This afternoon I took the tarps off the trailer and there is no water damage!!!
I also put the solar panel out again to see what kind of output I could get from it.
The light was diffuse because of my neighbor's tree, and it was about 4 pm so the sun is low in the sky.
Even in this situation, the panel cranked out more than 34 volts!
The battery, which was at 12.4 volts or so when I started, got up to about 12.7 within an hour or so. It seemed to equalize there, probably because the sun was going down.
Here is the trailer, chilling in the yard with wires from the solar panel. And the Tracer looks happy.
On the subject of the inverter ground:
I tested for continuity and here is what I found.
1) The inverter ground screw is continuous with the ground on the inverter's 3-prong GFCI AC outlet.
2) It is also continuous with the metal inverter case (no surprise there).
3) What was a surprise is that it is continuous with the metal case of the nearby battery charger. It is also continuous with the ground pin on the power inlet on the side of the trailer.
So, what is going on here? The inverter is plugged into one side of the automatic transfer switch, and the battery charger is plugged in on the other side of it, where the shore power comes in from outside. The automatic transfer switch has a common internal grounding block, so regardless of which side the power is coming from, the ground wire is the same.
4) Another interesting connection is that the ground screw on the inverter is continuous with the "neutral" (wide) side of its own power outlet. That means the neutral and the ground wires are tied together inside the inverter.
5) Currently none of the components I've listed above have any continuity with the steel trailer. The electrical system (both AC & DC) is floating.
If I do ground the AC inverter to the trailer chassis as the instructions say to do, I should probably ground an outlet on the other side of the transfer switch also. I am not yet convinced I should have a cable from the battery's negative post to the trailer frame, as the AC and DC systems are separate. If there is an AC fault and the trailer is energized, the electrons could flow out the tongue, down the metal front support leg, and into the earth. In this case, I would never be running the inverter with the trailer attached to the Jeep and the metal leg not deployed and in contact with the earth.
_________________
2008 Liberty Sport 4x4 Automatic
Jeepin By Al 4" Lift Kit
BFG KO2’s 245/75R16
Full MOPAR skid plates
Rock Lizard Skink Super Sliders
AtTheHelm Front Recovery System & Roof RackM116A3 Trailer build thread: viewtopic.php?f=72&t=77997