BONDED vs. FLOATING NEUTRAL GENERATORS - Simple & Easy

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

Check out my video all about backfeeding. TO BACK FEED OR NOT TO BACK FEED? Powering your house with a generator. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rquUoaJ6rbiEpJI

[@bluesriderDF]

Tim, you explained this better than any manual or other video I've seen. Excellent job, thanks!

[@dlpeters0n]

Explained it well. If you're backfeeding a bonded genny then the best place is to break the bond is considered to be the inlet receptacle - disconnect the ground. Then you a) haven't modified the genny, and related to that b) the genny is still ready and able to function standalone without modifying it back again, or else possibly giving someone a nasty surprise. My last genny had GFCI, so woudl immediately trip the moment it was hooked up to the genny inlet, so the electrician disconnected the inlet ground. Without a GFCI, but being bonded, the genny should function but is certainly not code and presents some hazard, if small. That's why you need to break the ground path, and again, the inlet receptacle is the easiest place to do it.

[@randallfuhrman3489]

Finally after a ton of videos you explained it in a way I can understand. Thanks man keep em coming.

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

I really appreciate the compliment. I put more time into this video than most others attempting to make it as understandable and digestible as possible

[@no1but24]

Thank you for putting this out where the Lehman can actually understand it.

[@Cptnbond]

There is the misconception that a fuse that pops (overcurrent situation) is there to protect you, but that is not the case - it protects the equipment and wires from further damage to the property, like burning down your house and ruining your expensive generator. What protects a person is a properly installed residual current device (RCD) or a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI). That little breaker measures any imbalance of the currents in hot and neutral wires and breaks the circuit if any slight difference is detected - due to a current leakage to the ground wire. Cheers.

[@georgerockwell-z3c]

Nice video Tim. Here's a follow up thought for you. I have a bonded neutral generator and a transfer switch that does not switch the neutral. After a ton of homework I've come to the conclusion that a suitable "workaround" is to interrupt the earth connection between the transfer switch Inlet and the generator. In other words, don't connect the ground wire in the transfer switch Inlet receptacle and you've broken the ground loop. Interested in your thoughts on this. Thanks

[@manadoria]

Thank you for the thorough explanation. For future reference: Champion model 201067 has a factory bonded neutral; (Source: Owner's Manual for that model).

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

Thank you

[@spacecoastz4026]

Nice thing about Champion is that they clearly list either floating or bonded.

[@jolkraeremeark6949]

@@spacecoastz4026 I'm not seeing that on the website under specs.

[@barryschaver9973]

i too have a firman generator with bonded neutral. have a transfer switch pane that will switch branch circuit power wires either from utility power or generator power. so if it ubder stand this right to break the ground loop i need to disconnect the ground wire coming on from the inlet box.

[@MileyonDisney]

Great explanation! Thanks!

[@tracyt4327]

Excellent, precise explanation. Thank you.

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

thanks tracy

[@MrBritrider]

So if my generator is supposedly. bonded, if I were to connect to my home to back feed via a interlock setup, I would have make a wiring change in my bonded neutral generator and then redo that change after I disconnect from my house connection in order to use my generator in a regular fashion.. Do I have this right?

[@yogibeer9319]

If I have a bonded generator that I am backfeeding to my house can I attach a ground wire from the generator frame to a ground rod in the ground for protection? Thanks for a great video!

[@tomconley2458]

I purchased a Champion 4650 dual fuel inverter generator. It has a floating neutral. At the time of purchase I wasn’t aware of such a thing. The main purpose of buying an inverter generator was to supply “clean power” to my refrigerator and tv’s during a power outage. I intend on using extension cords run from the generator directly to the appliance or tv. Will I need to purchase a bonding plug for powering my refrigerator and tv? Or is keeping the floating neutral the way to go when connecting to the appliances. Thank you Tom

[@ChaJ67]

What I have come up with is if you want to follow NEC codes, then you want to bond neutral to ground. Most of these inverter generators are floating neutral. So when something goes wrong, things may be energized that aren't supposed to and the breaker won't pop. As your body is a resister, drawing power through your body to complete the circuit will put a little extra load on the breaker, but won't pop it. The only way to pop the breaker is to bond neutral to ground, so it flows over the low resistance ground wire to complete the circuit, not through your body and that will draw enough power to trip the breaker, thus clearing the fault. As a little side note, some things I have thought about to power your fridge from an inverter generator while running electronics at the same time are: 1. If you fridge hard starts, see what you can do about putting a soft start circuit directly on the wires to the compressor motor. It is important to put it here, not in front of the whole fridge as you don't want the control circuits of the fridge to experience a brown out. 2. A fridge can easy go up to 10 hours without power if you leave the door closed before things get too warm inside. Granted, a full 10 hours is more of a one off hit where normally you want to keep it shorter than this if you can. Especially if your fridge hard starts and you are not looking to dig around inside to install a soft starter in it, one thought is to leave it unplugged for a few hours at a time as then it may run for a couple of hours or more straight to get back to target temperatures. The thing here is you only get one start of the motor in the fridge where you have to have the generator off of ECO mode and then your fridge will run for a while continuously where you can have your generator in ECO mode. Or maybe this is just the time you have your generator off of ECO mode and put it back on when the fridge is unplugged. These inverter generators still don't like huge surges, say from a hard starting motor, so this is a way to cut down on that. If say you are home for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, maybe you plug in the fridge when you wake up in the morning to the generator, unplug it when you head out the door to do stuff, plug it back in when you are going to prepare lunch, unplug it once you are done with lunch right before you head out the door, plug it in before you start preparing dinner, and then unplug it again right before bed. Especially before a long overnight, you want the fridge to have several hours to really get back to target temps. 3. Kitchens tend to have surgy things in them that are hard on a small inverter generator. The fridge. Your microwave oven. Toaster oven. Blender. Etc. One other option is to have an extra inverter, say a 24V inverter and a 100 AH 24V LFP battery. You can select different options, but the goal is to size the equipment to have say 2.5 kW of power capability or more so it doesn't trip too easily. 24V is also selected in this example because it can run a number of other things directly, say some portable fridges / electric coolers can take 24V DC directly. Also wires for 24V at this power level are a lot thinner than 12V. 12V gets kind of hard to work with at this power level. So then this powers your kitchen and you also setup the wiring for the battery to allow simultaneous charging. The charger say draws up to 500W from the inverter generator. This way you have a nice fairly continuous load on the generator and the extra battery and inverter take all of the hits to run the bursty stuff in your kitchen. Maybe if you are not drawing a lot of power, you shut off the generator for a while and coast on the battery - inverter setup. This can be especially handy when the power goes during a storm and you need to wait for it to pass before you haul your portable generator outside. Also say for piece of mind for your fridge as then the fridge may have power all night long from the battery and you leave your generator off overnight. Don't forget that in addition to some noise, which people are more sensitive to at night than some quiet thing in the day that nobody cares about, these small generators need regular maintenance. So having the generator off a lot during an extended outage and even being able to shut it off for a bit to do things like oil changes, air filter cleanings, and refueling the generator can be very handy. Granted refueling or changing to a different propane tank shouldn't take too long but even with this in an extended outage, you don't want to burn through your fuel storage too quickly with a generator that is running around the clock when it doesn't need to, especially when it is spinning fast the whole time in order to have the spinning capacity to handle surgy loads. Just saying even with an inverter generator, it is easy to fall into this latter trap without some strategy to avoid it. While essentially doing a "double conversion" which is something normally only done in computer server rooms and data centers, for the case of the small inverter generator backup up of the home, it may prove to be the far more efficient and overall practical solution over alternatives, at least for the more surgy things in your home while more stable draw things do more directly from the generator.

[@cliveramsbotty6077]

great info thanks slim tim

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

You are welcome. Stay alive slick Clive :)

[@toolsandtactics]

NICE TIM even without a fault a parallel path current will ( instead not only return on the neutral ) but return on ground and neutral... get inbetween that ground.. 💀 Great explanation! U did your homework Thanks for bringing awareness

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

Thank you a bunch tactics I did a ton of reading before I put this video together it means a lot to get this compliment from you as it’s a topic I wanted to make sure I had a handle on before I shared it

[@toolsandtactics]

@@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP you killed it 👏 🙌

[@djl9154]

Hmm, then why did a Firmn Rep suggest I try to use a bonding plug on my generator where I appear to have a sensitive furnace that won’t work without the bonding plug, as it appears the furnace electronics will not operate if there is no sensed bond to neutral. What am I missing?

[@jjay718]

If I am back feeding and have a floating neutral setup on a 30amp generator should my breaker in the main panel also be 30amp or if I am using 6ga wire with an rv generator cord can I use a 50amp breaker? I was wanting to future proof in case I ever upgrade generators. My 30amp generator does have the RV cord hookup but its only 30a. Just want to make sure the breaker will trip correctly if there is a short. I think so but want to be sure. I still have the individual circuit breakers protecting those circuits in the main box and the generator itself has 30amp breakers that im assuming would trip.

[@aagalani]

So I have a Costco Firman Tri Fuel generator . It will be strictly used as a back up power through interlock to the main panel (wired by licensed electrician). I was told I don't need to bond my generator frame to a ground rod or I don't need to make any modifications to the generator. Slightly confused (or may be a whole lot confused) as to what to do. Any comments. Nice video as always.

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

so first I am not an electrician and i don't play one on tv but from the reading I have done and research you should not need it to be grounded as you are feeding it into your panel. But i always say make sure you check with a sparky

[@pamwargopalani5769]

@@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP Thank you so much.

[@johngraziano6652]

what if i have the firman bonded tri fuel., and using an interlock system with a plug inlet hooked to my panel.. is that considered 'backfeeding? should i remove the bonded ground?

[@97footballplayer]

Hello! I have a questions. My predator Gen has a bonded neutral from the factory. I intend on back feeding through my sub panel. Because of this, I will modify the wiring to un-bond the neutral. By creating a un-bonded neutral on the generator, will that prevent the generator breakers from tripping in the event excessive current is drawn?

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

This is one of those questions I don't know the answer for sure. This is the time where it might be wise to have a quick chat with an electrician talking about theoretical situations :)

[@spacecoastz4026]

In theory yes....the breakers in the home should work as normal. Or the breaker that the generator is feeding into will break. But don't "back-feed". Use an interlock device to ensure your main breaker is off when the generator dedicated breaker is on, and use a dedicated feed input box. Back feeding is when you are feeding into a house outlet, like a dryer receptacle. When the main (utility) breaker is off, and the dedicated generator breaker is on, you are just supplying an alternative power source...which is not back feeding.

[@chriscaliente5033]

Excellent video.

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

Thank you

[@bikerboy8666]

Tim nice videos, thanks for the generator ones especially. So, do you use a transfer switch, an interlock manual switch, or modified the Firman to a floating neutral setup?

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

I use a totally not 100% legal BACKFEEDING system with a 50 amp breaker in my panel I have a video if you want to check it out kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmapipqCjJJnqNE

[@bikerboy8666]

@@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP Thanks Tim, I watched the video. Good explanation of what you have setup in your home. I've read the comments below by viewers. I saw on another video you commented that you are planning to change the 50 amp modified power cable you made to a male - female plug setup, which I think is recommend as others have said. From your video I think you are setup using the Firman as sold with a ground neutral, and your home main power panel is also ground neutral. Do you have some concerns about 2 ground neutrals in your setup?

[@johnnyhotrod]

Tim,what about a generator with no transfer switch?My electrical box outside where the gen cable plugs into goes straight to the panel to an interlock switch. I’m assuming the generator should be unbonded as the house panel should be the one bond? This gets a little confusing

[@BobLobLawsLawBlog]

Correct. Should be a floating neutral gen. Test it and disconnect the bond if needed.

[@364pgr]

I back feed my main panel with a bonded neutral generator. I do not connect the neutral in the panel, only the 2 hot legs and the ground wire. Am I doing the right thing?

[@BobLobLawsLawBlog]

Check your manual, undo the bond on the gen would be correct.

[@ayubalam1717]

Good concept. Non English speaking are also listening to you. Please explain more clearly on the diagram or drawing the diagram.

[@christopherjohnpaul5591]

A bonded neutral means that the neutral and ground are bonded together with a wire. It’s done inside the cover of the generator unit. The neutral is not bonded to the frame with a wire.

[@bhagyeshvedpathak]

Can you shed some light on how to convert Firman T07571 to floating neutral?

[@StrongManMattt]

they sell bonding plugs as a simple solution but do your research and make sure if you make or buy one that its UL rated.

[@TOOLMANTIMSWORKSHOP]

I came across this thread in a forum that might help. Firman doesn’t have any documentation on this subject I can find. Champion has great videos for doing the opposite procedure. www.powerequipmentforum.com/threads/how-to-disconnect-neutral-from-the-frame-of-firman-t07571-tri-fuel-purchased-at-costco.24417/

[@stevenblack122]

Thanks

[@StrongManMattt]

I read bonded generators have power spikes that can be potentially damaging to sensitive electrical equipment anyone experience that running a bonded generator with extension cords? I tend to err on the side of safety so I bonded my Honda cause I primarily use extension cords but this whole floating neutral vs Bonded seems like a bit of a catch 22 for my setup... Floating neutrals can be dangerous to people and bonded neutrals can be damaging to your sensitive equipment...

[@akaCamo]

Why would small portable generators even be made as Floating Neutral? I have a Firman 3200 Watt starting (2900 Watt running) generator. Page 11 of my manual says it is Floating Neutral. Since I never plan on hooking it up to my electrical panel I bought online a “neutral ground bonding plug” which goes into one of the AC outlets to convert the generator from “floating neutral” to bonded. Since this is a small portable inverter style generator which is basically too small and never meant to become a whole house generator why would Firman (or any other maker of small portable generators) have built this small generator with a Floating Neutral ?

[@BobLobLawsLawBlog]

Did you ever test it yourself with a multimeter?

[@akaCamo]

I haven't tested it with a multimeter but should do that next time I dig it out from the garage @@BobLobLawsLawBlog

[@hammertime4257]

You literally contradicted yourself