PTO Generator Question

[Sawyer Rob]

There is a reason why manufactures post specs.....

Yes there is!

And the specs on my pto generator says I can put a 30 pto hp tractor in front of it, hook it to my house and pull 15,000 watts continuous out of it... I tried it, it works perfectly!

Sounds good to me, glad I read the specs!

SR

 

[shooterdon]

This part is key! Each one of us has different requirements which means a different solution. I've been down the road with using a portable generator, and I've tried a tractor driven PTO gen, and I currently have a fixed whole house gen. Each one meets a different set of needs and will not work in all situations. There are pro's and con's to each one.

Exactly...regrettably most people think their solution is the best for everyone.

 

[LouNY]

I would only agree with you based on one condition-the average generator hookup to the house is 30 amps sometimes 50. If its 30 amps then your limited at 30 amps anyway which means limited to 7,200 watts for 12,000 watts on 50 amp hookups.

that also means if you only have 30 amp generator hookup to your home then any generator above 7500 watts is a waste.

This is from a master electrician when he explained to me why my 16kw generator only had a 70 amp hookup(which is 16,800 watts)

That has absolutely nothing to do with my answer.

And just for the **** of it this "farmer" grew up farming, worked part time farming most of my life and since I've retired has been farming again for 20 to 60 hours a week.

My main career focus was Industrial Instrumentation and Controls with a side of Electrician. I have been a Master Electrician as well as a Calibration technician.
Much of my work has involved 3 phase power from 480 volt thru 4160 volt and some 13,500 volt including the controls and controllers for syncing Mega Watt generators to each other and utilitys, generators that where powered by 600 rpm, 900 rpm natural gas engines and 25,000 rpm gas turbines.
So if your master electrician was a residential or commercial electrician I for one am not impressed.

Have a nice evening

 

[Industrial Toys]

I drove a good seven hours on the Provinces highways today. A lot of people sure have no issue throwing and I mean throwing their money away (with both hands) on RVs. Like someone said, To each his own. Half of them were parked in front of houses with FOR SALE signs on them!

 

[John_Mc]

I would say that every area and location has a different idea of what may be needed,
in my area depending on the season you may want your furnace or boiler to be up and running, get a power outage in sub zero tempertures sure don't want pipes freezing.
If you rely on a pump for water to drink, wash and flush that's another priority system.
Then depending how many freezers and such, it will all add up and in many cases those small units and extension cords don't cut it.

Under those conditions I would go full standby system with auto start and auto cut over and maybe 250 gallons of propane for fuel.....

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Dale

Not being a smart *** but if you have needs like that..... you need a permanent fixed genset with auto changeover.

Not really necessary to go with a permanent fixed genset. When we built our house here in VT, I had it wired with a plug on the exterior to connect a generator which backfeeds our electrical panel. We can choose which circuits are needed, and turn off the others by flipping the breakers in the distribution panel. We heat with a propane boiler for heat and hot water, but need electricity to run the control system and the circulation pumps. We also need to run the pump in our 500 ft deep well, a few lights, the fridge and freezer, the pump on our septic system, and a few other miscellaneous items. As needed, we'll fire up the microwave, or a burner on the stove. We got by just fine through a number of power outages, the longest being 6 days. All we had was a 4500 watt continuous (6600 watt surge) portable gas generator (which I had converted to run on either gasoline or from propane from our 500 gallon buried tank). The small generator sipped fuel, so we did not run through our propane (or gasoline) very quickly.

We couldn't run everything at once, so I left the well pump shut off until the pressure dropped or someone needed a shower. Before turning it on, I'd flip the circuit for the freezer and fridge off (calculations showed I only needed to shut off one of these, but I did both to be on the safe side). We did a similar juggle when we wanted to use a burner on the stove. We can heat the whole place to a comfortable temperature with just our wood stove, so that was our primary heat, but we easily had the juice to run the propane boiler if needed.

We weren't living in luxury, but we were comfortable, and could last indefinitely. If the propane got low, we could fill up gas cans, and run off of that while keeping the wood stove

When the old 4500 watt generator was hit by a lightning strike while out on a job, we upgraded to a 6500 watt continuous rated generator. That made for a bit less worry about what to shut off when we needed to run some other load, but we still run minimal electrical items during an outage.

 

[CobyRupert]

Not really necessary to go with a permanent fixed genset. When we built our house here in VT..

All we had was a 4500 watt continuous...

.......We weren't living in luxury, but we were comfortable, and could last indefinitely. If the propane got low, we could fill up gas cans, and run off of that while keeping the wood stove
.

Good god man! It’s like you have to have common sense! How do you even do that switching stuff? It seems soooo hard. And math! Ughh!
Aren’t you scared the wife might not get her toast for morning breakfast in the jacuzzi she keeps running all winter? You know how mad she might get if she doesn’t get her toast! You have to get a full house genset! There’s no other option!

 

[grsthegreat]

I have a general question for those that use tractor mounted generators. How do you maintain the htz and or voltage as loads come on and go off. For instance if the ac or heater come on and increase draw, how does this kind of generator adjust output? Is there some kind of electronic output control? Iv3 no experience with pto units.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Well it has an AVR, so voltage is kept at one level.

The Tractor Governor keeps the speed steady, as any other Generator would do. I'm also guessing that with the added inertia of the transmission and usually another flywheel in the generator, there is a good amount of MASS to overcome brief motor starting loads.




I built this monitor twenty five or so years ago to use with my PTO set, before DVMs had frequency functions. PTO set was rock solid, although the JD throttle had to be Maxed out.

 

[grsthegreat]

I have never figured out why, when the power goes out for some one, and they are on generator power, they have to run everything in their house?

I mean, can't you go without a hot tub or other "non essential" power robber, until the power comes back on??

SR

yes and no on this one. You may not think you need to run a jacuzzi, but we lose power up here in north idaho in winter at 5F, I want my hot tub heater to cycle. If you have ever seen a hot tub after 4 days of no power..... the thing is ruined. Not a good idea on a $5,000 hot tub. The tub heater takes 5,000 watts at 240 v.

 

[grsthegreat]

Well it has an AVR, so voltage is kept at one level.

The Tractor Governor keeps the speed steady, as any other Generator would do. I'm also guessing that with the added inertia of the transmission and usually another flywheel in the generator, there is a good amount of MASS to overcome brief motor starting loads.

Thanks for the response. Ive always wondered how they compensated for varying load shifts.

 

[RalphVa]

I've a 12.5 kw "whole house" generator that runs pretty much the whole house excluding swimming pool and big heat pump through some magic load shedding on the circuit breaker box. From my electric bill, I figured out that my average usage is only about 2-3 kw (closer to 2). So, it sits there genning out only those average 2-3 kw but is good for up to near full capacity if needed. I've really never heard it laboring during a power failure, and the fuel consumption follows the fuel consumption curve for the 2-3 kw, e.g. very low (about 0.23-0.3 gph).

Commissioned it in early 2013.

Ralph

 

[Industrial Toys]

My Onan 15K unit did have some weird "Field Boost" clockwork timer switch. I never did know what it was for, but since I still have a copy of the manual, I am a little curious. MAYBE, in a chicken barn, you might need extra starting current for a whole bunch of ventilation fans, yet you don't want to allow the possibility of overloading your set continuously.

 

[CobyRupert]

I've a 12.5 kw "whole house" generator that runs pretty much the whole house excluding swimming pool and big heat pump through some magic load shedding on the circuit breaker box. From my electric bill, I figured out that my average usage is only about 2-3 kw (closer to 2). So, it sits there genning out only those average 2-3 kw but is good for up to near full capacity if needed. I've really never heard it laboring during a power failure, and the fuel consumption follows the fuel consumption curve for the 2-3 kw, e.g. very low (about 0.23-0.3 gph).

Commissioned it in early 2013.

Ralph

Don't be insulted, but I think average (total kW-hrs divided by total hrs) is poor way to size, or estimate the kW load the genny will see. Typically, if you're not retired, you might sleep 8 hours a day, and be at work another 10. Basically use a whole bunch of loads in a short timespan, then use very few loads other parts of day.
One really needs to size the genny on the peak load (and/or starting loads) it will see and the duration.
Depending on the time of year, and user, the load profile typically spikes in the morning, dips in day, then peaks in late afternoon or evening. Peak to valley might be 3:1, 5:1, 10:1, etc... Hard to say.

 

[TerryR]

Coby,
Your post sent me looking at the electric power usage feature our power company offers. I had hoped it offered hourly usage but it doesn't, just daily. So couldn't see directly the effect you describe, but do see some interesting data around the times we were gone on vacation. We are retired, so are in or around the house much of the day. Our heat is propane, and we have no air conditioning, so our usage isn't much effected by temperature, though you would expect the lighting load would increase during the darker days of winter. Here's what I found:


You can clearly see our long weekend away in mid-April, our 12-day vacation in mid-May, and a shorter trip in mid-Jul. The data in May is pretty dirty because of so many estimated days that week, but it's clear we have a base load of about half our normal usage. I'm surprised it is that high. We have two frigs and a freezer, so that's probably most of it. And we had someone in during our week plus trip to feed the cat, so she ran lights and water (pump) some. But that means our "variable" load isn't all that great, on average.

 

[CobyRupert]

Coby,
Your post sent me looking at the electric power usage feature our power company offers. I had hoped it offered hourly usage but it doesn't, just daily. So couldn't see directly the effect you describe, but do see some interesting data around the times we were gone on vacation. We are retired, so are in or around the house much of the day. Our heat is propane, and we have no air conditioning, so our usage isn't much effected by temperature, though you would expect the lighting load would increase during the darker days of winter. Here's what I found:

You can clearly see our long weekend away in mid-April, our 12-day vacation in mid-May, and a shorter trip in mid-Jul. The data in May is pretty dirty because of so many estimated days that week, but it's clear we have a base load of about half our normal usage. I'm surprised it is that high. We have two frigs and a freezer, so that's probably most of it. And we had someone in during our week plus trip to feed the cat, so she ran lights and water (pump) some. But that means our "variable" load isn't all that great, on average.

That shows your total energy use on a given day, but what the genny cares about (trips off on) is the power demanded any given second (milli-second actually).
For example, on the largest energy day, it may have been a 10 amp load that ran for 24 hours, whereas on the lowest energy use day you might have a 100 amp load that only ran for 1 hour.
You would need a 100 amp generator.

You really need to add up the loads that will run at any given time to size the genny.
How long they run for determines the fuel use ($) and generates the graph. :2cents:

 

[John_Mc]

And when you want PTO generator most... Sorry neighbor (or wife) the tractor is tied up keeping the house warm, and I cant help you get your big (DODGE/FORD/CHEVY- or little HONDA) pickup (car) out of ditch where it slid into on miserable slushy/icy road...

Dale

In my house, the conversation would be, "Sorry family. We're going to disconnect the power for an hour so I can [go plow the driveway / go pull the neighbor out]". We don't have a PTO generator. We run our house off a portable generator during power outages. My family already knows to expect that if a neighbor needs the generator for a bit to save the food in their freezer, fire up their heating systems for a bit, etc., then we'll be shutting down for a bit to help them out. We can easily go a few hours without in order to help someone with a real need in an extended outage.

 

[John_Mc]

yes and no on this one. You may not think you need to run a jacuzzi, but we lose power up here in north idaho in winter at 5F, I want my hot tub heater to cycle. If you have ever seen a hot tub after 4 days of no power..... the thing is ruined. Not a good idea on a $5,000 hot tub. The tub heater takes 5,000 watts at 240 v.

Nothing says you have to cycle the hot tub at the same time you are cooking dinner. I don't have a hot tub, but if I did, I'd either shut off other loads for a bit so I could cycle the heater, or if it were an extended outage, I'd just drain the thing.

But then I tend to be a minimalist during a power outage. We're comfortable. We protect the house from damage, but we don't plan on just carrying on with life as usual. In a weird way, our family enjoys the challenge. We sometimes don;t bother to start the generator, just to see how we can get by. We don't tend to do this when it's -20˚F out (but we could if we wanted to).

 

[crazyal]

Seams like for those who worry about running their tractor all night long or not having it to do other tasks a Tesla Powerwall would be a good option. From what (little) I understand it takes about 3 1/2 hours to charge up the smaller one from 2kw. Obviously if you have a high demand you probably would drain the battery down too fast to make it worthwhile.

 

[TerryR]

That shows your total energy use on a given day, but what the genny cares about (trips off on) is the power demanded any given second (milli-second actually).

Of course. Do you think I'm stupid?

I said it didn't display what you were describing, but I found it interesting that we apparently have a base load when no one is home equal to half our normal daily usage. That says we have some decent sized loads that run automatically all day. So if I were sizing a generator I'd want to identify those loads and consider the possibility they would all want to run at once. Maybe even start at the same time.

 

[grsthegreat]

Seams like for those who worry about running their tractor all night long or not having it to do other tasks a Tesla Powerwall would be a good option. From what (little) I understand it takes about 3 1/2 hours to charge up the smaller one from 2kw. Obviously if you have a high demand you probably would drain the battery down too fast to make it worthwhile.

Ask Walmart what they think about tesla solar systems....i see 7 of their stores have caught fire from them. Walmart sues Tesla over solar panel fires at seven stores