PTO gen set

[skeets]

OK Im really hopping to start a bit of a fire storm so to speak here.. I have heard so many pros and cons to using a PTO gen on a compact tractor, why wear out your motor they don’t run right, if you put one to big on you will screw thing up,, yadayada so on and so on
So I am asking guys that have been there and done it,,,
Example,,, I have a BX2360 with a PTO hp of like 18, so according ly I could only have a 9 kw gen set,, how ever what happens if I use say a 12 or 15 kw gen set?? Yes i have an old gas powered gen st that has paid for its self several times over but its not large enough (5kw) to cover what’s in the house any more.. SO lets have it boys I want all the ideas ya got !!!!!!

 

[crawler90]

I made a 3 kva generator from a generator head that had a busted honda on it. worked a treat. the b6100 didnt even change rev's; not sure how much bigger i would have gone without a proper govenor to keep the Hz in check.

Jackson.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

My thing is why would you want to put unnecessary hours and wear on your tactor engine to power a generator? Why not look into buying a whole house stand by generator that you can plumb into a natural gas line or run it off a seperate LP tank.

I see a pto genset being usefull for farm and ranch work. Like if you had to head out into the fields and repair a wooden fence or had to power a welder in a remote area.

 

[crawler90]

another way to look at it is why run 2 engines when 1 will suffice. also you could mount it on the 3point linkage and take it where ever you need power.

Jackson.

 

[skeets]

You both make good points,, but I was looking for someone that has a unit and what they have found,,good,,bad,, or otherwise,, I know a new 15kw genarec will run about 2300 bucks or so, and its one more thing i have to maintain,, so Im askin

 

[Eric McCarthy]

You wont have to maintain the Generac anymore then you have to maintain the Kubota you have now to power a pto generator.

 

[Stumpy]

I stand by my answer last time. It would work up until the engine runs out of power and the rpm drops and then everything hooked up to the generator and probably the generator itself would burn out. But that is based on my limited electrical knowledge and some internet reading. Skeets I'd call up a company that sells these tractor generators and have a long talk with them about what you're trying to do. They'll be able to give you much more reliable information.

 

[tiredguy]

another way to look at it is why run 2 engines when 1 will suffice. also you could mount it on the 3point linkage and take it where ever you need power.

Jackson.

This is the exact same reason that I'm going to be (when I quit procrastinating)
purchasing a pto generator. The majority of generator failures or frustrations
are because it set around for a year or two (don't seem to need them when you're prepaired properly) then the gas is bad or the float is stuck beacuse it's either gummed up or dried up. By the time you screw around and get it running the power is back on. I use my Kubota to move snow in the winter and mow the grass in the summer like most here do, so it rarely sits for a week or so without running. I'm going to buy a 12K for my B3030 and build my own 3 pt mount that will have steel wheels under is so I can wheel it out from the side of the garage or under a shelf etc, hook it up and drive it out of the garage and plug in the power cord. Set the throttle and let it hum right along. The 12K actually has a 15K surge and is far more than I need but I can purchase one for about half of what Skeets is looking at, made in the USA , and comes with a 5 year commercial or home warranty on it. I'm no more concerned about putting extra hours on it than I would be if we happen to have a worse winter with more snow to move than normal. Fuel consumption is WAY less than gas and once again I have extra on hand because I also heat my house with it. It's a win win deal for me and the cost is 1/4 to 1/3rd of what it costs for a stand alone gas/propane unit. I can always haul fuel oil/diesel but certainly can't propane. The cost of operation with propane if memory serves me correctly is the same or more than gas.

The only thing is a must have is the proper meters on the unit built in or a simple plug in digital unit ( $75.00 ) so that you can be absolutely certain that you have the RPMs set so the unit puts out 60hz. I have a good friend not far from me that's a dairy farmer so his needs have always been critical for power because A cows aren't faucets you can turn on and off at will, and B the milk in the cooler must be kept from spoiling cause that's his cash to live and pay the bills with. He has several tractors that are ran often capable of running the generator and always plenty of extra fuel on hand to keep it running.

Skeets,
I've read this thing to death on all the forums and have yet to find all but one draw back, and that's the portability of taking the power wherever it's needed including the nieghbors house that could be freezing or losing the food in his fridge or freezer. Being I'm surrounded by a whole bunch of good people that lend a hand whenever they see a need without question, I'd be
obliged to do the same thing for them by driving over and powering their house for a bit to keep them going too. Having that ready power portable to run tools "out bacK" or whatever is another bonus as far as I'm concerned cause the need does arrise on ocasion for that too.
Al

 

[hodge]

The other consideration is how often do you have crippling power outages? Here at home, it might be two or three times a year, a couple hours at a time, and never crippling (yet). Nothing major. So, a pto generator would make sense, because it wouldn't rack the hours up on the tractor, and it would be one less engine to keep up with. Other than a major catastrophe, where the power could be out for a week or more, a pto genset makes sense. That's my logic.
If it were me, I'd find out what my tractor can run safely, and not push the limit. Kilowatts take power to make- and it's no use having a generator that the engine can't run at load.

 

[crawler90]

The only thing is a must have is the proper meters on the unit built in or a simple plug in digital unit ( $75.00 ) so that you can be absolutely certain that you have the RPMs set so the unit puts out 60hz.

That could be the only diffence with mine, because we use 230v 50hz a 2 pole genset only needs to spin 3000rpm not 3600.

So less frictional loss with the higher gearing means less loss in power.

Last year in cyclone yasi we didnt have power for 2 weeks at home, all the servo's were out of petrol as well so we were lucky with diesel



Jackson.

 

[gpreuss]

When I got my L3200 I wanted things to do with it! The PTO generator was high on the list. Fortunately I sort of have to run big tickets by my wife, so I let this one pass. I have a 7KW welder/generator that runs on gas. I do enough welding -at least once every couple of months- that it starts dependably and runs well. I have found that with careful management of the water pump, heat pump, electric range and water heater I can get by with that power.
I'm also in the group that loses power 3 - 4 times a year, usually in the winter, and usually for a couple of hours. Only twice have we been without over a day. I've also noticed that while we are without power, the tractor is generally busy digging us out of the snow. At a minimum you will be out in the cold disconnecting the rear blade and connecting the generator. After that, no more tractor.
Harbor Freight has a nice 15KW PTO generator for about $1500. It goes on sale periodically for about $1200. Worth the wait. Same thing is on EBAY for about $1600. I think it would be my choice for PTO.
You can get 10KW gas generators on EBAY for about $850 with free shipping. Bigger can cost lots more, although the Generac mentioned is probably fair price for what you are getting.
Diesel welder/generators are running in the $1200-1500 range, and kill two birds with one stone, if you can get by with 6.5 - 7KW.
I have a strong electrical background. Without going into the details - power factor and inductive loading, given a choice, it is better to get a generator with a slightly larger capacity than your engine. An overload might stall the tractor, but no more harm is done than digging into the dirt with your bush hog. If the tractor is bigger than the generator, it is pretty easy to burn up the generator. Don't worry too much about frequency. Close to 60HZ is good enough. As long as the tacho shows 540 PTO, you will be near enough for everything but a clock. I lived in Spain for years - had no real trouble with appliances at 50HZ. We had to watch the voltage, however - it tended to go too high at night (this was decades ago). Anywhere from about 55 to 65HZ should be OK.
A final note - Make sure you disconnect the main panel breaker when you connect your generator. You don't want to try to power the neighborhood, and you certainly do not want to kill the utility repair man that is trying to fix the power problem.

 

[navy599]

personally I would go portable. you can always gear up to take stress off of the tractor. PTO to gear drive to gen.
mho

 

[Stubbyie]

Based on experience: if you need standby power often enough to consider a PTO-driven generator you shouldn't. Get a good quality pad-mount standby, use a proper whole-house transfer switch, and rig the system to run on natural gas or propane. Stay away from those dinky 6-circuit boxes that come with some units (your life will be easier, trust me); you'll get a better overall install and be happier over time.

Save the tractor to be available for snow and debris removal.

Biggest problem I see in our installs in storm-prone midcontinent area is fuel management. Our little 12-KW Lincoln secondary standby uses about a gallon an hour at full output. Where are you going to store that much gasoline safely and prevent it from becoming stale over time? If you power is out, so is the service station down the road. If you find a station open, how much time will you allocate to standing in line, pay cash, and transport a sufficient quantity back to the house. I've seen fights break out in fuel lines. Bad place to be in times of stress.

I'm reluctant to offer specifics due to liability but a thought you may consider: gasoline mixed with various retail admixtures can be stored under pressure in an ASTM-rated pressure cylinder and remain 'good' for up to three years. That's the extent of my ongoing proving thus far. Pressurizing agent would be propane, never air. There are inherent life-safety hazards in this process and you should be aware of what you are doing. City dwellers might have a bit of a problem with fire/codes enforcement if discovered.

If not a hardwired pad-mount unit, get a capable name-brand engine-driven welding generator with sufficienct aux power to fit your needs. Get all you can afford and then buy more. You can't go wrong. And you can get your money back someday on resell if you choose. Rig it to run on propane either when bought new by OEM or aftermarket via conversion kit. Put it on a trailer and use a 20-pound bbq bottle to run it for chores.

When power drops use an AGA-approved quick-connect to hook it to existing larger propane tank set near transfer switch. You can even reload your small bottle yourself if inclined and if your large tank has a liquid outlet valve.

Very few installs we do in rural area have access to natgas. You can use conversion kits to run dual-fuel gasoline / natgas. Great source is CarbTurbo.Com.

Install a 50-amp 4-prong weatherproof-in-use receptacle at your whole-house transfer switch. Pull the welding tailer up to pole, flip the transfer switch, quick-connect fuel supply from large tank to welder, plug the double-male jumper into the machine then into the transfer switch, start machine, let warm up, flip transfer switch to aux position, go inside be happy.

Stock expendables for welder onsite at all times: oil and fuel filters (even if propane, especially if propane as is relatively dirty fuel), plugs, air filter, whatever you might need.

The longest we've been down was 17.5-days; twice in ten years 14-days. Multiple outages in winter icestorms, summer peak heat overload brownouts, spring wind and lightning storms and the occasional brushfire takes down lines. Fun times.

We've learned: a 45-KW Onan prime-rated propane with 1,200-gals as primary and a 12-KW Lincoln on gas/propane as secondary keeps us lit. And a WinPower PTO unit for field work and for third-tier standby if absolutely required.

Good luck, mi amigo.

 

[Kytim]

Stubbyie, That was a lot of quality info. Thx for posting.

 

[Stubbyie]

Considering the use of PTO generator head larger than your tractor can output. Your tractor PTO HP converted to KW times about 0.85 will be the most you can expect from your PTO genset at full load due to system 'inefficiencies'. This will vary but will be close enough for estimates.

You can never get more out than your tractor can put into the generator. By buying bigger at some extreme point the tractor can't turn the rotor efficiently enough to get any reasonable output after internal control requirements are satisfied---but this would be an order of magnitude larger than you'd normally consider.

A guess on my part based on experience: if you have the money you can probably mismatch the PTO to the tractor by a factor of two and be economical and efficient. If you start in the midrange (read larger tractor) you might use a factor approaching three times larger.

For smaller tractors, I think two times larger would be the reasonable upper limit.

Ask yourself if you want to spend the extra money for no benefit--unless the larger model has 4-poles thus lower RPM requirments, better bearings, 'better' mechanically overall.

If you can see a larger tractor inbound, then plan accordingly and increase the size you pay for now.

Unless you are going to be off-grid repeatedly for weeks, I don't think the accumulated engine run time on the tractor would be of any concern over the life of decent diesel engine.

Having said that, the tractor will see plenty of use in removing snow or storm debris or driving through trashed steets to the one store that has bread and milk or pulling less-well equipped idiots out of muddy ditches.

If you are going to be offline that much, you need a whole-house transfer switch and a 'real' standby genset (again taking into account fuel management--propane or natgas is the way to go).

Maintenance of one more small engine (less than ~ 25-hp; or large: my 45-KW is a 300-ci Ford 6-cyl) isn't that big a deal. Run it fifteen minutes a week---start it and go do something else (or set it up to auto-start and testrun). Change oil once a year. Just one more thing on the chore list along with all the other dozen engines on the place. On propane I haven't changed plugs in ten years.

Keep at least one full set of expendables available at all times. Inventory and keep one of EVERYTHING handy. Same for tractor powering PTO genset: oil, filters, belts, fuel filter, spare diesel--how much and how stored?

On auto-start: I don't like it. There have been cases post-tornado damage when the home genset kicked on, breakers didn't, wiring shorted due to water and structural damage, house burned. I like the control of flipping a switch. I set mine to auto-test in the off-season, but in storm season I flip to manual control for the duration.

A comment was made about the aux power being portable. I like my neighbors but I can't take care of all of them. If they're down and haven't planned (how to safely plug their home into your PTO genset?) then they can come visit for a few days and bring frozen food with them. We've stored as many as eleven at one time waiting for grid to come back. And served their defrosting food as part of the deal. I did rig a 50-A outlet on our transfer switch and have had one neighbor pull his RV up and plug in when power was down for a few days.

Continuing portability for field work: unless you're doing commercial-level work you'd be better off using a cheap throwaway gasoline genset in back of pickup for the occasional drill or saw away from the house. If you need a genset to power a welder, you need an engine powered welder, not a crackerbox. Although a small gas-engine genset will drive a small stick or wire welder for the rare job. Keep the tractor loose to be a support vehicle towing a trailer or for loader lifts or anything else not tied to a genset and an extension cord. To me otherwise is false economy of efficient use of available equipment.

My comments are based on experience and I tend to have definitive ideas. Comments are invited; I'm curious how others see the larger picture of "how to" involving possible application of PTO gensets.

Yours well powered,

/s/Stubb

 

[skeets]

Thanks guys some very interesting pros and cons, I never thought about having to shut down to plow snow...
While the 5kw unit works, the increasing inductance loads are the killers,, resistance loads not so much,, One reason I am still kicking this around is we do loose power up on the ridge maybe for a couple of hours during the summer a couple of times a month,, winter is another animal all together,, in 2010 we were with out power for 13 days and while the 5 kw served well enough, I had to be very careful about what and when things ran.
I found if I just leave the florescent lights on there was little draw but the inrush was a killer, though the T3's in the garage didn’t seem to effect it that much.
As always guys I can come here and get a grand over view to make an educated decision
Peace
Skeets