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generator backfeeding question

Hi, I had an old overhead service to my garage (50amp, 220v). It came down and has been disconnected. I am going to put in an underground service. In the mean time I want to continue to use the garage. I have an 8HP generac 220 volt 30amp generator. It has 2 - 110 volt and 1 -

220 volt outlets. I wired from the old service panel into the 220 outlet. one hot to each side and the neutral to the ground post. Just like the old service was wired. For some reason I can't get 110v on at the garage receptacles. Some are low (60v) and some are high (160v) At the generator I get 220 across the hots and 110 between the hot and the neutral. Anyone know why this won't evenly split when hooked up to a service panel?
Reply to
calhoun
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It is because you have no neutral connection.

Reply to
Kilowatt

You did ground the generator? An ISOLATED system needs to be grounded. If not your cruising for a bruising. Walking on water I leave to the professionals

Reply to
SQLit

The 220V outlet ground post?

Sounds like a bad connection between where you are connecting your generator neutral and the panel neutral bus. If you are using the outlet ground as the neutral, its between there and the panel.

However, any way you look at it, what you have going there isn't safe and quite far from the code. On the other hand, you have probably exposed a bad ground connection that may otherwise have gone undetected.

Reply to
Paul Hovnanian P.E.

I should have said the sub panel is probably 220 only and no neutral is present.

Reply to
Kilowatt

Thanks for the response,

I think I am confusing everyone with my terminology.

The 220 outlet on the generator has 3 prongs. I am calling the center prong a neutral. The generator also has a lug on the frame, I am calling this the ground.

The sub panel box (in the garage, wired by a licensed professional about 10 years ago and working fine with grid power) has a neutral and ground but they are both tied together.

I have hooked up the generator neutral to the neutral on the panel box, the same way grid power was hooked up.

Your responses got me thinking about the grounding. This sub panel used to be grounded though the house ground rod. Now it has no ground. I will separate the ground/neutral in the sub box. It is too frozen to drive a stake, for a separate ground, so I am going to run a separate wire from the gensets ground lug to the, now seperate ground on the subpanel. See if this works.

Coffee first and wait for some sun. Might get to 40F today, first time > >

Reply to
calhoun

The center prong may just be a ground that is not connected to nuetral. If you have a ohm meter check the resistance between the nuetral on the 110 volt outlet and the center 220v prong. You hay have to open it up to get at the nuetral bus, or pull it off the 110 volt outlets. The wires going to those may not be large enough though.

Reply to
uray

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