Generator hookup question

[Charlie]

I have finished (well, I thought I was finished) the electrical wiring on our northern California cabin but I've run into an issue I did not anticipate. My generator, a Honda EU2000i, doesn't seem to generate 120 volts on the hot leg, but generates 60 volts each on both the hot and neutral. Some day we will want to add solar power but, in the meantime, the generator is what we've got.

The breaker panel has just one ground/neutral connection bar. I brought all the neutral and ground conductors, and an earth ground, to that bar. With all breakers off, when I plugged in the generator I got a massive overload which I guess is the 60 volts on the neutral going straight to ground.

If I add another connector bar and separate the neutral and ground conductors I would think that might be a solution?  Would it be safe? The neutral and ground would not be bonded together anywhere. My do it yourself electrical book does not address it!  Any thoughts or experience with this will be much appreciated.

[glenn kangiser]

Just guessing, Charlie but I think you are trying to run this 120v generator as a 240v generator -- that won't work.  Sounds like you may be shorting both sides to ground.

While using the generator, I would just run a cord from it to what I want to power as it is pretty small for a whole house anyway.

[NM_Shooter]

Check your manual.  Is that generator unbonded?  For home / transfer switch type applications, the ground and neutral should be unbonded... the only place you attach ground and neutral is in the breaker panel.

When you say "overloaded" what do you mean?  Do the breakers on the genset trip?

Does that genset output two phases or one?  In other words... does it have a 240V output?

"With all breakers off" you say... but I am guessing this does not include mains?

[glenn kangiser]

Thinking on this a bit, Charlie, I think you hooked each of the two flat blades of your plug to each side (leg) of a 240v panel and the ground to the neutral giving you a dead short.

Your power panel alternates from one leg to the other or if using half sized breakers then there may be two together on each leg.

To make this work through the panel you would have to see that all breakers were on only one leg of the panel.  The hot side of the plug goes to that leg and the other side goes to neutral.  The ground goes to ground which may be bonded to the neutral.

You won't be able to use 240 v breakers with this generator.  This is only a 120v generator.

Willy is better on this stuff than me but that should get you going.

[Willy]

Boy I am a little confused myself. If you have a regular 120 volt outlet plug on the generator, just take a 120 volt pigtail cord like you would use for a replacement cord and hook the white wire to the neutral bar in the panel. That is where the white wires go. You should also hook the green wire to this point, that ties the neutral to ground at the panel. Now take the black wire and hook it into the buss bar that all the breakers go to.You will need to tie the 2 sides together since you do not have a generator that puts out 120/220 AC. You can do this with a peice of wire hooking them to gether when you put the black wire in one of them. Mark

[glenn kangiser]

Good idea on tying the sides together, Mark.  Why didn't I think of that.

[Willy]

Good idea on tying the sides together, Mark.  Why didn't I think of that.

You would have if you were looking at the panel when you were hooking it up. Mark

[glenn kangiser]

I hope so...

[TheWire]

It should still be verified that the generator "Hot" and neutral are unbonded to/ completely insulated from the generator frame.  When you measured 60 volts on hot and 60 volts on the neutral, was one lead of your meter on the generator frame?  If the generator frame is bonded to the generator circuit at some point other than the
"neutral" prong on its outlet, bonding them at the breaker panel is going to create a major current flow or safety issue.

You might try this.  Connect a low watt 120VAC bulb, like a night light between the neutral prong of the generator outlet and the generator frame.  Start the generator.  If the light illuminates at all, you won't likely be able to bond the neutral to ground.  If however, with the light connected, your meter now shows 0 volts between generator neutral and the frame and 120volts from hot to either generator neutral or the frame you should be fine bonding.  The 60 volts you seen from neutral to the frame before would have been a floating or high impedance connection that bonding will resolve.

But if the generator is bonded internally and you connect its neutral to the breaker box and earth ground, you will have 60 volts between earth ground and the frame of the generator.  Thats a major potential for a shock or fire.

Jerry

[Charlie]

WHEN POSTING I GOT AN "UPLOAD FULL" ERROR MESSAGE SO i'M TRYING AGAIN (WITHOUT PHOTO). APOLOGIES IF THIS IS A DUPLICATE.

Wow, thanks for all the help!

I checked my 5KW generator that I use to power the water pump and the 120v outlets behave normally, 120v hot to ground, 0 volts neutral to ground (ground being the generator ground, not the earth).

I rechecked my little Honda and verified I got it right the first time, half the voltage is present on each of the hot and neutral to ground. I really like the Honda, by the way, because it uses very little fuel and it is very quiet.

Then I got back to civilization and read the responses. Willy, I did the hookup just as you suggest...the hot leg goes to one of the breaker panel hot bars and I jumpered both hot bars together. The white wire from the generator pigtail goes to the neutral bar in the panel, as does the green wire. When I energized the generator power to the panel (no load - all breakers were off) it sounded like the generator motor was about to stall and I immediately disconnected. The generator breaker did not trip but I think it would have if I had not disconnected quickly. As an experiment, I removed the earth ground connection from the breaker panel and tried again. Same result.

So, I think Jerry "TheWire" is onto something. I'll take a lamp cord up there next weekend and connect a low wattage light load across the neutral and ground to see if it results in an illuminated light. If it does, then maybe the Honda won't work hooked up to conventional building wiring. If it doesn't light up, then maybe the electrician (me) has something else crossed up elsewhere.

NM_Shooter - The Honda is 120v only. The manual is not clear to me on the bonded/unbonded question. There is a connector screw on the front with a "ground" symbol but I get the same response of 60v from each leg to ground in the receptacle or the ground screw.

Glenn - I've been running it on a cord thru the wall but the mice use the same hole for access!   

Anyway, I am really appreciative of the time it took for you all to help me out on this. I'll let you know what I find on my next trip to the site.

Charlie

[Willy]

To me I would think that maybe your generator winding is damaged. The generator frame should be grounded to the winding for saftey reasons. You should not get a reading to ground of 1/2 voltage from the neutal to ground it should read just like your 5kw one no voltage. The fact that you removed the ground (green wire)and the generator still loaded up even with th breakers off means the generator would also do it with out the panel hooked to it. Now there is a posibility your cord is bad or wired wrong. If it is a factory made cord with a molded on  3 prong plug it is wired right. If it has a cord end put on by another person I would supect it is wired wrong. The white wire goes to the silver screw, black wire to the brass screw and the green wire to the green screw. The neutral (largest prong slot in the 120 volt reciptical is grounded to the frame of the generator. If the cord cap was hooked up wrong and you bonded the green wire to the white wire(realy it would be the black wire now wired wrong) it would short the generator out and bog it down big time. I would have a electrician look at your generator and also the hook up wiring to your panel just to be safe. The reason for bonding the winding to the frame is to give the generator a way to trip the breaker in case the hot wire comes in contact with the metal housing and it keeps you from being shocked off the frame if it did by shorting the generator out. Mark

[glenn kangiser]

Charlie, on forum news there are Photobucket instructions - quickly though, you start an account at Photobucket

https://s35.photobucket.com

Add your pictures there then copy the bottom IMG link below the picture you want to show and paste it here in your reply.

[Willy]

Dumb question but does you Honda 120 volt generator only have a 2 prong receptical and not a grounded 3 prong outlet? If it is only a 2 prong outlet the neutral should still be the largest prong and posibley the generator is not grounded to the neutral but center tapped on the winding and it would give you 60 volts to ground off each prong and 120 volts between them. If it is this way you realy don't have a neutral because the neutral needs to be bonded to the ground in the system some where to be called a neutral. Mark

[davidj]

The EU2000i is an inverter generator, so the output is not directly from the windings.  There's a manual with a circuit diagram (page 55) at http://www.hicklinpower.com/uploads/EU2000i.pdf, although a lot of it is just a big block "inverter unit", including the connections to the outlet.  I don't think the neutral is bonded judging by other posts on other forums.

[MaineRhino]

Charlie,   have you been able to figure this out yet? This is also my next step....