Has anybody run a PTO generator with a Bolens G174?

[Ilikeurtractor]

You should be ok. Under the rare instance everything decides to "cycle on" at the same time you might be in trouble. My 100,000 BTU furnace here takes 2000 W to start and around 800 W to run which is primarily the power required by the two fans. I'd monitor the 1/2 hp water pump on startup and run to see what it actually uses on average and keep it in mind. Some manual load balancing may be required. I have a 4.5kW backup generator that runs on natural gas. If I ever need to use it I need to make sure other people in the house are aware the microwave will draw almost half of that. I use TED devices to monitor line power, both from the power company and on the gen set when in use. I think the kill-a-watts are only good for about 15A at 120VAC - at least the cheap ones.

I wouldn't worry too much about voltage, that's the job of the regulator and it will normally come down a fair amount under loading. Frequency will be your bigger concern in my opinion.

 

[buickanddeere]

Rod's description says Canada and I thought an electrical guy I work with said Canada was on 50 Hz when the subject came up a few weeks ago but I just googled it and it does appear to be 60 Hz.

Used to be 25Hz until a few years ago to supply MG sets at the Hamilton Steel mills from Sir Adam Beck hydro electric plant.

 

[Ilikeurtractor]

Interesting. The guy I work with was discussing "the grid" and how we are tied into Canada. He thought Canada was using 50 Hz (or somebody thought they did) and I asked how we can share the grid with the differing frequencies. He said they convert everything to DC and then back to the appropriate AC frequency using inverter technology - on a large scale obviously. The guy I was talking to is originally from Bulgaria so maybe he was thinking of some other countries sharing different frequencied power. At any rate, I don't know if this is how it would be done or not but it all sounded grand. I left it at that...

 

[buickanddeere]

Ahhhhh.......That explains much.!he was from "Bull"garia

 

[Rod in Forfar]

I wouldn't worry too much about voltage, that's the job of the regulator and it will normally come down a fair amount under loading. Frequency will be your bigger concern in my opinion.

My electrician buddy said the voltage would come down under load, but he hadn't figured on the Kubota's governor. With little load we observed a neat 123 volts, but when the furnace and water pump came on together, the output went up to 128 volts.*

* On 220 it was double that, or 256.

When the loads ended, it subsided to 123V again. The Kill-A-Watt will arrive this week and I'll be able to check frequency then.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

When the Kill-a-Watt arrived I tried it on the Bolens. At about 2/3 throttle (no tach) the G174 spun the BAUMALight up to 120v but the voltage dropped back to 108 under a 12 amp (120v) load. I adjusted the throttle to 128v and then it behaved itself, but according to the Kill-a-Watt the frequency had crept up to 64 hertz. Is that safe?

 

[DarkBlack]

Heck, I run my 50KW Winpower off of my lawn mower equipped with a reduction geared PTO stub shaft. 22 HP F-035 does a fine job at reduced rpm. I use the Kill-A-Watt for frequency and voltage monitoring.

Are you sure that's 50KW? You should hope it never develops a hard short on the secondary. With nothing but the pto shaft and a small center tow attachment, that generator could rip right out of that and barrel roll across your lawn.

 

[Ilikeurtractor]

When the Kill-a-Watt arrived I tried it on the Bolens. At about 2/3 throttle (no tach) the G174 spun the BAUMALight up to 120v but the voltage dropped back to 108 under a 12 amp (120v) load. I adjusted the throttle to 128v and then it behaved itself, but according to the Kill-a-Watt the frequency had crept up to 64 hertz. Is that safe?

Is it safe from a personal protection standpoint? I'd say yes. Not sure about from an electronics standpoint. I'd like to see the results of this test:

- Set the frequency to 60 Hz under no load. Load the generator to 12 amps (since that is handy for you evidently). See what the new frequency is. This gives a sense of how well the governor responds to loads. Note the voltages also.

Of course, it is hard to have much control over voltage or governor response but it's good to know what to expect from these tractors.