Generator grounding

[ColinB-KEY]

Looking for opinions on generator grounding. First, a short story about the Wen 4500W duel fuel. When I received it, after starting it was in Overload state. No load, followed manual to the letter. Sent back, got it back, same issue. So at least they are sending me a new model. Crossing my fingers. Any hoo, it has a floating neutral. Mfg. wants me to connect wire to grounding rod. Oh my. Have seen many topics and videos about folks just plugging in a bounded plug. Neutral to ground pin. Now, when it comes to using a generator for your house, you want the generator to be floating per code. The Rig is grounded to the frame 12v protection? But, when connected to shore power, a fault would ground back at the shore ground. So a generator is like shore power and you pound a grounding rod in the ground per mfg or you plug in a bounded plug and the generator frame is grounded. What say you all? I’ll call up Keystone and ask them, will reply with what they say. Cheers

 

[NH_Bulldog]

With a portable generator, simply use a bonding plug. My EMS won’t let power into my camper without one on the generator.

PROBLEM:

SOLUTION:

 

[workinonit]

An EMS is the best money ever spent for me.

 

[tallen129]

I had the same issue with my watchdog, put in a bonding plug and all issues resolved.

 

[triplethreat]

Looking for opinions on generator grounding. First, a short story about the Wen 4500W duel fuel. When I received it, after starting it was in Overload state. No load, followed manual to the letter. Sent back, got it back, same issue. So at least they are sending me a new model. Crossing my fingers. Any hoo, it has a floating neutral. Mfg. wants me to connect wire to grounding rod. Oh my. Have seen many topics and videos about folks just plugging in a bounded plug. Neutral to ground pin. Now, when it comes to using a generator for your house, you want the generator to be floating per code. The Rig is grounded to the frame 12v protection? But, when connected to shore power, a fault would ground back at the shore ground. So a generator is like shore power and you pound a grounding rod in the ground per mfg or you plug in a bounded plug and the generator frame is grounded. What say you all? I’ll call up Keystone and ask them, will reply with what they say. Cheers

Driving a ground rod at ANY campground is not acceptable or reasonable, there are many reasons for that. RVs generally do NOT have a neutral/ground bond in the breaker panel, as they rely on the neutral/ground bond from the source voltage...as per the NEC. Using a ground/neutral bonding plug will work and is the easiest way to get the generator to supply power to the trailer. You would need to remember to unplug it though if you decided to use it at home as a backup generator source to your house in an emergency.

 

[jxnbbl]

+1 On all the above! I remember stopping at a Home Depot on our second stop the first time I had me inverter generator to make my own plug. I basically forgot until I plugged in my EMS! I recently was trying to explain this and found this video that does a better job.

LINK

 

[ColinB-KEY]

Completely agree with all posts. But I’m thinking of pulling the outlet panel off and putting a jumper from neutral to ground. That way I have both outlets available. If you have good small appliances and inspect them, all will be well, Amen. I actually pulled out a portable 1500W heater from the garage one day and noticed exposed wire. Oppsy. Be safe everyone

 

[workinonit]

Mine is internally grounded.

 

[NH_Bulldog]

Mine is internally grounded.

Do you have an onboard generator? If so, this is common and acceptable.

However if it is portable generator, and if it could potentially be used to power a house or other properly wired permanent structure, it could create issues if the neutral and ground remain bonded. This is because a house (as an example) already has its neutral bonded to ground, and connecting a second bonded neutral can cause issues with ground loops (an unintended electrical circuit formed by multiple paths to ground within a system) and other electrical problems, including damage to sensitive electronics.

If I am powering my RV from the generator, it is the only thing plugged into it, so "losing" one receptacle on the generator for the bonding plug is irrelevant. I would rather have the flexibility to use my generator for any purpose instead of "dumbing it down" to only ever power my RV.

 

[triplethreat]

Do you have an onboard generator? If so, this is common and acceptable.

However if it is portable generator, and if it could potentially be used to power a house or other properly wired permanent structure, it could create issues if the neutral and ground remain bonded. This is because a house (as an example) already has its neutral bonded to ground, and connecting a second bonded neutral can cause issues with ground loops (an unintended electrical circuit formed by multiple paths to ground within a system) and other electrical problems, including damage to sensitive electronics.

If I am powering my RV from the generator, it is the only thing plugged into it, so "losing" one receptacle on the generator for the bonding plug is irrelevant. I would rather have the flexibility to use my generator for any purpose instead of "dumbing it down" to only ever power my RV.

This ^^^^^ exactly correct......you beat me to this response.

 

[jasin1]

Do you have an onboard generator? If so, this is common and acceptable.

However if it is portable generator, and if it could potentially be used to power a house or other properly wired permanent structure, it could create issues if the neutral and ground remain bonded. This is because a house (as an example) already has its neutral bonded to ground, and connecting a second bonded neutral can cause issues with ground loops (an unintended electrical circuit formed by multiple paths to ground within a system) and other electrical problems, including damage to sensitive electronics.

If I am powering my RV from the generator, it is the only thing plugged into it, so "losing" one receptacle on the generator for the bonding plug is irrelevant. I would rather have the flexibility to use my generator for any purpose instead of "dumbing it down" to only ever power my RV.

Completely agree with all posts. But I’m thinking of pulling the outlet panel off and putting a jumper from neutral to ground. That way I have both outlets available. If you have good small appliances and inspect them, all will be well, Amen. I actually pulled out a portable 1500W heater from the garage one day and noticed exposed wire. Oppsy. Be safe everyone

If you go that route i’d put a permanent tag on the outside of the generator explaining what changes you made.
You may not own that generator one day or may not be home when someone uses it and they would have no idea that you altered it from the factory

 

[workinonit]

Do you have an onboard generator? If so, this is common and acceptable.

However if it is portable generator, and if it could potentially be used to power a house or other properly wired permanent structure, it could create issues if the neutral and ground remain bonded. This is because a house (as an example) already has its neutral bonded to ground, and connecting a second bonded neutral can cause issues with ground loops (an unintended electrical circuit formed by multiple paths to ground within a system) and other electrical problems, including damage to sensitive electronics.

If I am powering my RV from the generator, it is the only thing plugged into it, so "losing" one receptacle on the generator for the bonding plug is irrelevant. I would rather have the flexibility to use my generator for any purpose instead of "dumbing it down" to only ever power my RV.

I completely understand ground loops. This is an RV gen that I have on a rack I made on the rear hitch of the RV. It is for RV use so it's dual fuel inverter, setup for 50 amps, remote start and grounded for RV use. I won't be using it for anything else unless I need to power tool or something with it. I have a 25 kW whole house PTO generator so this will never be used on a grounded system.

 

[ColinB-KEY]

Same here Workinonit. But I have no need to have a generator for my house. My wife doesn’t touch my tools (Thank you dear). she will use the snowblower when I’m out of town, god bless her. If I ever sell it, I’ll pull the jumper. Thanks all for your opinions

 

[workinonit]

I'm sure mine can be unbonded if need be but I would have to explore how it is done. It has a warning on the face of the control panel that says it's bonded.

 

[firestation12]

Looking for opinions on generator grounding. First, a short story about the Wen 4500W duel fuel. When I received it, after starting it was in Overload state. No load, followed manual to the letter. Sent back, got it back, same issue. So at least they are sending me a new model. Crossing my fingers. Any hoo, it has a floating neutral. Mfg. wants me to connect wire to grounding rod. Oh my. Have seen many topics and videos about folks just plugging in a bounded plug. Neutral to ground pin. Now, when it comes to using a generator for your house, you want the generator to be floating per code. The Rig is grounded to the frame 12v protection? But, when connected to shore power, a fault would ground back at the shore ground. So a generator is like shore power and you pound a grounding rod in the ground per mfg or you plug in a bounded plug and the generator frame is grounded. What say you all? I’ll call up Keystone and ask them, will reply with what they say. Cheers

If you were to use your generator as an emergency source of power to your home, the generator would likely work without the application of the bonding plug. Bonding of the neutral to ground takes place at the service entrance panel (SES), but not allowed at downstream sub panels. Mere mortals should not try to understand why, just comply with your bonding plug.

 

[Mikelff]

I use a heavy three way 2 ft. Extension cord in one of the two plug outlets on my portable generator. One of the three outlets of the extension cord has the bonding plug in it. So I have both outlets on the generator available. Actually, I have two outlets from the three way and the other outlet on the generator available. This has worked well for me. I have adaptors that take power from both outlets on the generator and put them into one 20 amp extension cord ( this is a 2500 ) generator. Each outlet is 15 amp. And the generator doesn’t put out more than a total of about 18 amps or so. So by using both outlets into one 20amp line, I am able to use the full output capabilities of the generator. I can run one 15K a/c unit with a soft start off this generator with no issues, and have some power to spare to keep a charge on my batteries. Since I don’t boondock that much, this generator does the job I need. If I needed both a/c units, I would need another generator and would go with the 50 amp parallel adapter Set up.

 

[Larrys-5TH]

Say what? I use my Wen inverter Genny for the camper regularly as well as emergency back-up for power outages at home without any additional devices. What am I missing here?

 

[workinonit]

Yours must be bonded like mine is. I've never given this a second thought either.

 

[jxnbbl]

Say what? I use my Wen inverter Genny for the camper regularly as well as emergency back-up for power outages at home without any additional devices. What am I missing here?

I you connect it to your house electrical panel and use a lockout or through a manual transfer switch, everything that requires a real ground/bonding is satisfied since they are wired to your electrical panel.

This is not the case with a trailer as the bonding is not at the power center/breakers of the trailer. In fact, most/everything will work (ungrounded). Where you run into problems is if there is a short (since that is dangerous) or if use use an EMS device between the generator and your power center/breakers. Most (all?) EMS units will shut down the power to the trailer due otherwise an open ground....hence the bonding plug.

You have to look at the owners manual or get out a simple electrical tester to figure out. Look for the term "floating"

 

[NH_Bulldog]

Unless you have an EMS in/on your camper, you might never know of the open ground issue (until you got lit up). Most people are blissfully unaware of the danger, and that is an accident waiting to happen. An RV typically gets its ground through the shore power connection, but ground doesn’t exist in a generator by default, so a bonding plug (or modification) is required