Looking for an electrician that would not mind answering a couple questions. PM me or respond. Thanks.
I was going to do this over e-mail/PM but I guess I can post. First off, let me say that I know basic wiring. I’ve been a generator geek you might say over of the years with camping in our TT and various power outages at home powering stuff in the past. The reason I throw out this disclaimer is because I understand this is a little unorthodox. The generator transfer switch I purchased is way over sized (in amps) for my generator. I have my reasoning below. I am currently installing this generator transfer switch in my house. http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/Reliance-Controls-31406CRK/p1124.html I have everything wired expect for the actual connection to the circuit breaker. Hopefully should be finishing that up this weekend. The question I have is the connection of my generator to the outside plug in box. This kit comes with a 10' connection cord to connect the generator to the outside transfer switch box. One end of the cord has a female 4 prong connector that connects to the box and the other end currently has a 4 prong male 30 amp connector that looks like this. It also comes with a different end that you can change to the cord to accommodate a 20 amp male 4 prong plug that looks like this. I have a Honda 2000i Generator that only has two 20 amp conventional outlets. http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/...tion=P2GG&modelname=EU2000i&modelid=EU2000IKN With two standard 20 amp 3 prong outlets Before you ask.... why I am trying to set it up like this? let me explain. I've added up the wattages of things I want to run simultaneously and they do not exceed the 2000 watts of the generator. I plan on manually turning off and on the circuits I want to run in the event of a power outage. Run my furnace for an hour then run the fridge for an hour type stuff. I don't need that many watts but I wanted more circuits. Other than the fact I already have this generator I would like to use this because of it's gas efficiency. I can run 10 hours on a single gallon of gas. If I get a standard 240v generator that has to spin at 3600rpm you know the fuel economy gets cut in half or more. In the event of an extended power outage I can go a lot longer with this generator by controlling the circuits I wish to power. I really wanted a 6 circuit switch because there is the potential of wanting to run 6 circuits at various times, but this is the smallest 6 circuit one I found. If you guys tell me I'm nuts and there is no way to do it then I'm probably going to buy this guy. She burns about a 0.5 a gallon an hour compared to 0.1 gallon an hour on my Honda. Yeah, it has double the watts but I'd rather not be running to the gas station every day not to mention the cost and the noise difference. http://www.brandnewengines.com/30466.aspx So, if it's possible, I want to make a custom cord to connect my standard 20amp plug in to the 4 prong 30 amp box. My feeling is that just because the box is capable of handling 30 amps doesn't mean you need to feed it that. I'm thinking that the 4 prong connector equals two hots, one neutral and one ground. At least that is my guess. So I'm thinking that you need to jump the two hots and then connect the neutral and the ground but this is out of my knowledge. Help please but only from those that actually know. If you need more info on anything let me know. Thanks.
Well, there is no reason you can't make a custom cord. And I would. But you of course will only be using 3 of the 4 wires in the 20 amp 220 plug. You could jumper inside the plug to make sure both poles are fed and you wouldn't be using only half your panel. And would depend on how the transfer switch is wired. If your planning on making a custom cord that will go to both 120V 20Amp generator outlets to the two different 120V feeds or to feed the dual pole, I wouldn't. I would use the appropiate guage wire for a 120V 20Amp feed. And would change out the gen feed breaker on the transfer switch to appropiate single pole amperage. Or if you feed both, dual. I wouldn't keep 30amp 220 breaker. They sell some cool parallel kits for the honda generators. I did a simular things. I have an oversized transfer switch from Gen tran. Reason is, also I knew I wouldn't be running everything but wanted the option for lighting all thru the house, water heater, etc. I can turn on and off what I want and make sure I am not exceeding my 10K. If I had it to do over, i wouldn't have got the gen-tran switch. I just like square D. They use Siemens gang breakers or Quad poles, and I had to order these. Wasn't cheap. Most electrical houses just don't carry this stuff. A good electrician can take a square D box and make you a transfer switch. Might not have the cool metal gang adaptor to make sure you don't have both gen and utility at the same time, but someone could make something for you.
I'm an Electrician also GFY! Yes you can definatly make a 20 amp adapter plug as long as you are under the rated panel amps. The cords that come with these are 10 guage usually which is plenty big enough for what you are doing. The four prongs are 2-hots,1- ground(the prong with the tit on it) and 1-neutral like you said. You only double up the neutrals and grounds not the hots. You need 2 individual hots to supply the double pole breaker you have in the switch panel creating 240volts. The switch will divide the the power into 2-120 volt circuits. Your generator will be putting out approx. 1000 watts per outlet. Make sure you balance the load of the dist. box(left and right side of double pole breaker).
For an inverted generator does balancing matter? I know I balance a std power head like my briggs or try. Now, I am sorta fimiluar with the Honda. Doesn't each outlet have a 20amp breaker and is capable of 2000 watts individually? I know mine did. But of course, you can't run both at 20 amps.
The balancing I was meaning was both sides of the transfer switch. You do not want to pull to many amps off of one side or the other. The inverter has a steady clean output voltage that does not need balancing.
This is correct!! They are jumping the second recpt. port off the first. The older contractor grade gens used to divide into 2 individual circuits. I will send a connection drawing to you later tonight for the transfer switch.
Thanks for the info. This is what I am fimiluar with. I really tried my best to balance my loads on my panel. Microwave over really tosses it in a tailspin as its 1500 watts single pole. I know in my tests, when my blower came on the same as the compressors on freezers along with microwave ovens, it bogged down. I never replaced a power head on a generator. How much or little does it take to ruin one by using one pole too much? Any idea?
