Inverter Generators

[Dam Worker]

So we went on our annual boondocking Memorial Weekend camping trip and I got to try out our new Yamaha 2000 watt inverter generator. Boy was I surprised out in the middle of the mountains with no cell phone service to find out it didn't work. Every thing looked fine and I had tested it before we left with a drill motor. Everything worked great at home. I had a good extension cord with lighted ends that were lit up but no power. Even tested the cord with a meter and had power right to the 50 amp plug in. Finally I decided to check my Progressive Industries hard wired unit and it showed an E-2 error which is an open ground (no ground wire) code. I found that if I flipped the switch on the remote control on the hard wired Progressive Industries unit I had power. The power was routed around the unit and everything worked fine. My generator does have an external ground on the front of it but I didn't bring the manual for it. I did drive to the top of a nearby mountain and talked to a technician at Progressive about the issue. When I got back to camp one of ours friends showed me an article in the Trailer Life magazine about the exact same issues.

What is everyone on here that has the inverter generators doing? We did swap out a Honda 2000 and had exact same results. I ended up just running it and bypassing the Progressive unit as I figured it would be clean power. I am the only one with electrical protection. I only used it for watching TV with the Satellite as we have the 5500 watt built in unit for the big jobs but it will suck down the propane even at lighter loads.

Tom Marty

[rescue7]

If I remember right, you take a male plug and jumper neutral to ground and that solves your problem. The trailer does not have neutral and ground tied together like a house.

[DQDick]

I've just used my hondas hooked directly for years, but I have an external EMS and don't use it with the Hondas.

[AZ Traveler]

Tom,

One of the benefits of using an external EMS vice the internal ones which tend not to support a generator.

[suny07]

Hi,

we had once a similar issue.
I also googled the grounding problem.
It turned out that we had a flipped GFCI Outlet and did operate it wrongly

Mike

[Dam Worker]

On my hard wired unit I just slide a little button on my remote and it bypasses the unit just like not hooking a portable one to the incoming power source.

Tom Marty

[ACFD139]

Does the progressive EMS work or not with an inverter generators?
The first time I tried I had no release of power until I took my portable EMS out of the line. I got power to the unit. Not to sure what the talk about grounding issue..TY

[Carl n Susan]

Shore power and power from BIG generators (Onan and such) provide a real ground. The little generators do not. You will have to bypass the Progressive as it really doesn't like a missing ground. But the missing ground on your Honda/Yamaha/etc is not a problem.

You can build an N/G plug to fool the progressive. Supposedly that will work. I have a portable Progressive which I do not use when running my Honda. That way I don't have a problem with it. But the weird thing is my Splendide does NOT like my Honda even with a N/G plug.

A Search will uncover a number of previous member experiences with a Progressive (and maybe SurgeGuard) and Honda sized gennies. Here are a couple of examples

http://www.montanaowners.com/forums/...p/t-49765.html

http://www.montanaowners.com/forums/...p/t-56406.html

[ACFD139]

Stupid question.. What is a N/G?

[Dam Worker]

Carl thanks for your input especially the links that you added. That's what makes this forum so great.

Tom Marty

[Carl n Susan]

Originally Posted by ACFD139

Stupid question.. What is a N/G?

Sorry! It is a bonded Nuetral to Ground. You use a short wire to jump the contacts in the male plug and plug it into one of the 120V ports on your gennie.

[Rookey]

I was researching information on Progressive site yesterday. Ended-up buying the EMS-HW50C. They had an interesting video that explains everything one needs to know about smaller inverter generators and the error on the EMS. Progressive also offers a plug to plug into the inverter generator to fix this error or just bypass the EMS. Here's a link to the video on YouTube (hopefully I did this correctly):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=Wr3ZKDN-8Go

[L0veless]

I had the exact same thing happen in January testing out my new generators plugged in parallel with the hard wired EMS throwing same code.
progressive told me there was no fix and they had stopped selling that plug.
I went to home depot went high end and purchased a $4.00 orange male plug. jumped neutral to ground. fired up both generator and everything worked great. no issues. if you run generators in parallel you only need one plug, not one for each generator.