Luck And an Eight Foot Ground Rod

After about half a dozen attempts I found a spot that allowed me to pound in the entire eight feet of solid copper grounding rod....it's not easy and there definitely seems to be a degree of luck involved in locating a spot with the least resistance. It was a much bigger undertaking than I expected and it requried a lot more energy. Whacking a mallet at head level is a workout......but even a Solargoddess CAN do it. I do admit I did most of it but my husband did pitch in with some support. I dug down around the ground rod six inches so the inspector will be able to see it and then I'll cover it up. I also attached a bare copper 6 AWG that snaked through two lugs on the solar panels...they will ground the panels. The ground then went to the combiner box's ground bus bar.

Here's a shot of the combiner box...on the bottom is a lightning arrestor. The lightning arrestor will attach to the ground bar bus and PV Negative and PV Positive.

These shots show the combiner box affixed to the solar array frame....things are moving along.