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marspec's avatar
marspec
Explorer
Jun 01, 2014

Portable Generator Grounding

I have purchased a pair of Honda 2000s and will parallel them. My fiver has a hard wired Progressive. I know I need to provide a ground by connecting a plug to the generators with the neutral and ground connected. The question is: Make up a plug for one generator or both?
  • Ground is the Wrong Term

    Nothing is grounded,
    The adapter plug provides a "Bond" between the floating neutral and the ground lug of the duplex plug

    This bond/continuity is what the EMS wants to sense, it is what is expected on utility power from the power company

    The Honda cables do not provide this bonding function
    They connect/parallel the existing wires
    They do not cross connect Aka bond the neutral and ground lugs
  • marspec wrote:
    .. a hard wired Progressive. I know I need to provide a ground by connecting a plug to the generators with the neutral and ground connected.
    Perhaps I need schoolin' here. Why wouldn't the regular Honda cables provide your grounding? Are you using Honda cables..? kinda hard to tell from your response.
  • I'll be using ready made cables.

    Thanks for the responses.
  • For additional safety you can make the bond plug with a 100,000 ohm 1/2 watt resistor.
  • smkettner wrote:
    Or just use the PI bypass.

    No, better to make the plug. That way you can't forget to turn the PI bypass off later, and the PI system is still protecting your rig from a generator malfunction. Just need to bond (that is the term) one of them while they are connected.

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