PTO Generator

[newbury]

I have a 10K Winco that I have never used

That's my situation. Bought a 10K Winco very lightly used ~ 2012, tested it twice, never had to use it.
Sits in my shed ready to hook up. Probably needs flashing.
I think of it as a $600 insurance policy.

 

[bdhsfz6]

That's my situation. Bought a 10K Winco very lightly used ~ 2012, tested it twice, never had to use it.
Sits in my shed ready to hook up. Probably needs flashing.
I think of it as a $600 insurance policy.

Same here. I bought a Baumalight 12K PTO generator in 2004, shortly after a 7 day outage caused by hurricane Ivan. Except to test, I haven't used it once in 20 years. It was indeed an insurance policy.

We get frequent outages here, but none last more than a few hours. For those, I use my small 2K Honda portable for lights, fridge & furnace. I would only hook up the PTO for longer outages when well, oven & A/C are needed.

The climate is changing here though. More storms and more frequent outages. As I get older, the thought of hooking up that PTO genny gets more daunting. I may replace it with a larger model with it's own electric start engine.

 

[John0829]

The best insurance you can by is a generator, right after we moved to where we are now it seemed like the power was off almost a much as it was on. So we bought a portable that I mounted in a garden trailer to make it easy to move out of the separate garage to the house, after we got the generator we seldom had an outage.

We never considered a PTO generator simply because the tractor was needed for other things plus it liked gas a lot more than the little air cooled engine did.

The longest we ever had to use the portable (when it paid for itself) was after an ice storm when power was out for 9 days, it took us 4 days to clear the road to get out. We had heat, water and could fix meals as long as we managed what was on at any one time. Two years ago we agreed it was getting to be a problem moving the generator when it was needed so we had a whole house Generac installed. It has run about 3 or 4 times for outages, the longest being about 3 hours. It was sure nice to have the AC and everything working normally with no effort on my part. The biggest benefit is I do not have to worry should the power go off while I am gone and she is home alone, best money ever spent IMHO.

 

[newbury]

The biggest benefit is I do not have to worry should the power go off while I am gone and she is home alone, best money ever spent IMHO.

That's why I bought generators to begin with. Power would go out, wife would go around lighting candles. I was concerned she'd burn down the house.

 

[Sonny580]

I didnt get one cause they will destroy a tractor motor runnin that kind of load!! Its a dead load and motor never gets a rest always runnin against the governor . mowing/plowing/etc. they vary the load and its not 24/7 same dead load. Cousin destroyed his 560 motor twice with his pto generator a few years ago.
Cant beat the little engine powered ones that are built for that use. I have 6 of them if ever needed and they use WAY less gas that tractors do!
Again personal pref. and everybody has their own ideas!

 

[Too many Kubotas]

The best insurance you can by is a generator, right after we moved to where we are now it seemed like the power was off almost a much as it was on. So we bought a portable that I mounted in a garden trailer to make it easy to move out of the separate garage to the house, after we got the generator we seldom had an outage.

That sounds familiar. And sure enough, after getting the standby generator the power had failed a lot less often.

No I'll have to try getting the little portable generator running after having ignored it for some six years. Need to do a bit of welding beyond what I have extension cables for.

Or finish welding up the mount and take the PTO generator off of its pallet, but then it'd no longer be unused.

 

[Topzide]

For higher amp inlet loads, they make Cam-Loc connectors. They go on the cable ends and make boxes that they twist into. Color keyed ends. Used them in staging and sound production.

 

[John0829]

I'll have to try getting the little portable generator running after having ignored it for some six years. Need to do a bit of welding beyond what I have extension cables for.

That is why I still have the portable, it handy having it trailer mounted so I can take it to places out of reach of normal power access.

Which this reminds me I should start it since it has been at least a year, probably closer to two.

 

[TerryR]

We bought a tri-fueled generator 27 years ago when we built our house and fueled it off our 1000 gal propane tank. We promptly had an outage that lasted several days, but since then it only ran a few hours at a time once or twice a year. Even with a tender the battery was more likely than not to be dead when needed because I never exercised it. Hand cranking it was a pain, and my wife would never have been able to get it going even when the electric start worked.

A couple of years ago we installed a fully automatic system. Well worth the money, and now we always know when it's 10:00 am on Saturday.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

Even with a tender the battery was more likely than not to be dead when needed because I never exercised it.

That's two separate issues.

With something like a Harbor Freight "battery tender" I could see that happening, but not with something legit.

 

[steve tym]

My problem with my PTO generator was, if I wasn't home, I could never walk the wife thru how to hook it up and use it. Last time i used it, my wife asked "why can't we have a real generator?" I said ten thousand dollars.
We've installed a 22 kW diesel, it was more like 30 grand by the time I was done.

 

[John0829]

A couple of years ago we installed a fully automatic system. Well worth the money, and now we always know when it's 10:00 am on Saturday.

I know, ours is every other Wednesday at 1:30 pm... speaking of which I should be hearing it in a few hours.

Some of the best money (insurance) ever spent for keeping SWMBO happy and me from worrying. Our 24kw is wired so every building still has power when it runs, just as if the commercial power was still on.

 

[RjCorazza]

My problem with my PTO generator was, if I wasn't home, I could never walk the wife thru how to hook it up and use it. Last time i used it, my wife asked "why can't we have a real generator?" I said ten thousand dollars.
We've installed a 22 kW diesel, it was more like 30 grand by the time I was done.

That is the one issue I have with my PTO generator set up. My wife is otherwise very capable and independent, but she refuses to learn how to operate the tractor or mowers.
Fortunately I am retired, so I'm always available to hook it up.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I didnt get one cause they will destroy a tractor motor runnin that kind of load!! Its a dead load and motor never gets a rest always runnin against the governor . mowing/plowing/etc. they vary the load and its not 24/7 same dead load. Cousin destroyed his 560 motor twice with his pto generator a few years ago.
Cant beat the little engine powered ones that are built for that use. I have 6 of them if ever needed and they use WAY less gas that tractors do!
Again personal pref. and everybody has their own ideas!

The only reason a pto generator would make a tractor run against the governor is, if you are running too SMALL of a tractor for the generator load hooked to it! That's the same with ANY engine hooked to a generator! Sizing a tractor that's too small is called operator error!

BTW, as things turn on and off in a house, the load changes and the engine/governor changes the load on the engine.

And, I don't run my pto generator with a gas engine tractor, my work tractor is diesel powered.

SR

 

[4570Man]

I didnt get one cause they will destroy a tractor motor runnin that kind of load!! Its a dead load and motor never gets a rest always runnin against the governor . mowing/plowing/etc. they vary the load and its not 24/7 same dead load. Cousin destroyed his 560 motor twice with his pto generator a few years ago.
Cant beat the little engine powered ones that are built for that use. I have 6 of them if ever needed and they use WAY less gas that tractors do!
Again personal pref. and everybody has their own ideas!

Engines actually last longer running like that vs more typical engine use. Maybe your cousin overloaded the engine or maybe it was unrelated circumstances. Engines on constant load constant rpm duties will last a long time. Reefer trailer engines will last 30,000-40,000 hours. Try to find the same engine in a tractor with that many hours. BTW pretty much any generator that a regular person could readily afford isn’t “designed” for anything special. They’re buying off the shelf engines and mounting them into generators.

 

[CalG]

Engines actually last longer running like that vs more typical engine use. Maybe your cousin overloaded the engine or maybe it was unrelated circumstances. Engines on constant load constant rpm duties will last a long time. Reefer trailer engines will last 30,000-40,000 hours. Try to find the same engine in a tractor with that many hours. BTW pretty much any generator that a regular person could readily afford isn’t “designed” for anything special. They’re buying off the shelf engines and mounting them into generators.

Of course, a home generator for backup sees anything BUT constant load/

A Generator only puts out what the load demands, not a single amp more!
So if the genny is lighting a bulb in the bath, and keeping the fridge cold, it's a 1/2 kw generator, no matter what it's peak output might be.

 

[LouNY]

I didnt get one cause they will destroy a tractor motor runnin that kind of load!! Its a dead load and motor never gets a rest always runnin against the governor . mowing/plowing/etc. they vary the load and its not 24/7 same dead load. Cousin destroyed his 560 motor twice with his pto generator a few years ago.
Cant beat the little engine powered ones that are built for that use. I have 6 of them if ever needed and they use WAY less gas that tractors do!
Again personal pref. and everybody has their own ideas!

I find that very difficult to believe, the Farmall 560 on the farm saw considerable time on a generator with absolutely no issues. The tractor governor is always active maintain the rpm the hand throttle was set for. The 560 was rated for almost 60 hp on the pto a 25 kw generator would be a piece of cake for I a 35 kw under a full load would be a bit much for a stock 560, however most of the 560's when rebuilt got built to 706 or even 806 specs.
The governors function is to hold the engine rpm steady as the loads vary, the input to the governor is the throttle which directs the governor to the desired rpm, on a gas engine as the load changes the governor will vary the carburetor butterfly to vary the output hp.

 

[Sonny580]

Believe what you want. I know what happened to cousins 560 and the IH dealer shop said that was the cause of the motor failure. Dead load and they cant hack it. Also saw a MM 705 blow up on a pto grain drier! Same deal dead load!

 

[Too many Kubotas]

I thought there were a lot of diesels running constant loads, like generators, in locomotives, boats, and many other applications.

 

[CalG]

I believe what these past few comments are pointing out is....

"Correlation is not causation."

So much to consider... When will it all stop!??