Using max pto HP?

[Utopia Texas]

All the tractors I own will not allow the operator to run the engine at 100% so any damage is near impossible. My new NH T4.75 at its highest rpm's will not even get the tach. Into the yellow range much less the red range so even running the engine for extended periods of time at WOT would not harm the engine in my opinion.

 

[dieselcrawler]

Interesting thread. My little JD 3005, rated at 27 hp, 24 @ pto, has spent much of its nearly 200 hours at WOT, turning a 5' brush hog, while I try to clean up our overgrown fields. It often boggs down, I drop down a gear to an even slower than a snail pace, and it picks back up to normal WOT rpm, just over 540 pto. Judging by this, I am guessing that I am running at the limits of what the lil thing can do, max power. Seems to handle it just fine... I even want to add a turbo, and expect that to up the power, and proportionally shorten engine life, as well as the drive train. I'll do it anyway!

 

[SPYDERLK]

The baler probably requires more hp than you have to offer. Most balers in that size range require 40 pto hp to operate efficiently, so with only 32 pto hp available.........To answer the question though, running it for 8 hours at 2600 rpm should not be a problem.

OP stated that he is only doing the bales up to 4' dia. I agree that 40HP is probably necessary to continue up to the 5' limit of the baler, but since bale packing only becomes intense as the baler nears its limit he should have enuf power to go the 4' dia.

Our L3450, 30hp pto, drives a 4x4 baler to its limit, producing a good hard bale.
larry

 

[IndyIan]

How do you know you were running at max power? Remember that max rpm is not necessarily "max power output".

The tractor would start to drop rpms when going up a hill at full speed, like heading towards a stall so I assume the injector pump is WO then. I just ran in low range, which is 3.5 mph at pto rpm. Eventually as the bale got much over 4' I didn't have much hp left to move the tractor at a decent clip on any uphill slope, before the motor would start to bog out. I did do one bale at nearly 5' but that was coming down a hill to finish it.
Amazingly the flip switch pto engagement worked fine, starting the baler smartly but smoothly.
Doing 4' ones I did 8 in 2 hours, which isn't fast, but the baler is a manual tie that you need to get off tractor for, so its good kioti trusts that you know what you're doing and doesn't have a seat shut off switch.
My buddy with a proper size tractor who owns the baler makes about 4 5' bales an hour so its not a speedy process.

 

[joeu235]

My only experience running diesel engines at close to 100% rated capacity for long periods of time was in the Navy. As long the proper warm-up and cool down procedures were followed, they could run for days at a time and last decades.

I however wouldn't want to run any of my equipment at 100% power for very long. Maybe that's because I have to pay the repair bills now.

 

[Jerry/MT]

The tractor would start to drop rpms when going up a hill at full speed, like heading towards a stall so I assume the injector pump is WO then. I just ran in low range, which is 3.5 mph at pto rpm. Eventually as the bale got much over 4' I didn't have much hp left to move the tractor at a decent clip on any uphill slope, before the motor would start to bog out. I did do one bale at nearly 5' but that was coming down a hill to finish it.
Amazingly the flip switch pto engagement worked fine, starting the baler smartly but smoothly.
Doing 4' ones I did 8 in 2 hours, which isn't fast, but the baler is a manual tie that you need to get off tractor for, so its good kioti trusts that you know what you're doing and doesn't have a seat shut off switch.
My buddy with a proper size tractor who owns the baler makes about 4 5' bales an hour so its not a speedy process.

And your throttle lever was in the max power position?

 

[SPYDERLK]

And your throttle lever was in the max power position?

What does this mean?

 

[IndyIan]

And your throttle lever was in the max power position?

I set the throttle at pto speed 2550 rpm, I didn't want to overspeed the baler. Peak hp is at ~2600 I believe on my tractor anyways. It will go up to 2900 but I rarely run it there, only once trying to outrun a lightning storm on the road!
You do realize that the governor will open up the injector pump to max power at any rpm you pick, based on the load?
Technically it would be harder on the motor to run it as hard as you could at idle speed, than at pto speed, even though the motor would be making far less hp.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

The way "I" check to see if I'm using MAX power is, when I'm going along with the tractor loaded, I push the foot throttle to the floor and see if the motor speeds up. If it does, you aren't using MAX power....yet! If the speed stays the same, then you have the tractor MAXed out...

SR