Yet another Harbor Freight thread; 15/16 Kw PTO generator

[Reg]

Any feedback on this SPECIFIC item ?

- Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

Most of what I have bought at harbor freight has been good/fair, or no worse than expected for the price paid (-:

My use for this would be to power 240 volt welding equipment, which typically appears as a short term high current load, not as the sum of a few light bulbs and small motors. It is unlikely that I would draw more than 10 Kw or that the draw would exceed 5 minutes at a time, so there would be time for cooling off between uses while I set up for more work, etc.
As a standby generator, maybe. My utility company has been very good at this address, but..... I doubt that I would draw more than 5 Kw as a standby.

 

[RWolf]

I've thought about it. Right know I'm generator heavy having three. One 3kw ONAN RV (needs to find a new home), one 4kw onan rv (moving that one to my horse trailer eventually) and a 5kw onan that we'll be using as a general purpose around the ranch.

 

[chh]

I never tried one of that brand, I have only used Generac's, but for that price you could nearly buy a new Linclon Ranger 10 welder.

 

[Skyco]

Where can one buy a new Lincoln Ranger of any size for near $1000? I want one! They seem to be 3x+ that price everywhere I've checked....

 

[Reg]

I never tried one of that brand, I have only used Generac's, but for that price you could nearly buy a new Linclon Ranger 10 welder.

Not these days.
The little 9 HP 5500 watt unit lists at about $2122.00, can be web ordered for ~$17xx.yy and wouldn't have enough AC to run my plasma cutter. BTW it has a 3600 RPM screaming little single cylinder engine.
Add at least another thousand to get to 10 Kw units.

A PTO unit can run a lot quieter a behind a 4 cylinder water cooled diesel and for low power use I can put the tractor in 1,000 RPM PTO gear and run the engine revs at 54% of full PTO revs.

Anyway, I guess my "concern" was on whether a welder as an electrical load {High and sudden} is in any way harder on generators than the typical domestic/farm load of light bulbs, TVs, furnace fans, small motors, etc all mixed together.
Clearly welder/generators can take it if they are designed for it, but is there any design/construction difference ?

The only down side I see is for anyone living in a hurricane zone the tractor might be tied up with tasks other than providing emergency power, more urgent tasks. Around here power outages are rare and it takes a very unusual storm to tie me up clearing snow with the tractor for more than 2 hours, so I think I'm OK on that count.

 

[Skyco]

That little 9hp unit isn't a Ranger, the cheapest Ranger lists for $3950

 

[chh]

OOPS Misquoted that one. Ranger 10's locally available(last fall) new for $2600 I remembered off by about a grand on that one.
Before I picked up the Ranger I used a PTO genset (a 20 kw and my current 40 kw) to run a small mig welder(only welder I had at that time). I could not tell that it pulled power from the genset any differently than any other electrical device. The biggest difference spec wise on the genset listed and one like the Generac's is the lower surge/starting cabablity. That one will surge up to 16000 watts where the 20 KW I had would surge to 25 KW and the 40 KW will surge 45 or 50 KW(I don't remember which). That said if the breakers on the genset are enough to handle the welders amp load I don't think it would have a problem on the welder. My mig spec'd to need a 25 amp breaker but the plugs were only 20 amp with a 50 amp 240 main. It tended to pop the breaker if you pushed it too hard.