Grounding a portable inverter generator? What?

I'm pretty sure I've meggered the stuff at 1000 volts. There's usually a hefty safety factor in a rating like that; it isn't as if the insulation says "oh, 601 volts? I'm a conductor now!"

Still, 1000 volts is a small fraction of what got applied to that house ....

 

Oh, indeed. I understand and agree completely. If it won't take 1,000V then it's probably not good enough for a 600V rating. There is always a safety factor. That doesn't mean it's OK to use it on a 1kV circuit. Load limits, pressure limits, use by dates, etc. all have a margin of error built in. In case of error. But no good engineer will deliberately assume that anything beyond the listed limit is safe. How much is too much?

On a related subject, I know someone who foolishly tried to measure 4,160 volts with a 1,000 volt Fluke meter. He and the guy watching him both got a helicopter ride to Tampa General Hospital and endured months of skin grafts, burn treatment, and therapy. And then there was the electrical fire and the can factory full of smoke.

 

I have only recently fully grokked that the super-dependable Fluke 87 I've had for 30-ish years, despite being rated for 1,000 volts, is just a hair too old to have an IEC measurement category rating. If I had bought it just a couple years later ...



The measurement categories (I know I'm not explaining them to you, Jerry, but some folks might be interested) were thought up because of a problem that's hard to avoid: even if the voltage you expect to be there is well within the rating of the meter, what happens if there is a voltage transient just as you happen to be taking your measurement?



It's kind of frustrating, as my old meter works great, but I should probably consider it my spare or low-power electronic meter, and pick up a newer one before poking inside panels.

 

Or, in the case of the guy I mentioned, it wasn't a transient. He just forgot that it was 4160 rather than 480 like almost all of our other motors, ignored the warning stickers, and jimmied the safety interlocks. All the other electricians were stunned that he would have made such a dumb mistake, but even the best can have a brain fart. That was a bad one.

But yeah, I've seen a couple transients. And fixed lots of damage they caused. I would not want to be checking electric voltages during a lightning storm.

 

That sounds more like three escalating brain farts.

But I can still recall a time, many years ago, when I was driving north on Woodward near Long Lake Rd (pretty wide multilane thoroughfares), and as I came toward the intersection my brain sort of curiously noticed how much crossing traffic there was, and sort of serenely started looking for the gaps and plotting how to weave through them ... for just a brief moment before going "oh, it's because they have the green, duh" and I stopped. Caught it soon enough I didn't have to make a sudden stop or anything that anyone else would have noticed, but I've never forgotten that brief moment.

 

You might look at a 1.5 kW 12 VDC for your Prius. Very quiet, no carbon monoxide risk, and 11 gallon tank. You can sustain 1 kW load and with a sine-wave inverter, long extension cords. Best of all, your normal driving ensures it will work when needed.

Bob Wilson

 

+1.
I live in hurricane country.

You want a good deal on a goof fixer-upper genset?
Cruise some of the neighborhoods after a storm and look for 2-3 year old units with less than 50 hours that are being thrown away by disgruntled home-owners who couldn't be bothered to read the manual and had to buy another new genset the day AFTER their second storm.
If you don't know who to work on carburetors, just replace them (about $20) and about 8 out of 10 times the genset will fire right up!

Or?
Like Bob says....you can learn to live on 1.5kw and use a generator that you KNOW will start when you need it the most.
It will also be super quiet, and run MUCH longer on a gallon of gas!

 

I like that, I'll keep an eye out. This isn't a rush project. I can tolerate the limits of the old generator a little longer and spring when I see the right deal.

The Prius-as-generator idea is wonderful; I'm supportive in general. But as our family gets back to normal operations that means the Prius will be away from home for several 4-day trips per month.

The rest of the family at home would appreciate a backup power system that stays on the property all the time, so it's a simple portable genny for us.

Just to clarify- up thread I mentioned that my generator doesn't have a ground driven next to it.

We had an inlet for a portable generator installed by a professional electrician and this of course included a ground bonded at the panel service entrance. This was part of a larger project, I had them put in a new load center and they updated the house grounding at that time.

The ground chain I installed is mostly about making me feel better about static discharge during refueling operations.

 

I purchased an older Generac 5500XL for $100. The previous owner said that it didn't work but didn't specify what didn't work.

I got it home and removed and cleaned the carburetor. I reinstalled the carb and the engine started on the first pull. I then discovered that there was no voltage out. I tried to get some schematics and pictorials from Generac but if it isn't a model that Generac is currently selling they aren't interested in supporting it. They don't even archive older user or service manuals.

During my search for generator information I found a website, smokstak.com, that is dedicated to stationary engines but if you do a search on their website for generators they have lots of information and several subject matter experts. They provided me with a pdf of the manual and troubleshooting procedures for my Generac model. Using their troubleshooting guide, I determined which of the two circuit boards was defective and unfortunately for me it was potted. Generac didn't sell the board anymore but there were aftermarket boards available for about $100.

The resident expert provided me with a schematic of the board and explained that if I heated the board with a hairdryer the potting resin would come off in one big piece. It tried to remove the potting resin and it did come off in one piece. I replaced a diode and resistor and when I started the generator I had voltage. This model has a feature that idles the engine down when there is no load and it worked too. Life was good.

Smokstak supports some other generator manufacturers as well so if you are looking for some support for a generator, you may want to look at their website.

 

Ditto.

I know you're looking for more power than the small Honda generators put out (2100 Watts peak) but they are dead quiet, efficient as heck, and reliable.

Save your ears (and any neighbors' ears) and look for a "closed frame" style. LOTS quieter.

 

Good advice on the resin!
GREAT tip on smokstak.

 

Natural gas or propane generators are the way to go for reliable power after sitting idle for years. NG, if you have it, will provide non stop power. Sometimes Costco has a 7500 running watt dual fuel gen for well under $750.

Gasoline generators gum up and you never have enough fuel. Plus the stations will be down when you need them the most. I did have a small gasoline generator idle for twenty years and it started when I tested it. How? It never had petrol in it. I doubt it will start again even though I ran it dry.

 

Good point about the gasoline. I was in Cape Coral Florida after Irma and we were without power for 8 days. The 5000 watt portable generator that I had hooked up produced just enough power to run the air conditioning and the refrigerator in the house. It used almost a gallon per hour of fuel with that load. We would start it and let it run for a few hours to cool and dry out the house and then shut it off.

We had one 5 gallon can and after the storm I don't think that there were any more gas cans to be had anywhere in the state of Florida. Gas stations near us were also shut down due to lack of power to run their pumps. Hindsight being 20/20, we should have bought a siphon hose and drawn fuel from the van.

The nearest open gas station was about 4 miles away. All the traffic lights were inoperative making every intersection a 4 way stop. You can imagine what normally busy 4 lane streets were like when the full range of passive to aggressive drivers approached every intersection like it was a 4 way stop. We made a number of trips for gasoline and hindsight being 20/20, we should have had a siphon hose on hand and gotten fuel from the van. After things were back to normal we bought a couple additional 5 gallon cans and stored them in the attic.

When I store the generator I add Stabil to the gasoline. I start it about once a year and after running it, I drain that remaining fuel out and pour it into one of our vehicles. I add fresh fuel with Stabil to the generator which should be good for the next year. So far so good.

 

I also have a couple spare 5 gallon cans, from a time when some possible outages were anticipated.

Any time they've been used and then emptied, they get stored outside for a while, caps off and upside down (gasoline vapor being heavier than air), then vigorously flushed out with a wallpaper steamer, before they'll get stored anywhere indoors.