vulnox

Yeah 100%, assuming you were responding to me, I wasn't saying to not give info or tips or whatever, I just wanted to mention it in case those providing info expected him to come back with results from the test. It's unfortunately not uncommon for some to be one hit wonders of asking questions on a new account or something, and never to be seen from again.

James Dean

I see the same problem a lot with portable generators powering homes. It has to do with GFI and bonded neutrals. If your home generator has a bonded neutral and you hook it up to your panel with an interlock the GFI breakers trip or the generator breaker trips. GFI outlet's and breakers don't work well with the neutrals bonded in two places. . Most Honda Generators have a floating neutral except for their EB construction generators. They have to be bonded for the worksite. I'll bet the Ford to meet code has a bonded neutral for use on a worksite. I'll bet the ford works with the house because your powering back through the charger. If you used a cord and the 240V outlet in the bed it would trip too.

ddruker

Just to be super clear - the 7,200 watt generator in my F-150 works perfectly with my Airstream. I do have a GFI inside the Airstream protecting the kitchen circuit. Neutral and ground are not bonded inside my Airstream. To me this says the original posters problem is almost certainly solvable - he would just need to go through the trailer methodically...

totalsc

I'm having same issue with the Pro Power. Can't power my cabin with the truck, but works fine with my generator which also has ground fault and circuit breakers.

Either the ground fault detection is way too sensitive or there is an issue with the truck wiring. Never had a problem even powering my cabin from an invertor in the past. Heard that maybe Ford is working on a software fix???

vulnox

That sounds more like the same problem with ProPower and homes, the truck is having a ground fault because of the neutral bonding. That won't be "fixed" by software, because it's not broken. There are large threads on the subject. On a normal portable generator you either don't have this on many of them, or have to change it to have the grounding on the generator.

Basically, of the cabin has its own ground, it won't work with ProPower unless you have a modified cable or breaker system in the cabin that allows it to bypass the ground wire from the house when switched to the truck. I think that's the gist of it, like I say it's been pretty well covered in other threads if interested. The idea behind ProPower was to power a job site, not a home, so Ford set it up to be safe to run in the rain with stuff plugged in and running.

totalsc

I can tell you the cabin has no true ground. If what you mean is that there is a shared ground from both sides of the breaker panel, then why would Ford but a 30A 220V plug on the truck. If they were concerned with common grounds, they would only have 110V outlets.

I also experimented with only plugging one side of the cabin’s 4 breaker panel into a 110V outlet in the bed of the truck and it instantly went into ground fault.

Ford even markets that you can use this for powering your home as a back-up. Not sure why the ground fault need to be so sensitive? I’m actually only trying to power about 400W of LED lighting usually at the cabin. Pretty disappointing if there’s not a fix because this was the reason I (and a lot of people) bought the truck.

NEbound

You have to bypass your main panel. Your main panel has the neutrals and grounds bonded inside it.

totalsc

How would that have still tripped a ground fault with only one side powered? Or are you saying I need to lift or eliminate the grounds? The Truck obviously is not grounded and I can’t see how there would be any sort of ground reference to the truck?

Are you saying the truck is sensing a neutral to ground fault?

vulnox

Where does Ford market running the home off the 240? They have made posts, including the CEO, about using it to charge phones and that off the 120s, but I haven't personally seen any official marketing material where they state "Just run it to a receptacle hooked to your panel or transfer switch, no other concerns or bonded neutral to worry about!". It may exist, I don't watch commercials, but I still feel like I would have stumbled on that. I know they do for the Lightning, but that's with a special setup using a 100 Amp EV hookup that allows for back flow of power and likely has special considerations for this as it's meant for the home. Ford put a 30A 240V on the truck for high draw job site uses, like a welder or running it to a pig tail with more 120 outlets. Most of which wouldn't have their own ground/neutral. That's why it's called ProPower and not HomePower.

I guess you can argue if you want, but this is heavily documented and well known, so if you have some secret to it nobody else does I am sure they would love to know. And that's not being snarky, I think they genuinely would like to know, as it's pages of people with WAY more electrical knowledge than me going over why it's a problem, but not unexpected.

From other discussions:
"the F150's Generator is "bonded-neutral" which Generlink specifically call out as being incompatible - it will cause the GFCI to trip. FWIW, the F150 is designed this way to be OSHA compliant for GFCI safety at job-sites etc. but this is redundant for the home situation where the house panel is also protected. We need a different kind of transfer switch which properly handles a bonded-neutral generator with GFCI on the 240V output."

NEbound

Whelp. Here we go.

Yes, your truck has a ground. It's the frame, for the DC side of the system. Which feeds back to the appropriate terminals in the battery systems. Yes, plural. There are 3.

You have a DC to AC convertor, which takes the DC input and converts it to 60hz 120. But, it provides that twice. By combining two legs of 120, you can provide 240.

You need two hot feeds. You share a neutral, since the juice needs to wag in frequency. And, you always need a ground plane. The panel in your truck acts as a main panel, as your mains panel does in the house.

You cannot bond neutrals and grounds anywhere outside the main panel without bad and angry things happening.