Food Trailer Grounding

Status
Not open for further replies.

Fel Flores

Member
Location
Philippines
Recently, our company set up a food trailer truck with 240V, single-phase, 3W system. When it was rolled out to sell, a kid accidentally experienced an electric shock. After the situation, it was found out that though all electrical equipment were provided with grounding and was connected to the generator's grounding system, the generator was not properly grounded. Also, jackets of some wires were damaged (perhaps because of wire pulling).

With this, any recommendation for the effective grounding of our mobile food trailer?
 

mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
Recently, our company set up a food trailer truck with 240V, single-phase, 3W system. When it was rolled out to sell, a kid accidentally experienced an electric shock. After the situation, it was found out that though all electrical equipment were provided with grounding and was connected to the generator's grounding system, the generator was not properly grounded. Also, jackets of some wires were damaged (perhaps because of wire pulling).

With this, any recommendation for the effective grounding of our mobile food trailer?

Do you have generator only?

Or do you have generator plus utility connection?

Do you have a circuit breaker panel in the truck (MDP)?



Welcome to the forums.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
If neither the truck, nor its electrical system, nor the generator were effectively grounded, the only way to develop a touch potential (to produce a shock) would be if some of the equipment had a current leak to earth ground or the kid touched two parts of the truck which were not bonded to each other.
Needs analysis, not just grounding!
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
If neither the truck, nor its electrical system, nor the generator were effectively grounded, the only way to develop a touch potential (to produce a shock) would be if some of the equipment had a current leak to earth ground or the kid touched two parts of the truck which were not bonded to each other.
Needs analysis, not just grounding!
I agree.

You need to know what two surfaces the boy touched and figure out why they were at different potential. There is probably more of a bonding issue here then a grounding issue I would guess. "Grounding" of the on board generator may not be required, bonding of non current carrying metal parts is required though.

If set up for both on board power and to plug into a premises system, you may need to take a harder look at what is bonded to where and eliminate any neutral to ground connections you may have. There could be a combination of issues between the trailer and the premises wiring where it was plugged in as well.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
if by grounding you mean some kind of grounding electrode (such as a ground rod), it is doubtful such a GE would be of any real value as far as reducing the chance of an electric shock.

the non-current carrying metal parts should all be bonded together so there should not be any voltage potential between them.

In any case, as someone else mentioned, there is no where near enough information available in the post to know what really happened or how to deal with it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top