Portable Generator open ground

[185EZ]

nothing to see here

[MrWizard]

you found it, you fixed it, and you have learned a 'lot'
good work

i remember thinking there was a reverse wiring connection
I thought it was in the extension cord,
you found it in the generator

[185EZ]

Thank you to everyone for being patient with me and helping out.
Beers on me
Stop on by

A Happy Camper

[enblethen]

There should be no ill effects!

[wnjj]

185EZ wrote:
sunavabitch
That was it
I had to rotate the 30 amp outlet to make the wires reach but it also makes it easier to plug in the cord. The way they had it was difficult to plug in. I almost bought an adapter.
No more codes on EMS and it sent power through.

Would there be any damage to my rv when I had it plugged in directly to the generator with those wires switched?
Everything seemed to work fine

No harm done running it like it was. Without a ground bond, neutral and hot are arbitrary. It would only cause issues if some kind of device needed both 20A and 30A at the same time and shorted the neutrals together inside. Your bonding plug plus EMS RV was a harmless version of such a device. 😉

What you found explains everything which is why I posted this earlier:

Tied inside makes sense, but what I meant was that the 20A receptacles selected one of the output legs as neutral and the 30A receptacle selected the opposite one.

Glad you have it all straightened out.

[185EZ]

sunavabitch
That was it
I had to rotate the 30 amp outlet to make the wires reach but it also makes it easier to plug in the cord. The way they had it was difficult to plug in. I almost bought an adapter.
No more codes on EMS and it sent power through.

Would there be any damage to my rv when I had it plugged in directly to the generator with those wires switched?
Everything seemed to work fine

[enblethen]

Blue wire should be on silver screw!

[185EZ]

One thing I noticed was the blue wire on the 15 amp receptacles is attached to the silver terminals but the blue wire is attached to the gold terminal on the 30 amp
the red wires are attached to the gold terminals on the 15 amp and attached to the silver terminal on the 30 amp
gen by 185 EZ, on Flickr

[Optimistic_Para]

I'd be opening that genny up and tracing the wiring to that 30 amp socket, personally. Something ain't right in there. You can't assume that just because something is new, that the factory didn't screw it up.

[185EZ]

quick recap
The generator works fine plugged into the rv without the EMS
The EMS is plugged in by itself to the generator and won't let current through due to an open ground

Plugged in the outlet tester to the 15 amp and 30 amp outlets and it shows open ground same as with the EMS.
Plugged in the bonding plug to the 15 amp outlets and the tester says it's correct or good with 15 amp outlets
But the 30 amp rv outlet shows hot/neutral reverse and the EMS shows code reverse polarity

[road-runner]

pnichols wrote:

Could this be that the Norcold refrigerator's control board is sensitive to the little generator's output not having it's neutral bonded to it's ground ... as is being dicussed here?

Anything is possible until it's tested. I'll just say I've had 2 dometic fridges that didn't care about the bond, and I've never noticed a report of any RV fridge caring about it.

[185EZ]

wnjj wrote:

185EZ wrote:
There's continuity between all of them.
upper left on the 20A and lower right and left on 30A
same with upper right pins on 20A and continuity between lower right and left on 30A
also continuity between all grounds

Yes it's a misprint of 240V in the specs.
There isn't even a switch for it.
The old Durostar had the 240V switch and that was one of the reasons I wanted the EMS in case the switch was accidently turned on

This makes even less sense. Of course when I say "continuity" I'm assuming an ohm meter that's reading near 0 ohms, not a handful or more through a coil. I should have been more clear.

Also, without your bonding plug in there, the grounds should connect to nothing but each other and the ground lug.

Correct
grounds connect to nothing but each other
I think I said it wrong.:(
I should have left the "ground" part out now that i look at it

[wnjj]

185EZ wrote:
There's continuity between all of them.
upper left on the 20A and lower right and left on 30A
same with upper right pins on 20A and continuity between lower right and left on 30A
also continuity between all grounds

Yes it's a misprint of 240V in the specs.
There isn't even a switch for it.
The old Durostar had the 240V switch and that was one of the reasons I wanted the EMS in case the switch was accidently turned on

This makes even less sense. Of course when I say "continuity" I'm assuming an ohm meter that's reading near 0 ohms, not a handful or more through a coil. I should have been more clear.

Also, without your bonding plug in there, the grounds should connect to nothing but each other and the ground lug.

[pnichols]

This thread reminds me of a similar problem in our RV.

When drycamping sometimes we fire up our small 650 watt Honda non-inverter generator to charge the batteries and run/charge small items, instead of using the large built-in generator.

When doing this, the propane/120V refrigerator will not switch to electric - it stays on propane.

Could this be that the Norcold refrigerator's control board is sensitive to the little generator's output not having it's neutral bonded to it's ground ... as is being discussed here?

[185EZ]

ordered tester yesterday because I can't find mine.