Ya know, you are correct. Making the earth ground and the neutral
independent isn't really possible, unless you want a floating neutral. I
like the 220 solution, no GFI no problem.

CB&$tokers
  -----Original Message-----
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bill Bowser
  Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 1:34 PM
  To: Miata Power List
  Subject: Re: NPC: Having problems back feeding my house with a generator


  I believe you will find that the problem lies in your household circuit
breaker panel. If the neutral conductor is connected to the ground bus,
which is required by the National Electric Code I believe, it will cause the
GFCI breaker in the generator to trip. In order for a GFCI to detect a
ground fault the neutral conductor on the load side of the breaker must be
independent of the ground conductor. I don't know a good (safe) way to get
around this. I'll have to think about it.

  Bill Bowser
  Cincinnati

  Robert McElwee wrote:
    Several times over the past few years I have killed my main breaker (as
well as all the other breakers), hooked up two extension cords I made that
have double male ends on them, and powered up both sides of my breaker box
with a 5K generator. This year hurricane season is here so I pulled out my
"new" generator (a used 6K generator my father traded me for a 10K generator
I bought for him) and fired it up. It is running fine so I killed my main
breaker and all the other breakers and tried to back feed into the house
through the two electrical outlets I have always used. Here is what I see:

    1) As soon as I plug the generator into the house outlet the GFCI on the
generator trips.
    2) Plugging two refrigerators into one of my extension cords (without
the double male patch) works fine.
    3) Plugging the double male patch into my extension cord and back
feeding a power strip works fine (power from the generator coming into one
of the strip outlets - the male cord on the outlet just laying on the
ground).

    Any ideas? It looks like to me that both my generator and extension
cords with double male ends are working fine. I've tried to plug into a
house outlet (all breakers still off) in several different rooms and it
trips the GFCI every time. I am confused since this is something I have done
many times before with another generator.


    --
    Robert McElwee and Blue Flash
    "The 50 MPG Miata"
    www.lightweightmiata.com/mpg

    Lightweight Miata Forum:
    www.lightweightmiata.com/forum

    The Miata Trailer Project:
    www.lightweightmiata.com/trailer


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