Has anybody run a PTO generator with a Bolens G174?

[Rod in Forfar]

I just bought a BAUMALight 7.2 kw pto generator for use as backup power for the twin houses on the property. The main generator tractor will be the Kubota B7510 with its 540 rpm pto and tachometer. But the G174's the garage queen, spending its winters largely nestled beside the box stove in my shop. In extreme cold and a power outage, it'd be the one to start.

I'd assume I'd need to run it in 2nd pto gear (peaking at about 750 rpm) with the engine throttled back to about 2000 rpm to get the right voltage. This would reduce available horsepower (and fuel consumption), but might very well be enough for the job.

Has anybody tried it?

The reason I scoured the country for a used 7.2 kw instead of the larger models is that my generator panel takes only 30 amps and the power cord through several feet of concrete into the basement maxes out at 30 amps as well. Why go bigger?

 

[buickanddeere]

Bolens G174 Power:
Engine: 17 hp [12.7 kW]
Power Take-off (PTO):
Rear PTO: transmission
Rear RPMs: 472/752/1177
Engine RPMs: 472@2700
752@2700
1177@2700

It's a odd ball gray market tractor that will ruin electrical equipment is operated at any of the three rated pto rpms. You will have to obtain a "kilowat" meter, plug it in and derate rpms while in medium pto speed to 1940 crankshaft rpm.
Available engine power will drop from 17 to 12 flywheel HP. Losses in transmission etc will make out the max possible of 7KW alternator out.
Don't try trusting your ear or the factory dash tachometer to guess the rpms with either.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

Bolens G174 Power:
Engine: 17 hp [12.7 kW]
Power Take-off (PTO): 15 hp
Rear PTO: transmission
Rear RPMs: 472/752/1177
Engine RPMs: 472@2700
752@2700
1177@2700

It's a odd ball gray market tractor that will ruin electrical equipment is operated at any of the three rated pto rpms. You will have to obtain a "kilowat" meter, plug it in and derate rpms while in medium pto speed to 1940 crankshaft rpm.
Available engine power will drop from 17 to 12 flywheel HP. Losses in transmission etc will make out the max possible of 7KW alternator out.
Don't try trusting your ear or the factory dash tachometer to guess the rpms with either.

Buickanddeere:

Good to hear from you. We used to correspond a bit on Yesterday's Tractors a few years ago.

I have a Kilowatt meter ordered.

According to the online manual the 7.2 KW generator needs 11 PTO hp for full output and requires 5 hp for 50% output. I'm pretty sure the Bolens is not a gray market machine. At your suggested revolutions the tractor can run a 4' rotary mower without difficulty, or a 4' finish mower.

-------------------------

As I recall you know electricity. I have an unrelated question: My 5 KW Honda EM was making 125/250 and seemed quite loud the day it wouldn't start our 1/2 hp water pump on 240. Neither would it start the stair climber on 120 in my mother's wing of the house.

Lights would work, though they flickered, and a light 1/2" drill ran reasonably well.

My electrician friend had never seen anything like it. But then he's never seen anything I have cleaned the carburetor on before.

We eventually hooked up a 5 KW Coleman and everything ran fine.

The Honda dealer told me the generator's not worth fixing.

Opinion?

Thanks,

Rod

 

[Ilikeurtractor]

...Available engine power will drop from 17 to 12 flywheel HP.

How are you calculating the 12hp? IIRC, Rod's engine is the KE75. I'd love to see a power curve for this engine if anybody has one.

 

[Ilikeurtractor]

Rod,

What are your minimum power requirements? I'm assuming you just want to run a furnace, fridge, and a few lights at a minimum. You should be able to do this pretty easily with 3 kW. Your G174 should do this just fine. Like buickanddeere stated, pick up a meter (kill-a-watt or equivalent) and use the frequency setting to dial in your frequency - I believe you run 50 Hz where you are (?) I question the ability of the governors on these tractor engines to hold rpms well, but they should be good enough in an emergency. Let us know when you test it out :thumbsup:

 

[zzvyb6]

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.

 

[buickanddeere]

Rod,

What are your minimum power requirements? I'm assuming you just want to run a furnace, fridge, and a few lights at a minimum. You should be able to do this pretty easily with 3 kW. Your G174 should do this just fine. Like buickanddeere stated, pick up a meter (kill-a-watt or equivalent) and use the frequency setting to dial in your frequency - I believe you run 50 Hz where you are (?) I question the ability of the governors on these tractor engines to hold rpms well, but they should be good enough in an emergency. Let us know when you test it out :thumbsup:

Where do you think we live?

 

[buickanddeere]

Buickanddeere:

Good to hear from you. We used to correspond a bit on Yesterday's Tractors a few years ago.

I have a Kilowatt meter ordered.

According to the online manual the 7.2 KW generator needs 11 PTO hp for full output and requires 5 hp for 50% output. I'm pretty sure the Bolens is not a gray market machine. At your suggested revolutions the tractor can run a 4' rotary mower without difficulty, or a 4' finish mower.

-------------------------

As I recall you know electricity. I have an unrelated question: My 5 KW Honda EM was making 125/250 and seemed quite loud the day it wouldn't start our 1/2 hp water pump on 240. Neither would it start the stair climber on 120 in my mother's wing of the house.

Lights would work, though they flickered, and a light 1/2" drill ran reasonably well.

My electrician friend had never seen anything like it. But then he's never seen anything I have cleaned the carburetor on before.

We eventually hooked up a 5 KW Coleman and everything ran fine.

The Honda dealer told me the generator's not worth fixing.

Opinion?

Thanks,

Rod

Sorry my memory is embarrassing poor, in particular if I do 't see the person to attach the name to. It's caused all manner of blank spots to try and work around. If I seen a few old conversations I'm certain recall would occur.
Prior to Y2K generators sold for $1000 a KW. Now they sell for $100 per KW. Depending on the Honda's condition and fault. The plan may well be to wait for Canadian Tire or TSC to put those "Champion" units on sale again.
Just as a wild guess , the voltage regulator maybe failing ? Engine rpms are vital too.
iirc there is or was a well stocked shop on HWY 2 . East of Newcastle out towards newtonville . They carried of could obtain parts for any compact, sub compact tractor.

 

[Ilikeurtractor]

Where do you think we live?

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.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

Rod,

What are your minimum power requirements? I'm assuming you just want to run a furnace, fridge, and a few lights at a minimum. You should be able to do this pretty easily with 3 kW. Your G174 should do this just fine. Like buickanddeere stated, pick up a meter (kill-a-watt or equivalent) and use the frequency setting to dial in your frequency - I believe you run 50 Hz where you are (?) I question the ability of the governors on these tractor engines to hold rpms well, but they should be good enough in an emergency. Let us know when you test it out :thumbsup:

Up here in the Great White North we run 60 hz. The basic winter load is two forced air furnaces, a 1/2 hp water pump on 220, two fridges, one freezer, a 120 v stair climber and a few efficient lights. 20 amps 220 runs it well, so I plan to add a couple of circuits (living room and bedroom stuff) when we go to 30 amps with the new generator.

I have a Kill-a-Watt ordered. Today I spun the BAUMALight up with the Kutota and had 128 volts at PTO speed. I needed to ease it down to where things were quieter to get to 123 volts by my multimeter, about 2400 rpm instead of 2600.

 

[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.