Electrical Question RE: Grounding, or lack thereof

A person has to be cautious around electrical production units that manufacture their own sine wave. There is no such thing as ground merely connection to stator winding ends. Earth ground is useful in single phase transformers and non Delta connected three phase transformers.

An issue I see with an electrical device that is broken is that it is deceptive. The "dog bone" here is not uniquely dedicated to the Honda. It can be connected elsewhere and under the wrong conditions the missing ground can prove deadly.

As an old broken down EMT 2, I have been on scene to see electrocution victims that seemed to be untouched except for an arrested heart. Electricity is flaky. It can take different paths through the body and if it decides to go through the ventricular section of the heart it will absolutely instigate ventricular fibrillation. Death. Left leg through left arm is the most risky electrical path a shock can take. Two-hundred watts is more than enough to cause ventricular fibrillation. Please please, respect this...

You're right, the Honda is neither grounded nor bonded. The Honda ground is floating (no electrical connection). Since you only use the adapter for the gen, it makes no difference if the ground pin is broken off. Your gen is safe to use.

Ron3rd wrote:
The Honda genny is not grounded so what issues could arise using the broken dogbone?

Safety Grounding is very much misunderstood by many people. HONDA engineers know what they are doing and they leave it un-connected.

So as I said. The O/P did the right thing in buying a new dogbone (Due to the possibility of using it with Mains power which IS grounded) but with the honda it makes no difference.

Thanks folks for the good advice. I didn't want to take a chance on anything so I picked up the new dogbone as mentioned. I could see the potential for trouble when connected to shore power, but did not understand where potential trouble could come from when running off the Honda EU2000 since it is not grounded anyway. Good info and good food for thought.

IF (big IF) the Honda (or any generator) chassis should come in contact with Earth AND not be Ground Connected to the 3rd prong RV CHASSIS/GROUND then ANY OTHERWISE NORMAL RV is going to attempt to raise its skin voltage to 1/2 way between the L1 Voltage and NEUTRAL via capacitative coupling between the L1 and NEUTRAL circuits in the RV when measured to said EARTH. IMO.

In simple terms it is unsafe, potentially deadly. The ground wire on your power cord is there to drain off any voltage that may have found its way to any metal surfaces you may touch. It takes very little current thru your body to kill you.

Well, For other reasons you did the right thing... but on that Honda, by default, that pin is not connectd to anything.

This is why when an RV with a Surge Guard is connected to a HONDA EU-x000i they need to make a special "Bonding plug" to bond the neutral to ground,, Ground is not connected.

The other things.... You might, some day, use that adapter in a place where the ground *IS* properly connected.

And one more thing: Why is it NOT connected on the Honda.. To fully explain this takes quite some time but basically the safety ground is there so that you do not become a "Return path" for power.. Power MAINS are grounded and thus if something goes wrong.. YOU can become a conductor of electricity.

But the HONDA is not grounded,, So if you are standing barefoot in a puddle of water on the ground... So long as you do not drop the tool into the water you should IN THEORY be safe.. I do not recommend testing the theory though, ALWAYS use safe practice.