PTO speed

[Rosohatica]

Hello,
I own a small Kubota 1402 tractor, which has three PTO gears: 540, 860, and 1000 RPM. The tractor itself has 3 slow and 3 fast gears for driving.
I use both a tiller and a mulcher with the tractor. Typically, when dealing with high grass, I run the tractor in the 3rd slow gear and set the mulcher to 540 RPM. If the grass isn't too tall or I'm making a second pass, I prefer to run the tractor in the 1st fast gear and set the mulcher to 860 RPM for quicker results.
Similarly, with the tiller, after plowing, I first go slow using the 1st slow gear for driving and 540 RPM at the PTO. For the second pass, I run the PTO at 860 RPM to smooth the soil.
Now, I'm considering upgrading to the Kubota EK1-261 (I know it's actually a Farmtrac 26), and I was shocked to see it only has a 540 PTO (it actually has two: 540 and 540 economic, whatever that means).
I want a slightly stronger tractor so I can mulch and till faster without overworking the engine. However, I'm concerned that if I drive the tractor too fast, the 540 RPM PTO might be too slow for the mulcher to cut the grass efficiently or for the tiller to smooth the soil properly. Should I be worried about only having a 540 PTO? I'd love to hear your opinions.
Best wishes, Rosohatica

 

[Russell King]

I see you are in Croatia so I a not familiar with what the implement ratings there are. In the USA most implements are rated for the 540 RPM input speed. The other speeds are not used here except on a very few implements.

I know that the implement is designed for a specific input speed and has a generous safety factor involved but I would never run an implement above its rating. Now I also know that you can select the higher PTO speed and reduce the engine speed to get the PTO speed back to 540 and some people do that for fuel economy.

I believe that is sort of what the 540 economic on the tractor is doing.

Most domestic tractors here in the USA only have one speed PTO but Kubota was designed for the Japanese market first so I think the other speeds are for other (Asian?) markets that had selected other PTO speed stanards.

If you have the implements that are designed for 540 input then you should not have any difficulty with them

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Hello,
I own a small Kubota 1402 tractor, which has three PTO gears: 540, 860, and 1000 RPM. The tractor itself has 3 slow and 3 fast gears for driving.
I use both a tiller and a mulcher with the tractor. Typically, when dealing with high grass, I run the tractor in the 3rd slow gear and set the mulcher to 540 RPM. If the grass isn't too tall or I'm making a second pass, I prefer to run the tractor in the 1st fast gear and set the mulcher to 860 RPM for quicker results.
Similarly, with the tiller, after plowing, I first go slow using the 1st slow gear for driving and 540 RPM at the PTO. For the second pass, I run the PTO at 860 RPM to smooth the soil.
Now, I'm considering upgrading to the Kubota EK1-261 (I know it's actually a Farmtrac 26), and I was shocked to see it only has a 540 PTO (it actually has two: 540 and 540 economic, whatever that means).
I want a slightly stronger tractor so I can mulch and till faster without overworking the engine. However, I'm concerned that if I drive the tractor too fast, the 540 RPM PTO might be too slow for the mulcher to cut the grass efficiently or for the tiller to smooth the soil properly. Should I be worried about only having a 540 PTO? I'd love to hear your opinions.
Best wishes, Rosohatica

You've been cheating the the way you do things.
Your implements are only rated at 540, when you run them at 860 you are over driving them, Unless you slow the engine down.
That can be hard on the equipment.

With a new tractor you will be going up in HP quite a bit and that will help with cutting and tilling.
Now one big change is newer tractors require you to run them at full RPM all the time when running a PTO driven implement, has to do with emissions systems.
That new tractor is equipped with 540 and 540 E so if you put it in E mode you will be able to lower the RPM's and still maintain 540 RPM output.
Now I don't recommend this, and do it at your own risk, but if you put it in 540E and run the same RPM's as when your not in E mode, you will be over driving the PTO.
Doing that will essentially be doing the same thing you've been doing.
I personally would keep it at 540 and sharpen the blades and do slower passes.

 

[Rosohatica]

Thanks Russell, that was informative and brought peace to my mind. I almost donsidered not buying a tractor because "low" PTO speed.

I see you are in Croatia so I a not familiar with what the implement ratings there are. In the USA most implements are rated for the 540 RPM input speed. The other speeds are not used here except on a very few implements.

I know that the implement is designed for a specific input speed and has a generous safety factor involved but I would never run an implement above its rating. Now I also know that you can select the higher PTO speed and reduce the engine speed to get the PTO speed back to 540 and some people do that for fuel economy.

I believe that is sort of what the 540 economic on the tractor is doing.

Most domestic tractors here in the USA only have one speed PTO but Kubota was designed for the Japanese market first so I think the other speeds are for other (Asian?) markets that had selected other PTO speed stanards.

If you have the implements that are designed for 540 input then you should not have any difficulty with them

 

[Rosohatica]

Thanks for the advice. Just two more questions that arose:
You said:
"Your implements are only rated at 540, when you run them at 860 you are over driving them, Unless you slow the engine down. That can be hard on the equipment."
What about being hard on tractor? Can tractor handle it? I have noticed when its too hard, black fumes go out. But I try avoid that of course.

You also said:" if you put it in 540E and run the same RPM's as when your not in E mode, you will be over driving the PTO."

So are you saying that in 540E mode, PTO won`t ever go below 540RPM but it can go above if you add some throttle?

You've been cheating the the way you do things.
Your implements are only rated at 540, when you run them at 860 you are over driving them, Unless you slow the engine down.
That can be hard on the equipment.

With a new tractor you will be going up in HP quite a bit and that will help with cutting and tilling.
Now one big change is newer tractors require you to run them at full RPM all the time when running a PTO driven implement, has to do with emissions systems.
That new tractor is equipped with 540 and 540 E so if you put it in E mode you will be able to lower the RPM's and still maintain 540 RPM output.
Now I don't recommend this, and do it at your own risk, but if you put it in 540E and run the same RPM's as when your not in E mode, you will be over driving the PTO.
Doing that will essentially be doing the same thing you've been doing.
I personally would keep it at 540 and sharpen the blades and do slower passes.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Thanks for the advice. Just two more questions that arose:
You said:
"Your implements are only rated at 540, when you run them at 860 you are over driving them, Unless you slow the engine down. That can be hard on the equipment."
What about being hard on tractor? Can tractor handle it? I have noticed when its too hard, black fumes go out. But I try avoid that of course.

You also said:" if you put it in 540E and run the same RPM's as when your not in E mode, you will be over driving the PTO."

So are you saying that in 540E mode, PTO won`t ever go below 540RPM but it can go above if you add some throttle?

Yes it's hard on the tractor too.
Black smoke is the engine being bogged down, and the Governor giving it more fuel to try and get the RPM's up.

Yes a tractor with 540E if you raise the RPM's up higher the PTO will spin faster, but if overtaxed it could lead to catastrophic failure.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

curious about 540 vs 540E and found the attached PDF, based in Europe,studied 3 tractors, various loads. Pretty good fuel savings as engine RPM is lower.
Agree that running 540 rated implements faster WILL add increase 'wear and tear', possible damage.
To 'fluff up', make 'finer' the gardens I just SLOW down the ground speed. YES it takes longer, but that's HOW the equipment was designed to be used. If the OP's goal is to get the jobs done quicker, he'll need MUCH bigger tractor and implements.