I was shocked to discover that, by default, my Predator 9000 generator bonds the Neutral and Ground together... Well, not ACTUALLY shocked, but I could have been! Since Neutral and Ground are bonded in the main panel in the house, you're not supposed to bond them together anywhere else. Otherwise, you run the risk of current running over your ground wires, which is a nokie-dokie. I happened to bump into a comment in a youtube about it, and investigated my generator. Sure 'nuff, in the generator, you can clearly see all of the white (neutral) wires piled onto the same frame bolt as the ground (yellow & green) wire (circled in pink).
The solution is simple. Immediately adjacent is a set of binding posts, and the nearest (circled in green) was unused. The binding posts are isolated, and not grounded to the frame of the generator. You simply move the neutral wires over to the binding post, isolating them from ground. Note, the Predator didn't have a nut on this binding post. It needs a #10/32, for the record. I had one kicking around, fortunately. Voila. Done.
I don't intend to ever run this as a standalone generator, but if I did, I could pick up a Neutral/Ground bonding plug and slap it into one of the unused outlets on the front of the generator. Then it would be safe to use for standalone applications.
I've also got a Predator 4550 (that I got for $50, so why not?!?) and a Predator 2000. I'm going to check on those. I'll post another blog with results.
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