Generator for Food Truck

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Dennis Alwon

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Chapel Hill, NC
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Retired Electrical Contractor
Ok I will premise this with 2 things. Firstly I know that food trucks do not fall under the NEC and secondly, I know little about gensets.

We were asked to wire a food truck for a customer. We got the truck wired and then he shows us the genny. I have never seen one with this setup. It is a cummins genny made specifically for food trucks. The nameplate is 58 amps 120V. The leads coming from the genny are connected to a 2p 30 amp breaker which I assume are in phase. The leads are 2- #12 white, 1- #12 Black, 1- #12 Black with yellow tracer and a #12 green

Here is the schematic--- My question is whether or not this is a setup for parallel wiring. In other words do I parallel the neutrals and hots or what?

ry%3D480
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
The technical illustrator was lazy,they should have drawn 120V between
the two line sets of what makes a complete circuit. L1/L0 (CB1) is half the phase,
L1/L0(CB2) is the other half of the phase. As I see it!


Another way to express it is T1-T2 is on top half of rotation and T3-T4 is the second half and
bottom of rotation.


My bigger interest is why they only have 12AWG on 30amp size applications, I'll assume after the breaker
and from off the winding on the neutral side.

Confused more ? :)
 

Dennis Alwon

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Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
It also states
1. These are not reconnectable generators
2. Because generator windings T1-T2 and T3-T4 are in phase the neutral conductor in the connected equipment such as between the transfer switch and main distribution panel must be sized to carry the sum of the load.

I guess they decided to parallel 2- #12 to get a possible 58 amps????? but want the field to run full size-- well in this case there is no transfer switch just generator power.
 

Dennis Alwon

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Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
Tell your customer your the first to "super size" (the circuit service) on their truck.


I did one for him a few years back. His son drove it up to Chicago where they have to go thru an inspection of some sort. Apparently the inspectors loved what we did and thus they wanted us to do another for them. This genny was different from the other and I had never seen a genset done like this. I guess it is set up to go 120/240 or 120 but I don't know why they just didn't go 120/240. Anyway-- it should be done today-- the boys are working on it now. I basically gave them the job to do for themselves so they can make a few extra bucks.
 

Dennis Alwon

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Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
I think we are just going to parallel the neutrals and bring each hot to a different phase in the panel. I think that will work but certainly not NEC compliant
 

Dennis Alwon

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Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
Electric warmers and coolers?

I've always known food trucks to have gas for warmers and ice for cooling. That's a new one to me.


This is the second one I have done. The first went to Chicago and the inspectors of the trucks were impressed. They now want another done. This is an old Captains fire track-- van. It had an old 240 generator but it was so old they decided to change it out.

There are coolers, 120V water heater-cord and plug, and ice machine-- can't remember what else. We added about 4 circuits that were gfci protected.
 

Dennis Alwon

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Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
The lack of bond from neutral to case etc has me wondering. A short to ground would not trip a circuit nor should it open a gfci since there is no path back to the circuit
 
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