portable generator to charge batteries grounding

Thanks for all the great info . I haven't had any gfi issues yet.
Thanks for taking the mystery out of it all. Wouldn't the ground wire
in the RV cord be grounded to the frame in the coach. there being the generator be grounded to that via the 3 prong. this kipor I have is 3000inverter model 2600 continuous. but I keep it at 2300 watts max
and yes its suitcase just like honda 2000 Bought off amazon in 2007
kipors were pretty new at that time . But there clones of honda takes even some of same parts . My front panel even looks the same .
Had good lucky with it so far .

Itasca55

Grounding would be for a permanent installation. Use a normal grounded plug to the RV and you are fine.

Regarding using your small generator to charge things aorund the trailer.

This is the front panel of my 2kW Honda EU2000i generator. It has a 8A DC socket as you can see to be used for charging things but keep in mind this will not do much for your DEEP CYCLE BATTERIES. My DC VOLTS coming out of this connection is around 12VDC but is not regulated. It varies up and down it appears...


8A is not much of charging source. With only 12VDC at 8AMPS capacity I suspect it would take around 24 hours or more to get your 12VDC deep cycle battery back up to its 90% charge state. It is not a good idea to just keep doing 30minutes or so charging of the deep cycle battery and keep using it. It will eventually go south on you.

Battery science tells us if you want to recharge a 50% depleted deep cycle 12V battery you will need to hit it with 14.4VDC with the capacity of 17-20AMPS of DC CURRENT. Doing this will re-charge the deep cycle battery from the 50% charge state to its 90% charge state. In my case my batteries at 90% charge state will provide almost full performance as if they were charged to a full 100% charge state. However I will start doing damage to my batteries if I just keep doing a 50% to 90% charge function and not do a full 100% charge. The book says to do this after 12-14 cycles of the 50-90% charge states.

Using the above listed charging setup of 14.4VDC with 17-20AMPS capacity this will take around 12 hours to get the 12VDC deep cycle battery to its 100% charge state.

Knowing what DC VOLTAGE and DC CURRENT you need you can see the 12VDC @8AMPS is not what you need and you can only get these charging levels from your ON-BOARD CONVERTER/CHARGER unit.

This is why I don't use the 8A source for anything except maybe a portable lamp to see things with when running m generator. Its best to plug the trailer shore power cable directly to the 120VAC generator receptacle using a RV30A-15A adapter from WALMART..


What I did to solve my low wattage 120VAC emergency power requirements was to install a 300WATT PSW INVERTER and run a couple of extension cords to one going to the home entertainment area and the other going to the bedroom table are. I eventually went to a 600WATT PSW Inverter to use since I found out how neat it worked for the small things when camping off the power grid...

Then once a day i re-charge my battery bank using the 2KW Honda Generator starting at 8Am each morning to get my batteries from their 50% charge state to their 90% charge state.

This is what works for me when camping off the power grid...

Just passing along some of my experiences with this... Everyone does it differently so stick with what works for you I reckon...

Roy Ken

We use our 2KW Honda Generator all the time that is cable secured in the tail gate corner of my Truck Bed.

We just plug the Trailer shore power cable into the Generator 120VAC receptacle using a RV30A-15A long Adapter(WALMART) and just run the trailer on-board converter/charger unit to re-charge our battery banks each morning when allowed to run my generator. Since the trailer is using a SMART MODE PD9260C COnverter it recharges my 255AH battery bank from a 50% charge state to a 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run time. Once my batteries are back up to their 90% charge state then I can use the Trailer again for the next day/night run off the batteries.

Some folks will have a GFCI problem which needs the generator receptacle to use a BONDING plug but that is not the case for us. I do however have an optional 1500WATT PSW INVERTER that runs off my my battery bank and produces 120VAC power. When I plug the trailer shore power cable into this connection I sometimes get a GFCI fault on the trailer side. If this happens then I have to plug in a BONDING plug into the unused INVERTER 120VAC receptacle plug.

My generator is not physically frame grounded to anything. My 1500WATT optional installed INVERTER does have a trailer frame ground cable installed.

If you are not having GFCI issues in your trailer then I would not worry about grounding anything... The WHITE NEUTRAL wire coming from the generator 120VAC RECEPTACLE is NOT connected to your generator FRAME GROUND. The GREEN GROUND WIRE from the generator 120VAC RECEPTACLE 'IS' connected to the frame ground terminal on the generator frame. By running a ground cable from the generator to an Earth Ground Rod is only grounding the generator frame and the GREEN wire going to the generator load plugged into the 120VAC receptacle.. To provide grounding that is like what you get from SHORE POWER CONNECTIONS you will need to use a BONDING plug on the generator 120VAC receptacle- Do a search on GOOGLE to read about this...

My BONDING PLUG looks like this... You can see a wire is connected between the GREEN and WHITE WIRE connections on the BONDING PLUG.


This is only relative for my setup here and may be different for yours... I have confirmed my Generator Grounds using a multimeter here in my setup.

Roy Ken

It no longer required to ground that small of a generator. If you must, just ground it to the frame of your rig.

the steel frame of he park pedestal is a source, but, if your charging batteries while they are installed in the motorhome, the frame of the motorhome is what needs to be grounded to the generator, but really, i wouldn't worry about it.