Also having issues with our inverter. Made a little crappy video which shows the basics... you'll probably be interested. The waveform is ugly and the frequency is all over the place depending on the sensitivity of your meter.
FYI, also went through this unbonded ground issue with some AC voltage sitting on the ground lead. Also tried a bonding plug without success.
I have a friend with an F-150 Tremor 2kW Pro Power Onboard generator who asked for my advice. He pulls a trailer with his and wanted the AC unit to be able to run off the truck. His trailer also its own DC system with a battery/charger/inverter/solar panels(?). He sent your article as the furthest he had gotten in his research and I have to say you've got a pretty good article written here, it was very helpful and we were able to come up with a solution to his problem using your article as a starting point.
After researching myself and talking it through with him, he ended up buying a 2kVA 1:1 isolation transformer and connected the leads to the Line and Neutral of the truck. He's run the setup now at home and at the campground with success. He does state the transformer gets a bit warm, I recommended he return it and purchase a 3kVA unit, but I don't think he'll have any issues outside of shorter lifespan.
Some safety items to share to anyone who attempts this:
Note that the truck's ground should NOT be passed to the trailer in this setup. With a transformer, you've now got a separately-derived system and so you need to evaluate how your neutral secondary will be bonded to ground. I would imagine in most cases that the existing neutral bonding jumper in the trailer will be fine. For his trailer, it has a switched neutral bonding jumper (prefers the off-trailer power's ground, but will swap to trailer ground if one is not detected) and so there was no need for an additional neutral bonding jumper. All that to say: ***EVALUATE HOW YOUR NEUTRAL IS BONDED TO GROUND*** if you are going to be adding a secondary source (tertiary in my friend's case). Incorrect bonding of the neutral (>1 or <1 connections) will cause a dangerous scenario. Further, the secondary side of the transformer needs to have a fuse rated at 1.25 transformer FLA (or next highest standard NEC rating) OR lower than the secondary wiring ampacity, whichever is lower. Make sure you know the secondary wire gauge, material type, and insulation rating. This includes ALL secondary wiring until the next protective device. Refer to the appropriate NEC ampacity table for your installation. Lastly, you need to have a throwover switch to prevent powering the trailer from more than one source (and possibly backfeeding to a dead grid which is very dangerous to line crews).
I have a lot of experience due to my occupation as a licensed power engineer, and so I felt comfortable advising him in his particular scenario. Anyone not comfortable with this activity should seek out a professional. All of this I've written is for informational purposes only and does not constitute advice for anyone's particular situation.
Hi Mike, can you please send me an email and provide your email address? I am continuing to analyze the 2kw pro power system and I would like to share intermediate data with you and get your thoughts and feedback. You can post the final conclusions in an article once I have this figured out.
I have a new 2023 F350 Lariat with the 2kw pro power generator.
I can confirm that this uses dual stacked inverters internal. I.e. 60v hot to ground, 60v neutral to ground and that neutral is internally bonded to ground.
Continuity check was used to confirm neutral to ground bonding at the truck bed receptacles.
Actual voltmeter measurements show 77v hot to ground and 51v neutral to ground.
I purchased the pro power option in order to charge my airstream with built in multiplus II 2x120. The trailer has a built in Hughes watchdog EMS and uses a smartplug shore power cord.
The smartplug shore power LED's indicate a reverse polarity condition when the cable is plugged into the F350 2kw pro power receptacles, but the trailer end of the shore power cable is not yet plugged into the airstream. This simply means that the internal smartplug circuits are confused by the odd pro power architecture. When the smartplug cord is subsequently plugged into the airstream, the pro power immediately generates a fault and disables the pro power inverter.
I am going to do some engineering to make the 2kw pro power be compatible with my Airstream. Specially, I am going to use a 3KVA 120v to 120v isolation transformer to create a proper 120v to neutral interface with a floating ground architecture (to be used with a neutral grounding plug).
Ready to test for you! I have a 2022 F150 with 2kW "Pro Power." Wanted to use it with my RV, can't. Same exact tester gives me "Hot-Ground" reverse, which likely confirms your hunch. Would have been nice of Ford to let me know this, what I have is useless for my purposes. I can set my Flx Minnie to pull only 10A if I want, this would have been perfect. But nooooooo
Hey Mike,
Also having issues with our inverter. Made a little crappy video which shows the basics... you'll probably be interested. The waveform is ugly and the frequency is all over the place depending on the sensitivity of your meter.
FYI, also went through this unbonded ground issue with some AC voltage sitting on the ground lead. Also tried a bonding plug without success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4c0mve6zmI
Hi Mike,
I have a friend with an F-150 Tremor 2kW Pro Power Onboard generator who asked for my advice. He pulls a trailer with his and wanted the AC unit to be able to run off the truck. His trailer also its own DC system with a battery/charger/inverter/solar panels(?). He sent your article as the furthest he had gotten in his research and I have to say you've got a pretty good article written here, it was very helpful and we were able to come up with a solution to his problem using your article as a starting point.
After researching myself and talking it through with him, he ended up buying a 2kVA 1:1 isolation transformer and connected the leads to the Line and Neutral of the truck. He's run the setup now at home and at the campground with success. He does state the transformer gets a bit warm, I recommended he return it and purchase a 3kVA unit, but I don't think he'll have any issues outside of shorter lifespan.
Some safety items to share to anyone who attempts this:
Note that the truck's ground should NOT be passed to the trailer in this setup. With a transformer, you've now got a separately-derived system and so you need to evaluate how your neutral secondary will be bonded to ground. I would imagine in most cases that the existing neutral bonding jumper in the trailer will be fine. For his trailer, it has a switched neutral bonding jumper (prefers the off-trailer power's ground, but will swap to trailer ground if one is not detected) and so there was no need for an additional neutral bonding jumper. All that to say: ***EVALUATE HOW YOUR NEUTRAL IS BONDED TO GROUND*** if you are going to be adding a secondary source (tertiary in my friend's case). Incorrect bonding of the neutral (>1 or <1 connections) will cause a dangerous scenario. Further, the secondary side of the transformer needs to have a fuse rated at 1.25 transformer FLA (or next highest standard NEC rating) OR lower than the secondary wiring ampacity, whichever is lower. Make sure you know the secondary wire gauge, material type, and insulation rating. This includes ALL secondary wiring until the next protective device. Refer to the appropriate NEC ampacity table for your installation. Lastly, you need to have a throwover switch to prevent powering the trailer from more than one source (and possibly backfeeding to a dead grid which is very dangerous to line crews).
I have a lot of experience due to my occupation as a licensed power engineer, and so I felt comfortable advising him in his particular scenario. Anyone not comfortable with this activity should seek out a professional. All of this I've written is for informational purposes only and does not constitute advice for anyone's particular situation.
Good luck and BE SAFE!
Hi Mike, can you please send me an email and provide your email address? I am continuing to analyze the 2kw pro power system and I would like to share intermediate data with you and get your thoughts and feedback. You can post the final conclusions in an article once I have this figured out.
Steven,
Please email me at jmichaelsokol@icloud.com and we’ll set up a chat.
I have a new 2023 F350 Lariat with the 2kw pro power generator.
I can confirm that this uses dual stacked inverters internal. I.e. 60v hot to ground, 60v neutral to ground and that neutral is internally bonded to ground.
Continuity check was used to confirm neutral to ground bonding at the truck bed receptacles.
Actual voltmeter measurements show 77v hot to ground and 51v neutral to ground.
I purchased the pro power option in order to charge my airstream with built in multiplus II 2x120. The trailer has a built in Hughes watchdog EMS and uses a smartplug shore power cord.
The smartplug shore power LED's indicate a reverse polarity condition when the cable is plugged into the F350 2kw pro power receptacles, but the trailer end of the shore power cable is not yet plugged into the airstream. This simply means that the internal smartplug circuits are confused by the odd pro power architecture. When the smartplug cord is subsequently plugged into the airstream, the pro power immediately generates a fault and disables the pro power inverter.
I am going to do some engineering to make the 2kw pro power be compatible with my Airstream. Specially, I am going to use a 3KVA 120v to 120v isolation transformer to create a proper 120v to neutral interface with a floating ground architecture (to be used with a neutral grounding plug).
Interesting data. Please keep me posted on the results of your transformer upgrade.
I can be reached at hikenlover at bellsouth dot net
Ready to test for you! I have a 2022 F150 with 2kW "Pro Power." Wanted to use it with my RV, can't. Same exact tester gives me "Hot-Ground" reverse, which likely confirms your hunch. Would have been nice of Ford to let me know this, what I have is useless for my purposes. I can set my Flx Minnie to pull only 10A if I want, this would have been perfect. But nooooooo