is ON, but not charging due to the current knob being turned all the way down, there is still AC on the charger circuitry and you can get a shock as described above. Some mount the charger with the enclosure isolated from vehicle chassis ground so there is no longer a path for AC current flow from the charger ground to chassis ground. -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/100ah-pack-on-the-cheap-tp4663470p4663763.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
