Most brands: Under 1/10 second.
Federal Pacific Electric: Well over 5 years before it trips.

With no breaker, my WAG is that either a secondary wire on
the generator overheats and burns out, or the motor slows to
stall point. Either of those in two to ten seconds. Easily
enough time to kill a pole worker.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:59:28 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote Re Generator
wiring
options:

In theory, a breaker trips on the generator. How fast?
Well,
depends if it's a Federal Pacific Electric breaker on the
generator.

Ball park? 1sec?, 1min?, 1hour?

And before the breaker on the generator trips, the 5kW gen
is trying
to feed several hundred kW on the grid. ISTM that the gen
would stop
dead even if the gen breaker didn't pop.