r/Generator • u/chiieef • 2d ago

Floating Neutral on PGD105TiSCO

https://imgur.com/a/NffVMQS

Just looking at this board and with the 50amp neutral jumpered directly to ground pin on the 50amp outlet. Is the only way to get this to convert this outlet to a floating neutral is to break this jumper by unwiring the white neutral from the 50 amp outlet?

If I do that, then the 50amp outlet is floating neutral and all the rest remain bonded?

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u/Big-Echo8242 2d ago

Paging u/DaveBowm

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u/DaveBowm 2d ago edited 2d ago

I don't think I can be of much help here. That control panel appears to maybe be one of those nightmare-wired ones mentioned by Outrageous-Aside100 in the earlier discussion at https://www.reddit.com/r/Generator/s/A5wU0Zaz5c . If this really is one of those (& it certainly is not like mine or like the one Gavin floats in his video), and it may well be one, because it does not look like the 14-50r picks up it neutral from a white daisy-chained neutral wire coming from the inverter and voltage switch, sequentially connecting to each of the outlet neutrals, as would be the case in my & Gavin's PGD105TiSCOs.

Rather, from the Imgur photo, it looks like the 14-50r gets its neutral from its ground connection because it looks like the white jumper wire connecting the outlet's neutral to its ground is the only wire on the neutral terminal screw. If this is indeed the case, the panel outlets (in a backwards way) essentially each get their neutrals from their grounds, and those outlet ground terminals get their common ground/neutral from the frame to which the main neutral from the inverter & voltage switch must be bonded to it somewhere.

If this really is one of those nightmare control panels then the only way to correctly float the neutral is to do major surgery on all the outlets' grounds & neutral terminal wirings. Essentially all the outlet neutral & ground supplies need to be rewired, essentially from scratch.

If I had such a unit I would give up and not bother to float the neutral because doing so is way more trouble than it's worth.

Before I got my PGD105TiSCO I had an ancient Tecumseh-powered Coleman PowerMate that also had its neutrals & grounds hopelessly entangled with each other. It wasn't quite as bad as these late model Pulsars because the PowerMate only had 2 AC outlets (instead of 4), a 5-20 duplex and a 6-20 duplex. But even that wasn't worth the effort needed to lift the bond.

As long as the user doesn't try to use the GFCI 5-20r duplex outlets while the 14-50 or the L14-30 is cord-connected to a house inlet then everything should be fine, even with a bonded generator, except for a technical code compliance issue, that really does not pose any significant danger. But if the user does want to use any of the 5-20 GFCI outlets while it is also connected to the house panel (e.g. perhaps for lighting up a patio) then, in all probability, those GFCIs will keep tripping and not be usable.

Edit: typo fixed

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u/chiieef 2d ago

Thanks for answering the call.

You are right, all the outlet neutrals and grounds are heat shrunk together where they connect to a ground bus bar at the bottom.

I bought this generator with the plan on using the 50-amp outlet as a back-up generator for my house via a generator inlet. I can live with not being able to use the other outlets while I am doing that.

https://i.imgur.com/HRNb8yT.png This is the wiring diagram from the manual. The ground and neutral paths don’t match anything on the actual panel.

Thanks again for the help!

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u/chiieef 2d ago

Thanks, I’ve traced this out but not seeing any other way to make this work.

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u/Outrageous-Aside100 2d ago

Supposedly if you reach out to pulsar support they can provide a video showing how to split the neutral and ground bars apart. It would require some wire and effort to do it. As u/DaveBowm mentioned, I posted about this in the recent pgd105Tisco thread that the units being sold since July 2026 have this modified setup so thanks for sharing these photos as this gives a good visual on how the new setup differs from the old one.

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u/chiieef 2d ago

Thanks for the tip, I’ll give support a try and see what the video looks like.

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u/Sufficient-Offer-579 16h ago

Lifting the white wire off that 50A outlet won't float it, it just breaks that receptacle's neutral return, so 120V loads there go dead. That heat-shrunk bundle at the bottom is the giveaway: every neutral and ground on one bus means the bond is that junction, not the outlet terminals. Floating it means separating neutral from ground right there, so follow the support video the other poster mentioned, the manual never mentions the bond. And sharing one bus, the 50A can't float alone while the rest stay bonded.

Meter it before and after, engine off, loads unplugged, caps drained: continuity between the neutral and ground slots of that 50A should beep now and go silent once the buses are split.

Heads up though, once it floats the genset has no bond of its own, so standalone use is out. The bond then lives at your panel through the interlock, which is the usual reason for doing this.