Generator/ Reverse Polarity Question

road-runner wrote:
The one thing I can say for sure is that the generator you have does not follow the wiring diagram! This means that you/we have to attempt to guess what the builders were trying to accomplish, which opens up a minefield of bad assumptions.

I'm thinking the yellow wire with green strip is the chassis ground wire. You should be able to follow it to confirm that. I'm also thinking that the 20 amp duplex outlet is wired backwards, only because white wires are by convention used for neutral. But that's bringing in an assumption that the builders meant to follow the convention. I'm curious what others looking at it conclude. Do the 2 green wires from the 20 amp outlet run to the hour meter? How many wires run to the hour meter? Knowing these two things could help in seeing the big picture.

I agree with your assessment.

The power comes from the breaker to the 30A, then the black and white are swapped on the 20A downstream receptacle. By convention, black=hot=brass screw and white=neutral=silver screw. The black and white are swapped on the 20A screws. The green wires can probably stay where they are since the generator isn't bonded internally anyway.

Even if that isn't what they intended, we know that swapping the the hot & neutral on either the 30A or 20A will fix the bonding problem and it makes the most sense to fix the one that isn't wired to standards.