Problem Grounding a Generator

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:39:49 -0500, Tony Sivori
<TonySivori@yahoo.com>wrote:

Meat Plow wrote:

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:17:57 -0500, Tony Sivori
TonySivori@yahoo.com>wrote:

PeterD wrote:

TonySivori@yahoo.com> wrote:
So it seems to be a case of it has to work, but it doesn't work. Any
suggestions are welcome.

You may have high resistance soil, and need more than one ground rod.
Code typically calls for three, wired together.

I think you are probably right.

A quick Google shows that multiple ground rods are often necessary.
Although I found the NEC calls for multiple rods only when a single rod
installation exceeds it says 25 ohms. And it seems that every other
possible reason has been eliminated.

And good luck trying to clean up the generator output if you intend on
using a UPS in the circuit. My generator is 2500/3250 surge like yours.

Mine is a KingCraft from Aldi. Would you happen to have the same one?
No it was sold as a Coleman Powermate - now defunct.

And it is brushless. But there was nothing I could do to filter the
output well enough where my two 1000va APC UPS units would come back off
battery. Both are used in my A/V gear after a about with nuisance
outages of short duration but short enough to need to reset a lot of
things. Also I had two 9 foot copper ground rods, one on either side of
the house connected inside to my ham radio stuff. When hooked to an APC
multi outlet filter with a wiring fault indicator, the indicator did not
light while on generator power. So I guess in my case the two rods were
enough. And they sure reduced my noise level on the HF bands, the main
reason for their installation.

I'd guess that I'm grounded with the one 8 foot rod. I just didn't realize
how limited the cheap three prong outlet testers are. Live and learn.
Depends on the soil too. Unless you live on a sand dune one 8 footer
is usually enough.
 
Tony Sivori wrote:

Baron wrote:

Tony Sivori wrote:
I may do that. One of the reasons I was dead set on proper grounding
is that I knew that the surge protectors can't work without a
ground. If the surge protectors are useless and unneeded, I could
leave the ground connected as is, and just use the inline GFI.

No relation to "wtom" ?

wtom? Is that a nym?
A troll that jumped on anybody that mentioned surge protectors.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.
 
In article <39obar.91c.17.9@news.alt.net>, Meat Plow
<meat@petitmorte.net> writes

And good luck trying to clean up the generator output if you intend on
using a UPS in the circuit. My generator is 2500/3250 surge like
yours. And it is brushless. But there was nothing I could do to filter
the output well enough where my two 1000va APC UPS units would come
back off battery.
There was a recent discussion in demon.tech.pc by someone with a very
similar problem. (If you're aware of w_tom, you'll not be surprised he
featured in that thread.) We managed to establish that some APC UPSes
are specified by APC as generator-compatible and also have a button on
the back which can be used to reduce the UPS's sensitivity to poor mains
voltage.

I told the OP in that thread that his problems may be due to the lack of
a ground reference, but not being au fait with the subject had to bow
out there. Bear in mind this was a 240V (UK) installation, so I wasn't
comfortable with discussing tying one side of the output to ground.

--
Mike Tomlinson
 

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