On 12/12/2013 01:12 PM, Pavel314 wrote:
I recently hooked my generator into the main box, with a lock-out
device of course. If the power goes out, I'll turn off the main
switch to the street manually and flip to generator power.

The problem is how to know when the street power is back on, other
than looking down the street to see if the neighbors have lights on
again. When I just ran extension cords from the generator to the
well, refrigerators, etc., during an outage, when the power started
up again various lights would light up around the house as they had
been on and were still street-connected. Now, everything is
disconnected from the street.

It would be nice if there were some sort of induction device I could
clamp on the main line coming in from the street which would light up
an LED if there were power in the line, but if there's no current
actually flowing I don't see how it would pick up the potential
voltage in the line. Is there such a thing available or will I have
to invent one?

Get a contactor and wire the contacts in series with the line that comes
off of your generator, and the coil in parallel to the mains; when your
power shuts off you will know that the mains are back online.

Jon