Buickand Deere possibly others

Have honda ES4500 generator. Has 30 amp 120 volt twist lock repectical . checking, has 120 volts hot to ground No volts to neutral. also has 220 30 amp twist lock. 220 between lugs BUT no voltage to neutral or ground. Alittle worried as thought it should have 120 to ground each lug on the 220 plug. Thinking if used this in house circuit in outage where will the 120 side get ground??

I obviously dont have that genset or its wiring diagram here, but the way Id expect it to be wired is as follows:

The output winding is similar to a typical household transformer with two legs L1 and L2 of 120 volts to Neutral (center point of winding) and 240 volts line to line (L1 to L2).

Now, the gensets neutral should be bonded to its case/frame/ground (if it has an iron frame???) which would cause a voltmeter to read as you expected, 120 volts line to frame or line to neutral and again, 240 line to line.

If its NOT perhaps the Neutral isnt properly bonded to the case/frame ????????? (if it has one) BUT in the event that genny is used to backfeed your home panel via a two pole transfer switch THEN THAT NEUTRAL TO CASE/FRAME BOND IS INDEED SUPPOSED TO BE SEVERED.

See if any manual speaks of neutral to case/frame (if it has any iron frame) bond and whether or not its attached????? An ohmeter cam tell ya that also. You might wanna look at its outlets wiring for any Neutral to equipment ground terminal bonds present or the ability to make such a bond there???????

Those portable gensets can be used to supply cord and plug connected equipment (i.e. via their own internal mounted receptacles) with no other bonds to any grounding electriodes such as a rod driven into mother earth ya know. But again, if you backfeed your hoise via a 2 pole x fer switch and carry the houses equipment ground conductor out to ground the gennsy iron frame, THAT NEUTRAL TO CASE/FRAME IS NOT USED/CONNECTED

John T Too long retired EE and rusty on the latest NEC so noooooooo warranty

The manual and wiring diagram are available from Honda if you start at the URL below.

Inspecting the wiring diagram I see the following:

1) There is no neutral to ground bond
2) The 230 volt receptacle provides ground and 2 hots only, no neutral.
3) You could probably use the neutral from the 115 volt receptacle as the neutral for the 230 volt pair, as that goes back to the center tap on the output windings. However, the generator uses an automatic voltage regulator, and the individual 115 volts legs in the resulting hodge-podge may not be balanced.

In my opinion the generator is both too small and not designed to be backfed into a household breaker panel. You would be better off using individual cords running directly to the generator.
Honda manuals.

Are you the John T in Bloomington Ind??? I have another electrical issus on voltage regulation which I sure could use help on Bill 812 863 4030

If the 240 plug is a three pronger. Then it's no problem to swap it for a four prong with L1,L2,N & G. Don't mix them up.

http://www.reliancecontrols.com/ProductDetail.aspx?TWB2012DR