I just bought a Predator 5000 and am having start problems. Running strictly propane, starts right up when cold, with electric start, but if you shut it down after running for a while it will not start using the electric start, but will if you pull start, usually on the 1st or 2nd pull. I ran it for 1 hour yesterday and 5 hours today and it did the same thing both times. I did notice the electric start button would turn red if I held it for more than about 5" but it still wouldn't start. Any idea why it is doing this?
This is a 120V "floating neutral" generator. You are seeing 60V on each leg because neutral is floating while you are taking a reading; it is not bonded to ground like an an electrical outlet wired to NEC standards. This is why you may hear people talk about bonding plugs and I will explain. There are a number of TH-cam videos about ground - neutral bonding and NEC (National Electrical Code) standards. Basically all of these newer inverter generators coming out of China are "floating neutral" where you need one ground-neutral bond in your electrical system so a short to ground can return to source and pop the breaker, thus clearing the fault. The NEC code does not say zero and does not say two or more, but instead explicitly prohibits anything other than 1 ground-neutral bond. "Floating neutral" means the generator has zero ground-neutral bonds in it. A bonding plug creates a ground-neutral bond, generally through a NEMA 5-15 plug. Not quite ideal for a generator designed to put out 30A as you are bonding through a 15A rated plug, but better than nothing. Probably want to create a bond in the generator with the appropriate gauge wire to really do this justice. It would be good if someone put out a video where they show exactly how to bond in the generator or maybe put a link here. Another way to view this "floating neutral" is both your devices will see a lot of noise because neutral is floating and your volt-meter will see ~60V on both the hot and neutral pins as neutral is no longer neutral, but floating. Now say you plug in a toaster oven and a live wire got damaged and is now resting against the metal case of the toaster oven. As the metal case of the toaster oven is attached to the ground wire and a live wire is in contact with it, that metal case is energized and everything on the ground wire including the metal frame of the generator is now energized. It is just waiting for you to touch it to see how your body responds to touching a live wire / energized surface. In this case maybe the toast is made outside of the toaster oven instead of inside. So now this "floating neutral" example is given and this is clearly not what you want, everything on the ground wire energized, now we bond neutral to ground as per NEC standards. When that live wire in the toaster oven makes contact with the metal case, the short circuit power flows down the low resistance ground wire, through the ground-neutral bond, back to the source, and pops the breaker. This is just what you want to have happen whenever there is a short / a live wire touching something it is not supposed to. As for why you would want a "floating neutral" generator, this usually comes down to say you have a higher powered 240V generator to power your whole home through a transfer switch. If the ground-neutral bond is in there / your service panel, it is against code to have two ground-neutral bonds. In this case and you know what you are doing, you want neutral to be floating on the generator because say the short circuit power flows through your breaker panel and pops the breaker there. You don't want to create a ground loop / share shorting loads, pop a GFCI on a generator through a ground loop whenever you turn anything on, etc. GFCI is designed to pop on small currents through ground as your body acts as a resister and so won't pull short circuit current needed to pop a regular breaker, but you will die long before a regular breaker will pop. GFCI is meant to pop before you are killed by the power flowing through you. GFCI also gets in the way of a lot of stuff, say that surge protector you use with your computer as say you are plugged into the grid and there is a lightening strike causing the surge protector to dump power to Earth ground through the ground wire, so you only want it where you have to have it, say near water. So there, a little bonus content to help round out the picture as a lot of people are just flat wrong with what they say about GFCI.
Most excellent response! Thank you for sharing this information as it was very clear on how it all works. We have since been working on an internal bonding wire to make it a permanent solution.
@@GearStreet Cool. I will be on a lookout for the video. What I currently have the parts on order for is a 6' TT-30 adapter cable. I was thinking I don't want to chop up my long TT-30 extension cord because then I can only use it with a floating neutral generator and nothing else. Making a 6' adapter cable out of component parts so I can stick a ground-neutral bond is costing me ~$40.
This is a 120 volt generator not 240 volts. Thats why you get 60 volts per leg. Another TH-camr is going to show how to get 240 volts out of a 120 volt generator. I am waiting to see.
How can you only get only 60 volts on each leg? I thought it was a 240v connection. I wouldn't think it would reat 120v. I should be able to take my 30 amp R.V. plug and plug it into the predator 5000 and should be able to handle it no problem. I am confused on the 30 amp. Please explain as I am planning on purchasing a 5000.
This generator only has a 120 V output. It does not have a 240 V output, hence, each leg only being 60 V. Once we put the ground to neutral connector and then it started behaving properly.
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Remote start generator?!?!?! Wow! That’s really cool! Nice job guys👍
✌️
That’s cool that it can be powered by propane and gas👍
I agree
Try a neutral ground bonding plug
Yes, we did and we will be uploading a video about that soon.
What's a neutral ground bonding plug? Sorry, I literally just bought this generator and need some help understanding it
Really cool guys✌️
I’d like to see you fix the voltage problem
Yeah, we are working on that video right now. We did end up getting it fixed. Stay tuned!!
I just bought a Predator 5000 and am having start problems. Running strictly propane, starts right up when cold, with electric start, but if you shut it down after running for a while it will not start using the electric start, but will if you pull start, usually on the 1st or 2nd pull. I ran it for 1 hour yesterday and 5 hours today and it did the same thing both times. I did notice the electric start button would turn red if I held it for more than about 5" but it still wouldn't start. Any idea why it is doing this?
Thanks this was helpful
Glad it helped
This is a 120V "floating neutral" generator. You are seeing 60V on each leg because neutral is floating while you are taking a reading; it is not bonded to ground like an an electrical outlet wired to NEC standards. This is why you may hear people talk about bonding plugs and I will explain.
There are a number of TH-cam videos about ground - neutral bonding and NEC (National Electrical Code) standards. Basically all of these newer inverter generators coming out of China are "floating neutral" where you need one ground-neutral bond in your electrical system so a short to ground can return to source and pop the breaker, thus clearing the fault. The NEC code does not say zero and does not say two or more, but instead explicitly prohibits anything other than 1 ground-neutral bond. "Floating neutral" means the generator has zero ground-neutral bonds in it. A bonding plug creates a ground-neutral bond, generally through a NEMA 5-15 plug. Not quite ideal for a generator designed to put out 30A as you are bonding through a 15A rated plug, but better than nothing. Probably want to create a bond in the generator with the appropriate gauge wire to really do this justice. It would be good if someone put out a video where they show exactly how to bond in the generator or maybe put a link here.
Another way to view this "floating neutral" is both your devices will see a lot of noise because neutral is floating and your volt-meter will see ~60V on both the hot and neutral pins as neutral is no longer neutral, but floating. Now say you plug in a toaster oven and a live wire got damaged and is now resting against the metal case of the toaster oven. As the metal case of the toaster oven is attached to the ground wire and a live wire is in contact with it, that metal case is energized and everything on the ground wire including the metal frame of the generator is now energized. It is just waiting for you to touch it to see how your body responds to touching a live wire / energized surface. In this case maybe the toast is made outside of the toaster oven instead of inside.
So now this "floating neutral" example is given and this is clearly not what you want, everything on the ground wire energized, now we bond neutral to ground as per NEC standards. When that live wire in the toaster oven makes contact with the metal case, the short circuit power flows down the low resistance ground wire, through the ground-neutral bond, back to the source, and pops the breaker. This is just what you want to have happen whenever there is a short / a live wire touching something it is not supposed to.
As for why you would want a "floating neutral" generator, this usually comes down to say you have a higher powered 240V generator to power your whole home through a transfer switch. If the ground-neutral bond is in there / your service panel, it is against code to have two ground-neutral bonds. In this case and you know what you are doing, you want neutral to be floating on the generator because say the short circuit power flows through your breaker panel and pops the breaker there. You don't want to create a ground loop / share shorting loads, pop a GFCI on a generator through a ground loop whenever you turn anything on, etc.
GFCI is designed to pop on small currents through ground as your body acts as a resister and so won't pull short circuit current needed to pop a regular breaker, but you will die long before a regular breaker will pop. GFCI is meant to pop before you are killed by the power flowing through you. GFCI also gets in the way of a lot of stuff, say that surge protector you use with your computer as say you are plugged into the grid and there is a lightening strike causing the surge protector to dump power to Earth ground through the ground wire, so you only want it where you have to have it, say near water. So there, a little bonus content to help round out the picture as a lot of people are just flat wrong with what they say about GFCI.
Most excellent response! Thank you for sharing this information as it was very clear on how it all works. We have since been working on an internal bonding wire to make it a permanent solution.
@@GearStreet Cool. I will be on a lookout for the video. What I currently have the parts on order for is a 6' TT-30 adapter cable. I was thinking I don't want to chop up my long TT-30 extension cord because then I can only use it with a floating neutral generator and nothing else. Making a 6' adapter cable out of component parts so I can stick a ground-neutral bond is costing me ~$40.
Use the parallel ports with a parallel 30amp and 50 amp connector,solvesthe problem.
I just bought this generator... am I able to charge my AC300 Bluetti with this? And, do I really need a ground rod?
Yes, you can charge your BLUETTI with it. A ground rod is not necessarily needed to charge it.
Sound would be nice
This is a 120 volt generator not 240 volts. Thats why you get 60 volts per leg. Another TH-camr is going to show how to get 240 volts out of a 120 volt generator. I am waiting to see.
Correct. We have another video that’s about a neutral ground bond
Instead of buying a neutral bonding plug, another option is this more permanent mod: th-cam.com/video/IEArsLmKIho/w-d-xo.html
How can you only get only 60 volts on each leg? I thought it was a 240v connection. I wouldn't think it would reat 120v. I should be able to take my 30 amp R.V. plug and plug it into the predator 5000 and should be able to handle it no problem. I am confused on the 30 amp. Please explain as I am planning on purchasing a 5000.
This generator only has a 120 V output. It does not have a 240 V output, hence, each leg only being 60 V.
Once we put the ground to neutral connector and then it started behaving properly.