are surge protectors effective on generators?

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ok so basically everything is fine and grounded properly it's just grounded differently then what a house would be grounded, thus it doesn't recognize it if it's not a neutral bonded ground. So since the green protected light is still on and the generator is grounded to the frame then then everything is still working as normal just as if it were plugged into a normal wall outlet of your house. So just ignore the red light. Do I understand this correctly? Also I'm assuming the surge protector/filter will still work properly even though the ground is different? Thanks.
 
Your surge protector/filter is useless without ground. The reason for red light is it likely will not working properly.
 
Originally Posted By: rjundi
Your surge protector/filter is useless without ground. The reason for red light is it likely will not working properly.


So the fact that the generator is grounded to the frame doesn't count? It has to be a neutral bonded ground?
 
Many surge protectors have MOVs from hot to ground and neutral to ground. Since that was designed to work in a house, where older homes sometimes didn't have grounded outlets, that red light is there in case somebody put in 3 prong outlets with no ground. I'm sure it will still work with your generator.
 
Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
So the fact that the generator is grounded to the frame doesn't count? It has to be a neutral bonded ground?

You have posted many popular urban myths for protectors. First, that ground is safety ground ; not earth ground. Irelevant for potentially destructive surges. A light is only reporting on what it believes is a missing safety ground connection. More on that later.

Second, a protector also does not do any filtering. Some also mistakenly believe it does voltage regulation or spike smoothing. It does not. It has a let-through voltage number on its box. That means a 120 volt protector does nothing useful until voltage exceeds 330 volts.

Third, how does that light report a defective ground? It is monitoring voltage between a green and white wire. If voltage is too high, then a 'missing ground' conclusion results. However if the generator creates tiny spikes, those spike can exceed enough voltage to trigger the 'missing ground' circuit. Those spike voltages cannot be measured by a digital meter.

Fourth, nothing inside a strip protector filters or elminates spikes that are made completely irrelevant by circuits already inside all electronics.

Your electronics connect directly to the generator by wire - if connected directly or via a power strip. What is the power strip doing?

Some generators create tiny spikes so large as to quickly degrade protectors. Honda generators generally should not. Anyone recommending protectors should know these above concepts.
 
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I'm just going to return the surge protector I bought then. The power should be clean and stable enough to not matter. That was kind of the point in my spending the money on the Honda in the first place.
 
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