crazyal
Super Member
Are you actually putting hyd 'work' hours on you system, with it running a stationary pto load?
Free? Hardly. The dini oil I run in mine costs more that your synthetic.
If I run off my 7610s, that's 3 5g pails of oil , plus a filter, not counting air, eng oil filter, and 3g engine oil.
Running a tractor is an expense. Don't want the expense? Time to sell the tractor
Back to the hyd oil wearing out when parked.
I dont count stationary hours as straight hours on the Hyds. Even on a hst, they should only be just circulating.
Sure my tractor can power a PTO generator but before I go that direction I weigh the total cost. Your tractor, just like mine, will wear out, it's just a matter of when. What that means is sooner or later you will have to do a costly rebuild or replacement. Sure you could try to estimate how many hours you worked the transmission hard and how many were idling but since I don't know how the mfg, in this case Kubota, determined the longevity of the oil? Did they assume that every hour would be working the HST hard or did they assume that a percentage of the time was going to be using the just the PTO? I'm not sure so I'll stay on the recommended schedule. I'm not saying I wouldn't use a PTO generator but before I would invest in one I would do the math for my situation.
I would also look the fact that my cheap little Generac with a Honda on it has ran without fault for 20 years. At my age I may only have 25 more years before I'm not going to be living here and dealing with power outage problems. That means I would like to get 25 more years out of my tractor so being selective as to what I use it for makes sense. A portable generator for my needs, as long as it's not a low quality one, should outlive me. But noise is also a factor and has value. Small gas engines tend to make a lot. If you want to move up to a nice quiet Honda generator you will pay a lot more. In fact I have seen stand alone Kubota powered diesel generator for not much more than a high end Honda.
Just like when I decided I wanted hst over gear. It's not a fear of wearing something out. It's balancing all my needs/ tasks vs cost of the equipment I want and the cost of servicing/ consumables vs longevity.
Of course then there's the used market. I have seen a few nice PTO generators on Craig's list, a little too far away to make it worthwhile so far. But unlike a gas powered one I would feel very confident buying a used good brand PTO generator. Like has been said the bearings are about the only thing that could go and they aren't hard to change or expensive.
