Calling all Electrictians - Broken Generator, HELP!!!

It's a Honda. It's probably 5+ years old. It was a 40W bulb in the lamp, so it looked alright, but Dad seemed to think the generator was fried too... Well this sucks. If I'm able to get another generator tomorrow will that pigtail work the way I have it wired? With the green capped?
 
It will, but that ground coming from the generator is to ground your equipment to trip the generator breaker if necessary. But you don't want the nuetral of the generator touching that ground after the internal wiring. (It's the same way in your house panel, they are bonded at the panel, but after that you don't want to touch those together. They're doing 2 different tasks.) so ideally you want to run a grounding wire from your panel to the generator ground.

But if your house is old enough with that three prong dryer plug, they may already have the nuetral/ground tied together there.

Next time update the dryer plug to four wire circuit and use a 4 prong plug. Or actually get a transfer switch.
 
It will, but that ground coming from the generator is to ground your equipment to trip the generator breaker if necessary. But you don't want the nuetral of the generator touching that ground after the internal wiring. (It's the same way in your house panel, they are bonded at the panel, but after that you don't want to touch those together. They're doing 2 different tasks.) so ideally you want to run a grounding wire from your panel to the generator ground.

But if your house is old enough with that three prong dryer plug, they may already have the nuetral/ground tied together there.

Next time update the dryer plug to four wire circuit and use a 4 prong plug. Or actually get a transfer switch.

OK, thanks. Looks like I'll be shopping for a new generator tomorrow in addition to a new 4 prong outlet and an adapter for my dryer. Hopefully, the storm won't be as bad for everyone as they are making it out to be.
 
good luck, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.


and fyi, just getting a 4 prong outlet for the dryer isnt the whole fix, you need to replace the cable from the dryer to panel w/a 4 conductor cable. so that ground and nuetral are seperated all the way to panel.
 
IIRC, the old 3 prong dryer plugs had two hots and a ground, no neutral. You should deffinetly upgrade it if you want to use it for your generator hook-up point. I had considered that method when I got my generator but it was easier to just put a 30 amp breaker in my garage sub-panel. Now that I've switched to a gas dryer, I'm thinking of moving that line to a disconect next to my AC compressor and plugging in there.
 
I thought back feeding into your power supply with a generator was a big electrical no-no. Is there any reason you couldn't just run extension cords from your generator? Seems like it'd be the wiser option.

Besides assuming you want to backfeed to power your whole house, you'd still be limited by the wiring of the dryer which might get overloaded once other house hold items turn on.
 
People back feed all the time and just so you know in a lot of places your utility power may only be 120/208 so test each leg if you get 120 on each leg of the power reading one hot and a ground or neutral your good things will pull a hair more amperage at 208 but still fine rock and roll dude be safe hope your tank makes it
 
I thought back feeding into your power supply with a generator was a big electrical no-no. Is there any reason you couldn't just run extension cords from your generator? Seems like it'd be the wiser option.

Besides assuming you want to backfeed to power your whole house, you'd still be limited by the wiring of the dryer which might get overloaded once other house hold items turn on.

It is a whole lot easier for people to backfeed there, because you can change what your feeding by turning breakers on/off on the fly.

If your generator has a 30 amp circuit, you won't exceed the current rating of your dryer circuit, most are 40 amps. If you have a generator that supplies more than that, that is when it can be very dangerous. Outside of the obvious danger of back feeding your utility if you do not turn your main off and verify that the main is open.

It's not legal, and its not ideal, but it does happen.
 
Bs. 120/208 is a 3 phase wye winding configuration, not used for residential construction. And equipment won't last, outside of a 240v stove, long on that voltage.

People back feed all the time and just so you know in a lot of places your utility power may only be 120/208 so test each leg if you get 120 on each leg of the power reading one hot and a ground or neutral your good things will pull a hair more amperage at 208 but still fine rock and roll dude be safe hope your tank makes it
 
Got a new 9000Kw generator. Hopefully, this thing will be able to keep the fridge and a few tanks going. Will be running bare bones (return pump and heater) on the tanks.

Thanks for all the replies! And good luck to everyone weathering the storm!
 
Nice work. I'm guessing that has a 40 or 50 amp feed, purely guess, make sure if you backfeed you don't exceed the current rating of your dryer circuit.

Are you gonna have the other serviced?
 
Hey Mitchell, One of my dad's buddies who is also an electrician said the same thing you said about the generator being screwed up. He said if it measures 208 like it was then it was only running 3 phase (normally it should be 240-245 4 phase). He said it was kaput. I sent it back home with dad, he'll probably play with it and see if he can get it working. I doubt he gets it refurbished, he has a new 13Kw generator (the broken one was his old one that had been sitting in his barn). Also the dryer feed is two 30A breakers tied together. The 240V outlet on the generator says it's rated at 30A.

Hey Jimmy, Dad didn't bring down the multimeter tonight since we were buying a new one, but we did do the plug in the light test and it is definitely much brighter :) Also, it had a meter on the side of it that was reading ~240V, so I think this one is good to go.

I'm still hoping I don't have to use it at all since it won't be cheap to keep this thing running 24-7!
 
Bs my a$$ more power companies are switching to 120 208 due to the fact of guarantees I deal with them everyday the power commissions have cracked down on building new power plants and the drop in economy has slowed upgrading of existing lines and transformers therefore more are switching to 120 208 and most all motors will run 120 208 that's why most a/c units have nameplates listing amperage at 208/230 so before you open your mouth and sound retarded know what your talking about. Also the old 120/240 is pretty well out dated most anymore is either 120/208 or 120/230 both can and are 1 phase and three phase and most places have gone totally away from the delta wye configure because you always ended up with a high leg
 
And dude you just showed how much you know your dryer has a breaker on it it doesn't matter what power you have trying to feed it it will only handle what the breaker you are hooking to can handle
 
Haha, cool. No worries then. Hopefully you won't need it. I'm amazed we haven't needed it in Richmond. We normally always lose power on our grid.
 
Outside of the obvious danger of back feeding your utility if you do not turn your main off and verify that the main is open.

It's not legal, and its not ideal, but it does happen.

Hey, two more questions about the above comments:

* Can I verify the main breaker is truly open now by turning it off and looking around the house to make sure everything is off and thereby deduce if power can't get through it from the line side it won't go back through it from the generator if it's open?

* Do you mean it's not legal for an electrician to wire it this way (eg it should be run through a transfer switch if I was paying someone professionally to do this and be within code)? Or do you mean it's not legal for me to backfeed into my own breaker box through the dryer outlet to supply my house?
 
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