Reverse Polarity Blew my panel?

[neonwizard]

I think your problem was due to loose connections in your breaker box. Loose connections will cause excessive heating. You stated that your wife said the breaker box was too hot to place her hand on. Once you get your breaker box replaced, I would open and check every outlet. Making sure all screws are tight. I have a Predator 3500 and use all the time. My Solitude has a 50A service and the Inverter will handle 30A load 24/7 with refueling the only time for shutdowns.

[shippwreck]

Originally Posted by travelnoob

It is the habor freight predator 3500 watt inverter generator. Maybe you can see the adapter for it when you look it up if not here is a link to a video

https://youtu.be/7mBYq9ZgbKk

On his tip 2 he talks about the adapter

I had a 3500 watt Generator from Harbor freight that was not an inverter generator. and it worked fine. BUT NOT with a twist plug. I had to use two adapters from each of the 15 amp (one plug in each duplex only) duplex to thirty amp output. I remember a wye connection to thirty amp. Then a thirty to fifty amp adapter from that. Worked great several times. I have since sold it since it made too much noise no matter what i did. Built a box to house it on the back bumper,, added an above the roof exhaust, (Made no difference in noise that I could tell) added insulation to the box. (helped some) but nothing made enough of a difference. I know that the thirty amp plug was not properly matched to what the camper needed,. That's as much as I remember,, except that every thing ran as though I was on shore power. You need to check the connection from the Generator, with a proper meter, before you plug in the RV. You should have two separate circuits of 110 to 120 going into the RV. NOT 220V. I Assume the inverter also uses a thirty amp twist plug that is actually 220V ?

[RadioRadio]

Originally Posted by shippwreck

I had a 3500 watt Generator from Harbor freight that was not an inverter generator. and it worked fine. BUT NOT with a twist plug. I had to use two adapters from each of the 15 amp (one plug in each duplex only) duplex to thirty amp output. I remember a wye connection to thirty amp. Then a thirty to fifty amp adapter from that. Worked great several times. I have since sold it since it made too much noise no matter what i did. Built a box to house it on the back bumper,, added an above the roof exhaust, (Made no difference in noise that I could tell) added insulation to the box. (helped some) but nothing made enough of a difference. I know that the thirty amp plug was not properly matched to what the camper needed,. That's as much as I remember,, except that every thing ran as though I was on shore power. You need to check the connection from the Generator, with a proper meter, before you plug in the RV. You should have two separate circuits of 110 to 120 going into the RV. NOT 220V. I Assume the inverter also uses a thirty amp twist plug that is actually 220V ?

A 30 amp is 110/120 volt only. A 50 amp is 2 110/120 volt circuits with 220/240 available. I’ve wired all of them, they all checked out and worked fine.

[bobfrommaine]

Sounds familiar. Check if the neutral and ground wires are reversed in the generator. Whether they are or not, I'd guess your generator tried to dump all its current through the neutral wire direcdt to ground. This melted the neutral wire which then caused your generator to be unable to power your system (no neutral). Take a multi-meter and measure the generator output, If the wires are reversed, Harbor Fright should (!) be responsible for your damage.If you have to take your rig to a dealer for repair, I'd suggest havent them tesst the generator. If you repair it yourself, you may find you have other componens damaged - refer, TV, microwave, etc.
Good luck, let us know how it turns out.
Bob
'14 Winnebgo 37F Jeep toad

[mike5511]

Why would you use your surge protector with an inverter generator?

[sledbiker1]

Originally Posted by Persistent

We are back to which breakers tripped at which incident.
If the main breaker in the TT tripped, that means more than 30 amps through the breaker.
If branch breakers in the TT tripped, that means more than 15 amps through the branch circuity.
If pedestal breaker tripped during lightning, more than 30 amps at that time.
If Generator breaker tripped, that means more that 30 amps at that time.

Tripping the breakers protects the circuits. Burned wires means the circuit was not protected. Wires in the distribution box burned and so the current must not have flowed through breakers. If the generator flow burned the wires, the breaker in the generator would have tripped.

Did the generator breaker trip?

Very interesting!

I am starting to entertain the idea that there was more than two incidents.
You did not smell smoke at any time. Yet smoke must have been generated. A substantial amount of copper and insulation was vaporized or burned.

There may have been a second lightning strike when TT was not occupied. It is possible the second strike caused the damage. Once wires burned off they may have shorted. Vibration from towing the TT may have dislodged a damaged wire causing a short circuit. The first connection to the generator finished them off. The generator will run high starting current for about 30 seconds before tripping its circuit breaker.

None of this makes really good sense. The extensive damage should not have been caused by the generator. It has a circuit breaker that certainly would have protected the shore power cord.

A lightning strike could easily cause the damage and trip circuit breakers at the same time. Arching across terminals and through insulation is a hallmark of a lightning strike. However, I can't see how smoke was not produced when the lightning struck.

A second strike on the distribution panel area would leave signs on the TT walls unless the shore power cord was attached. Also, smoke would have been generated and some trace would probably remain when you reopened the TT.

In any case you have a lot of electrical parts to replace. The generator is probably OK and probably did not cause the damage.

I wish you good luck with the repairs.

These are all very interesting points Persistent made, also see the picture below seeing the green flakes and the corrosion on the bus bar makes me think you might have had or still have water infiltration.

[Sbrownstein]

Originally Posted by bobfrommaine

Sounds familiar. Check if the neutral and ground wires are reversed in the generator. Whether they are or not, I'd guess your generator tried to dump all its current through the neutral wire direcdt to ground. This melted the neutral wire which then caused your generator to be unable to power your system (no neutral). Take a multi-meter and measure the generator output, If the wires are reversed, Harbor Fright should (!) be responsible for your damage.If you have to take your rig to a dealer for repair, I'd suggest havent them tesst the generator. If you repair it yourself, you may find you have other componens damaged - refer, TV, microwave, etc.
Good luck, let us know how it turns out.
Bob
'14 Winnebgo 37F Jeep toad

OP already did. The neutral is floating and he measured 60 volts from hot to ground and 61 volts from neutral to ground. Can't dump to ground since ground and neutral are isolated in his box (clearly evident) and generator is floating.

[Tip10]

Beginning to sound like this was a long term issue and that the generator is an innocent bystander.

Long term there may have been loose connections generating heat (panel warm/hot to touch) but insufficient to do anything more than slowly degrade connections further. Degraded connections combined with over the road vibrations eventually caused connections to open up BUT with an insufficient air gap to preclude current flow. Add generator and fire up circuits, current arcs gap causing high current flow. Breaker trips, further damage done. Close breakers, fire up generator, further arcing, more high current flow, breakers trip, this time with sufficient damage done as to open circuits with enough air gap to prevent arcing (I.e. it already burnt things apart). Nothing works now....

May have all started with that lightning strike..... OP doesn’t really say if panel/box was always warm/hot or if it developed after strike. If after strike may have damaged a connection and started the whole process.

As I said, generator is an innocent bystander - wrong place wrong time.

[dcpowerglenn]

As I followed this blog, it might be good for all of us to have a qualified tech check the neutral connections in our power panels. I had a similar situation where the neutral feed came loose at the busbar and burned up my shorepower outlet in the garage because the RV’s generator neutral was hard wired to ground after the transfer switch. Caught it just before it set the house on fire.

Based on the photos and the comment from the OP that his wife said the box was uncomfortably hot to touch that one of the neutral connections was heating over some period of time. Probably the one by the melted hole in the case. As mentioned earlier, this type of failure becomes cumulative with time. The fact that the conductors are Copper and the busbar is Aluminum can cause problems like this due to oxidation so the connection becomes resistive and heats up. The insulation in the wire bundle is also compromised.

Why the main breaker tripped when there was a lightning strike nearby is a mystery unless there may have a current surge or voltage dip that got thru any upstream protection and tripped the breaker as the trailer load responded to whatever the fault was.
Just my humble opinion. Was a low voltage power engineer for many years and used to do forensic failure analysis on these type of failures in telecom systems.

[Linda Bohr]

Originally Posted by rg4bs

I think my head to going to explode!

^^^^^
Me too. I'm totally confused about buss bars, L1 Highs, and I guess I better go to Google and start learning about generators and inverter generators. Who knew it could get so complicated. Lesson 1--Difference between a regular generator and an inverter generator. Lesson 2--after my brain absorbs that.

[Tip10]

Originally Posted by Linda Bohr

^^^^^

Me too. I'm totally confused about buss bars, L1 Highs, and I guess I better go to Google and start learning about generators and inverter generators. Who knew it could get so complicated. Lesson 1--Difference between a regular generator and an inverter generator. Lesson 2--after my brain absorbs that.

Lesson 0 — an awful lot of what you read posted and postulated on blogs is from folks who simply don’t really know what they are talking about.....

[Sbrownstein]

Originally Posted by Tip10

Lesson 0 — an awful lot of what you read posted and postulated on blogs is from folks who simply don’t really know what they are talking about.....

I agree. However, the title of this thread should definitely be changed because Reverse Polarity definitely did NOT blow the OP's Panel

[cavie]

Originally Posted by bobfrommaine

Sounds familiar. Check if the neutral and ground wires are reversed in the generator. Whether they are or not, I'd guess your generator tried to dump all its current through the neutral wire direcdt to ground. This melted the neutral wire which then caused your generator to be unable to power your system (no neutral). Take a multi-meter and measure the generator output, If the wires are reversed, Harbor Fright should (!) be responsible for your damage.If you have to take your rig to a dealer for repair, I'd suggest havent them tesst the generator. If you repair it yourself, you may find you have other componens damaged - refer, TV, microwave, etc.
Good luck, let us know how it turns out.
Bob
'14 Winnebgo 37F Jeep toad

HF is responsible for nothing. They did not build or design the Gen. The GEN did not cause the problem. Loose wire connections caused the problem. The same thing happens in house panels and building panels. Who you gonna blame there???

[cavie]

Originally Posted by Sbrownstein

I agree. However, the title of this thread should definitely be changed because Reverse Polarity definitely did NOT blow the OP's Panel