3-Point Hitch PTO Generator arrived today

[Jcoon]

I will NEVER have natural gas available to me where I live, and even if it was available, coal is cheaper for me to heat with.

 

[cdaigle430]

Thats why I said I am lucky to have the option of the PTO generator. I always have backup plans. Not trying to push Generac one only showing my reasons for choosing it over the PTO generator. Also the cool thing about a NG generator is you can easily hookup a propane tank to it.

 

[Ford850]

Was seriously interested in upgrading my emergency power capability and this thread gave me reason to enquire so, I sent an email to IMD and asked. This is the response I got.

Ron,******
*************** Thank you for your interest in our products.
*
We generally recommend that you have 2 PTO horsepower for every 1 KW. So you would not be able to fully compensate for the power draw of our 10KW. You could pull about 7 KW out of any PTO generator but you could run into the issue pulling more than your tractor could handle. This could cause a drop in Hz and offset your voltage output. So it is possible to run but there is risk involved.
*
Best regards,
*
Shane Huffman
Plant Manager
IMD LLC
Tel.: 864.968.0858 Ext:14
Fax: 864.968.0878
IMD llc | highest quality products for your business

Pretty much confirms what I had previously discovered. Settles the issue. My Ford 1210 only has 13.5 PTO horse power. Not sufficient to safely power a 10k generator. Guess I'll stick with my Onan 4500 and be satisfied with it till the power comes back on.

This I know. This is the last all electric home I will own and although this is not my first experience with a heat pump, it will be my last. Of course, this depends on where I relocate to once my other half retires. Looking like MS or maybe southern TN. I'm hoping for S. TN. My next home will be natural gas or propane.

Rams

Whoa. You are looking at this entirely wrong. This is what you meant to say: "Pretty much confirms what I had previously discovered. Settles the issue. My Ford 1210 only has 13.5 PTO horse power. Not sufficient to safely power a 10k generator. Guess I'll need to start shopping for a larger tractor".

 

[cdaigle430]

Let痴 just hope you don稚 loose natural gas during the power outage, my point being there not 100% fail safe.

So far so good. I was fortunate because August 2016 I put bids out to replace my 50 year old number 2 oil hot water furnace with another. Just before I made my decisions I found work crews running pipes on my road. I live in the country and never expected to get NG lines run on my road. It wasnt slated for residential use at first, it was an asphalt company who ordered it not 5 miles from my home. I went back to bidding after I did some homework and found the best option for heating was NG so the bid was on for NG instead of number 2. The NG company ran it to my house for free and I was the first person in my town to get NG

I saved so much money on the Buderus NG furnace with 4 zones I had 3k left over and also bought the generator(only had to come up with another 2.5k). Everything went smooth as silk.

It was explained to my the sub\hub stations will never lose power because the generators are on NG as well.

 

[Jcoon]

Is there ever a chance of the lines in the ground breaking? Or there being a shortage to your house because of high demand?

I live in the adirondacks in the park, there will never be NG here, not enough people.

 

[cdaigle430]

Is there ever a chance of the lines in the ground breaking? Or there being a shortage to your house because of high demand?

I live in the adirondacks in the park, there will never be NG here, not enough people.

For high demand-not on my road, so far Im the only residential customer with NG. The lines run across a state park to an asphalt\rock quarry. I also have the option of city sewer and water if needed but I have my own septic and water source. Our NG comes from Nova Scotia Canada so I am helping out the Canadians. If I ever ran into a problem I can quickly hookup propane tanks as my furnace and Generator are designed for both.
I live in between a State Park, a Golf Course and corn fields.

 

[GC1710]

Another implement/accessory for GC1710! Hard to keep track of your adventures, this tractor seems like it really turned your life around! Seriously, I don't know anything about PTO generators and I have a question or two. What RPM does the generator spin at, 1800? I can understand using it in the woods to power a welder or other equipment but I知 not sure about home backup power during an extended outage of say a couple of days. Is your tractor going to like running at 2600RPM or so continuously? If you have the throttle set for 540 PTO RPM to achieve 60Hz generator output under no load and your heat pump kicks in, will the tractor engine slow down enough to drop the generator frequency too low? Almost seems like it would need a governor?

Wow this discussion really took off...sorry you had to get the wrath of how diesel engines run forever (they are a great engine). As others have said I don't worry about running diesel engines for extended periods (Marine Diesels get the crap kicked out of them, tractor diesels have it easy). I have lived in Indiana most of my life and maybe once had the power out for 6 hours....I figure maybe twice in the next 5 years I might need it for our home, I'm fine with running the tractor as needed for those occurrences. What I'm really excited about is the ability to run electric power off grid....say in the woods....weld on my boat lift at the dock....fix something that otherwise would need towed....those are the key uses this PTO generator will see. I had a little disposable income I wanted to spend on the tractor and it was either a hydraulic winch or a PTO generator....PTO generator won out. As for people who invest in a stand-alone home generator, a great system if you have the funds, however maintenance still must be done or paid to be done, and since I may have a power outage once every 3 years...that doesn't make sense for me. My tractor is always working because it does so much for me at any given chore, when the power does go out in an emergency I don't have to worry about an engine turning a generator...my tractor will be running.

 

[GC1710]

I have run my pto generator almost non-stop for long periods of time, several years ago it ran for ten days almost non-stop. I'd shut off the generator once a day to take the tractor to the fuel tank and then back it up reconnect and go again. That was using my Oliver 1550 that had several thousands of hours on it, I even went so far as to mark the oil dipstick with a running full mark. Now I normally use my Branson 8050 on it, this tractor has an economy 540 gear that lets me have pto speed at 1750 engine rpm, I have used my IH 574 on it using the 1000 rpm pto at half throttle, it works for night loads , lighting, oil furnace and water well pump during the day when the load varies so much more it has trouble holding steady enough so I take it back to the 540 shaft and more rpm. Now with less people and loads some nights I shut down for 4 hours or so and then restart for an hour but that's mainly for fuel conservation ($$$$) then any other reason. Of course I am considering a small low rpm diesel gen-set also.

This makes me want to go to an auction and pick up an old workhorse tractor just to have as an extra tool....no reason and no explanation to give the wife....maybe I need a farm!

 

[LouNY]

This makes me want to go to an auction and pick up an old workhorse tractor just to have as an extra tool....no reason and no explanation to give the wife....maybe I need a farm!

Works for me, hard to have too many :thumbsup:

 

[grsthegreat]

i would never have an issue with leaving diesel tractor engines run for extended periods of time. I have 3 point mounted log splitter and have used those for 14 years without issues. ive used tractor mounted generators in the past and there great pieces of equipment. i wanted to get one for my tractor for working on my 30 acres, but in reality i usually have something else mounted on 3 point at the time. instead i opted for placing my portable in the bucket and running it out to the work area.

for my house i also opted for propane powered generac. i wanted my wife to have power if im out of town without any issues. she doesnt have to do a thing. no mater what source of backup power you have the fuel is always an issue. the last wind storm in our area left us 5 days without power. i had to cycle the generator to conserve fuel. our neighbors gas generator ran out of fuel and the gas stations in town couldnt pump fuel as they had no power. he had to drive 24 miles into larger town for fuel. i changed my propane tank to 1,000 gal buried tank after this storm

i only have 55 gal reserve of diesel on hand at any time. i only have maybe 10 gal of standard ethanol free on hand. both of those have shelf life issues. propane doesnt.

i do keep an eye out for a nice used pto generator and a used pto cement mixer on craigslist. would like both. but not in a hurry.

heck, i like to procrastinate on everything. I just finally tossed both of my old glass tube tv's last weekend and opted to get 2 new 40" flat screen smart tv's. im slow to change. good thing i waited though, as i got the tv's for $250 each for 1080 dpi sets. a few years ago they would have been WAY more.