PTO-Driven Generator

[DK35vince]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( What I recall was that several people thought that using these tractors to run a generator was not necessarily a good idea. The opinion was that the engines are not designed to sit and run for hours at a constant RPM and constant load. They are designed to work on jobs where the load is varying and therefore the governor is frequently changing throttle setting. I think it was something about hot spots developing in the engine? The suggestion was that it would be smarter to buy a motor-generator set. )</font>

Their opinion maybe, certainly not mine.
This is exactly the type of work diesel engines are designed for. My opinion...

 

[EastTexFrank]

Soundguy, thanks for the info. I was looking at the exact same generator that you have. I was a bit worried about how clean the power was because of its method of voltage regulation and it's lack of a frequency meter but from what you have said that isn't too much of a concern. I was going to use it with my B2400 that has 18 PTO hp so I reckoned I would get about 9 kW out of it. That should be 'way more than enough for occasional use on the house and leaves me the option of using it with a slightly bigger tractor ... are you listening Santa.

One thing, in your opinion would the 50 amp, 240v outlet be able to power a stick welder even though it's not capable of producing the full 12kW, as in my case. As an afterthought, that would probably depend on what amperage I'm welding with so it would probably be OK for what I do.

 

[EastTexFrank]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( <font color="blue"> It seems strange to me that these engines would not stand up under this kind of use </font> )</font>

Seems really strange to me too. So what kind of engine and governor did they suggest to use instead? I always thought that this was the kind of work that diesels were made for. Whoops, sorry. According to another thread that should read, "The kind of work for which diesels were made".

 

[Cheyenne]

You're correct. Diesel engines are at their best with constant RPM and relatively constant load. And they perform best (read, most efficiently) when running at the RPM where maximum torque is produced.

 

[Soundguy]

Look at diesel powered welders.. like the miller D series.. and 'big' series.. all 'wide open' governor sets.. and diesel engines... powering a gen head.. go figure...



To the poster asking about a stick welder.. I imagine that will be limited by the amperage that you want to weld at.. etc.

Remember we are talking input amperage here.. not output amperage specifically.. etc. ( My 110v 70a campbell hausfield stick welder runs fine on my pto gen.. makes the tractor governor kick in quite rappidly too!).

Soundguy