PTO generator who has one??

[Grrrr]

Our neighbours have a PTO Generator for power backup for the farm.

They need electricity all the time to run the farm, chicken house heaters and milking parlour.

But the problem with using it as a standby power source was that you have to have a noisy tractor spinning it at high revs all the time you want power. If it is just for a few hours it is fine, but, if like them you needed it going 24/7, the noise got old quickly.

But, if you can live with the noise, the are good. We dread having to try to sleep with a 60HP tractor thrumming away all night 40' away from us

 

[noe]

I have the 13kw from NT, very good unit. run it with a bx2200, the best tool in my garage,
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78855&d=1181646831

 

[_RaT_]

Seems the Eastern part of the US has more problems with electrical outages. I think ours has been out once and that was from a car taking out a power pole. We so rarely loose power that a generator is unncessary for most of us.

 

[atgreene]

I have a 16 k pto generator to run my garage and house. My Kubota 4150 runs it with no problem and we run A/C's during the summer months or circulator pumps for heat as well as lights in the winter months. I shut off the main and back feed through the welder cord in the barn.

I do have to pay attention to what we load when it's going. It will run a 1600 watt toaster oven, washer, water pump, lights, gas dryer and microwave, all at once, ask my wife .

About 3 times per year I'll loose power for long term and have to run it for 8-24 hours. The tractor is out by the barn, so noise is not much of an issue. I figure between 1/4-1/2 gallon per hour to run it depending upon load.

A couple advantages:
I almost always have a tractor handy to run it
Any tractor can run it
It runs efficently
It is larger than most gas models

Disadvantages:
Ties up the tractor during bad weather (use my excavator to clean-up if needed)
The tractor has to be unhitched from any implement it is connected to (always in bad weather, btw)
My wife cannot hook it up herself

At some point, I plan to find another tractor or carcas that I can leave attached to it and perhaps go to the 25 k model. All I need is the engine and pto, so any "junk" tractor would be fine.

 

[Bill Barrett]

Great post, I'm going to go this route.
Shimon, what kind of instrument/meter is that you have on your system? Very nice!

 

[16valex]

"""I just check the frequency once in a while and sometimes need to bring it up or down a couple of Hz. """"

Hey Shimon, that is a nice setup you've got there. How do adjust the frequency? Do you mean by adjusting the RPM of the engine the frequency changes? All this is new to me so I need to learn as much as I can.

 

[hench861]

yes new york has a lot of outages,bought and installed 10kw nat gas standby

 

[Soundguy]

Ditto what RAT said. the northern 7800w genny will probbaly be as much as a bx wants, and to still have a hp reserve.

I have a northern 12.5kw genny.. it works good.

Soundguy

 

[billbill1]

I have a Coleman gas powered 8hp. It's very noisy and uses lots of fuel. Probably a gallon per hour and the tank is 1-1/2 gallon. It work in a pinch and keeps us in lights and heat. I would prefer a pto unit, it would save on fuel, my tractor uses about 3 quarts of diesel at pto rpm [er hour. The tractor alway starts (so far) and a small gas engine that has sat for long can give up trouble starting. My 2 cents.

 

[atgreene]

I spoke too soon . Lost power last night about 7 pm, ran the old girl till 5 am.

Maybe someone can guide me here, under certain circumstances, the pto gen won't power the well pump (3/4 hp). Last night we lost water, went down and lifted the lever to bring the pressure up and it kept cutting out (internal circuit breaker?).

Went out and checked the gen, meter was reading 230 v or so, so I idled back a hair and it seemed to be fine. Not sure if an a/c was running and caused the pump to kick out or my adjustment fixed it. I know that hz? must be off slightly, as my UPS for the 'puter won't work when powered by the gen, it detects a voltage/hz problem so we don't use it while on gen. All the other electronics are fine, and my outlets read 110-120 depending on load. How do I check hz and where do I get a meter if that's what I need?