This at not be relevant to your situation. But Surge Protects are often the source of ignition in many fires. The explanation I’ve read is that the actual devices that protect can only withstand so many transient events. They short and ignite.

Wow! Had sort of a similar-ish thing happen nearby lightning we suspect wasn't home at the time came home to find most of our power strips zapped. Yeah supposedly they wear out overtime that's why you need the ones with the Protection LED assuming they're not just straight wired in. Ended up losing the power adapter for a TV converter box and not the CRT TV the cheap CRT TV! And about a dozen power strips. I salvaged the cords they were still good. I went through every power strip that I can opened and checked the inside. I have just started getting in the habit of anything that is Electrical is inspected before use after purchase. I picked up a inverter and discovered that they didn't slap the circuit board in properly so it was warped.

Thanks for your help. That will give me another item to check when I put in a generator.

Did it shake itself loose. ???? That is a Lot of years of shaking,,,,

I have a 14 roadking with se ventilator and what I did was get longer than stock breather bolts,drilled a hole on each side of the backing plate at the bottom below each breather bolt. Then I attached a hose to each nipple of the breather bolt and fed it through the hole I drilled in the backing plate to a tee and then to a catch can.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Great information. I am wondering if the constant vibrations of the generator ended up working the screws loose over the 20 years.

Is there something like this for the 2003 VRSCA with ABS?

going to have to invest in this tool, im currently going to school to become a Harley tech there is no way in hell i can afford the hd tech tool we used in class to bleed abs brakes. I doubt i can buy one anyways since I'm not a dealership, looks like this system works just fine.

So this happened to my house.. the neutral fell off the transformer. This transformer fed my home and my neighbors, we both had our AC on. My house was the first in line, and the first breaker down from the service connection went to the living room. Let’s just say it found a ground, arched through the outlet and caught the wall on fire. Been out of my home for almost 6 months as they do repairs and replace/paint everything

Wow, working on a house that old sounds very interesting! Generally speaking, you go a size smaller than copper. Low flow items like kitchen & bath faucets i did 3/8". Higher volume things like washer, hose bibs, tub/shower, garage utility sink I did 1/2". Where I had one inch copper around the main lines, I replaced with 3/4" PEX. It might sound like a downgrade, but there was not any noticeable change in water pressure anywhere. If you Google "pex sizing" you should find some good articles. One benefit of this is you get hot water a little faster because there's less cold water volume in the pipes to purge out.

That is truly scary. Thanks for posting this video. Reminds everybody we should never take anything for granted.

BluesriderDF, I hope the frame of that generator when operating is attached to a ‘grounding conductor’ or commonly known as ‘ground’. If that generator has a ground fault before the generators breaker such as a wire rub thru, and the frame is not at the same potential as the earth vicinity around the generator, It could easily kill you when you touch the generator. Just having the frame attached to the extension cord grounding conductor is not enough. It needs to be in the immediate vicinity of the generator. Something else to consider, If you have another conductor nearby that also runs back to the connection point, then you need to have the generator frame be attached to the extension cord grounding wire. So say you have a detached garage where the generator is located that is heated by the same gas source as the extension cord dwelling is attached to. In that case the gas pipe is the other conductor. Or maybe it is a metallic water line that is conductive. But if there is no other conductor of the like, then the generator frame gets grounded to the earth locally and does not need to be attached to the ground in the extension cord and the generator neutral can be unbonded. This is the same as the NEC code for structures fed with the same electric meter. If there is no other potential conductor between said structures, then only 3 wires are required. The neutral and two hot legs with no bonding of the neutral at that structures sub panel. A ground rod is driven and attached to the sub panels ground attachment point. Your brave for sharing your experience here. Others will learn from it as you have. I myself ride motorcycles and I have been a MSF Motorcycle safety instructor for 34 years. I’ve always said to my students, don’t put your life in others hands. Too many times people will blame a manufacturer of a motorcycle component. It may be true, but who is suffering the consequences if it fails or is defective without verifying its integrity?

So, yes, that service cord was definitely the start of the issues. But the fire department was also right about the surge protectors doing their job, or at least attempting to. As you mentioned in the video and in more detail in your corrections note, you had high voltage on one leg and low voltage on the other due to the disconnect of the neutral. Search protectors like what you showed work by clamping the voltage to not exceed a certain set voltage, probably around 210 volts for your particular application. When a lightning strike or motor surge causes access voltage In the buildings, electrical system. A component in the surge protector called a MOV or metal oxide varistor clamps the voltage and prevents it from getting to your appliances. It does this by shorting current between Hot and Neutral temporarily until the surge dissipates. Normally, this short is only for a few milliseconds at most, But in your case, it was sustained because it was being produced by the generator. This resulted in the MOV(s) overheating. The first search protector you showed was too burnt to tell just where it started.. But the second one you showed, I could clearly see the MOV s on the circuit board, and yes, plural, there were several to increase capacity, and on the plastic shell, you could clearly see the melting starting directly below where the MOVs would be when the device is assembled.

Thank you for the video I'm about to do the same thing I have a house from 1840 with very old copper pin holes everywhere lots of last minute repairs and I'm tired of it. I'm going to do the same thing with the manifold but for me I'm just going to break through a lot of the plaster lath and create water channels three stories to get the water to the different levels. And also to protect the Plex from accidental nailing also I'm planning to put in access panels I'm running up the stairway that goes between all the floors I'm going to use some Wayne's coding panels that could be removed for Access if there's any issues. My question to you how did you size the pipes

Thanks for this, very helpful. What kind of rack is that on your bike?

Change the title to "Bad Generator Cable"

So un-bonding at the generator, removing the neutral and ground tie, was not the problem, correct?

Thank you very much, we need more people to learn how to figure things out. Everybody in they're life will need to have this type of reasoning in order to survive, can't just leave it up to somebody else all the time Thanks again for teaching people.

Must credit your determination to the end, funny you had found the problem and not the electricians.

That generator bond covered up the cable's unconnected neutral. By removing the bond, there was no more neutral. All unbalanced circuit loads would get up to 220v pumped through it . Only balanced loads will get 110v.

Great video. Nightmare fuel ngl. Ig extension cords really are more dangerous than we are led to believe. Glad u escaped serious injury/loss tho man.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Lost neutrals and meltdowns are not something I normally associate with generator usage. I made up my own generator extension cords. After watching, I'll open them up to absolutely sure connections are still snug after 2 years...especially the neutral.

You really need to leave building this stuff to professionals.

Thanks for sharing on your experience with this!!!! I'm an electrician, have installed many different types of home generator connections and transfer switches, panels , etc. But that Generator "Cord Set" some call it could be a failure that me as an electrician may not catch in my Testing, after an installation. If the home owner replaces a cord, and gets a bad/defective cord set, the result could be very bad. So important to validate/inspect/test the cord set as well. God bless

What I have just dealt with is a dropped neutral. As pointed out already, the current tried to find another route. If it's balanced between the two hots, it could operate without too much issue. However, if it goes out of balance (and that could be the difference of one lightbulb being on or off) it changes voltage on each line,(As already pointed out). Potentially feeding 220v to your appliances and lighting. It looks like Those surge protectors detected the higher voltage, saving your tv. Bulbs can explode and tvs can start arcing, but luckily you avoided that.

Great review. I'm about to pick these up second hand. I do about 500 miles a week at 40°. I've been struggling to get to destinations. Ty for the review.

Unbonded generators MUST be grounded locally if unattached to a subpanel or grounded customarily if connected to a subpanel. Their grounds cannot be left floating. Period. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. If you don't know the NEC, then hire an electrician. There are some use-cases for unbonding generators like making inductive loads work with GFCI equipment that cannot be removed, but in all cases, grounding is required.

If you want to save a few bucks ( those are over $100) you can get grip heaters. They are thin plastic elements that wrap around the bare handlebars and the grips slide back over them. Then you just wire them to the headlight curcuit with an inline switch. Some like mine have high and low and believe me, low is warm enough. High will help them heat up faster but will probably be too hot.

Maybe I'm better off to keep running extension cords as I have been. I do not f**k with electricity!

Bonding your generator grounding it. What is lightning going to strike it? It doesn't need to do that.

defective power strip thing only😮

Folks, don’t run with a bonded generator. This man was lucky he didn’t electrocute himself over the years with a bad patch cable. The answer is not to use the ground as a backup neutral. What if your child was standing in the wet grass and touched the generator frame? Remember, the literal ground becomes part of the circuit if the neutral is open and the frame is bonded. The grounding system’s purpose is to protect you from faults in your appliances by providing an alternate, unrestricted path to ground to open a breaker. It is not there to become a part of the circuit because you have multiple points of bonding in the system. The better solution would be a transfer switch that has built in meters to show each phase’s voltage so you can check it after changing over to generator power. Or you could use a hand held meter. Anything but using the generator’s frame as part of the neutral circuit.

Why did you change it to begin with?

Great bike if you're a little person. Sticking with my 2016 Heritage.

Wow!!! Thanks for that education!

I'm a roadie, and I never connect my equipment to a building's power or to a generator without first metering voltages and checking continuity (or expected lack of continuity) between ground and neutral. I've been asked by venue guys a few times why, and this video in part shows why.

I kept mine bonded. I talked to a bad electrician at one time who said to unbond it. EVEN MY ELECTRICAL PANEL IS BONDED. That dude was an idiot. Didn’t listen too him

thank you.. this is a must watch video if you own or plan to own a portable generator

This is a great video. Your easy manner on getting this done has given this old guy several ideas and energy to do this myself. Thank you!

that plug would provide a far better connection provided the lugs are tightened than the terrible chinese cold solder joints they use in the molded plugs anyday.

there are a lot of lessons in this video. This could be a whole lesson for an apprentice or journeyman refresher course. Open neutrals are something we run into a lot and are often times at the service point. Interesting video and I am glad that you are safe!

This looks way easier than what i got. I should've done more research.

lost neutral. and ck cords cause they do discolor oxidize. very good and scary video. great job thankyou

always bond your grounds! It's for safety !!!!

It's why I stop at replaceing ac outlets and hire an expert

I'm hearing stories now about fake copper wire that is actually just copper plated steel... It's more important than ever to test your equipment before you use it.

Did the unbonding cause the fire??? I've been running a floating neutral generator illegally to my panel for over 10 years.

🟦…Since you discovered the problem was with the cable and it was something that could be remediated easily, Why didn't you just clean it up and tighten the connections up properly? ... I'm trying to understand why a new cable was needed when it appeared the problem was an easy cure (tightening the contacts). .... Was there another reason you didn't repair and reuse the original cable?

I know the video is from Jan 25 and you may not get notified about this comment but I will leave it for others to see. When you do not have a neutral back to the power source in this case, the two hot legs will try making a circuit through the neutral how ever they can. In this case the MOV's in the surge suppressors were allowing the current to flow between the two hots and try to balance the load. The problem was that the MOV's in both power strips did not like the current flow through them and burned out. There is a reason a good electrician will setup a generator system to have the important systems on generator power and others like TV's and non essentials will be left out. In this case the only things that should be on a generator for a power outage is refrigerators, freezers, furnaces and well systems. Options would be lighting after that, but it should be in necessary areas like kitchens and maybe garages with the door opener. If you want to power the whole house, then I would suggest getting a whole home generator setup and if you want to go cheaper on the setup, then get a load shedding system. The only reason you should break the neutral ground bond in a generator is if the neutral at the transfer switch is using the neutral and ground connections in the main panel or at the main disconnect on the premises per NEC code 250.34(A)

I never do portable generators as separately derived services (SDS). I use a 2 pole disconnect and ensure the neutral and ground are bonded at the generator. I'm not saying you can't use a 3 pole and switch the neutral, it just adds unnecessary complexity without any return.