Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire PTO Generator?

Anyone have one?

I have a 7500W gas portable that runs most everything but I have to shed loads to run the water heater and A/C.

My tractor will run a 12K that should run everything but there is a wide spread in price that I'm leery about.

Got a 30k.

It was much cheaper than buying a generator with an engine.

I already had the engine in the tractor, so it was a no-brainer for me.

Built the frame myself. Runs very smooth.

How big is your tractor??

My blender will pull 12kw!

Not an electrician or expert

But I read on the internet

U need clean inverter power for sensitive electronics

You don't want to just run the tractor PTO up to 540 and start powering stuff up.

Mine has a Hertz meter on it, and you run it at 60htz, and power up everything and make sure it's running at 60htz under load. My electrician said everything will be fine, especially since I have a full power system surge protector.

Small. 24hp at the PTO.

I think my 27.5kw requires 30 pto.


Seems like yours should be good for more than 12.

I got a Hobart welding machine/generator with that horsepower. It runs 12kw very well, up to like 50amps.

It's protected power as well, unlike the similar Lincoln.

Yep.

They don't power the grid with Honda inverters!

2 horsepower per kw. is the rule of thumb

When the wheels fall off my old case I plan on dragging it close to the house and using it to run a PTO genny.

Or the big green POS to run a million KW genny and sell it back to the power company.

Judging by your welding projects...you should spend more time learning to weld and less time generating electricity.

LOL.

That's what my cousin who made a career of pipeline welding inspection says!

May not be purty, but it holds...

Maybe 15, but thats pushing it. catdoctor's 2hp per hp is the general rule.

I think that because as some guys mentioned you don't want big stuff coming on at the same like the water heater, A/C and well pump dragging the tractor under 540.

I look at one years ago but not worth it due to the cost of fuel.

The cost of fuel is cheap when you have freezers full of meat and an unhappy wife that can't shower because the well won't work.

They are not meant to power your house off the grid. Just temporarily.

rlott;
Good afternoon or I see it's evening where you're at, I hope the day was good to you and you're well.

For one of our Y2K projects I bought a fairly small generator unit at a local electric motor repair and sales place. A gold mine up the mountain west of here had ordered it in for powering something, then hadn't picked it up, so it held the "OPEN" sign in the window for years until I made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

When we had the generator unit, I had a buddy cobble up a frame to house it and a drive shaft with two pillow blocks on either end that runs the generator.

Since diesel stores much longer than gas and we've already got a small tractor with a 3 speed PTO it made sense to use it instead of fighting with small gas engines and then never having much more than 5 or 10 gallons of gas kicking around the place.

To get the correct rpm I borrowed an rpm gauge from a different buddy and then figured out which PTO speed resulted from the little diesel humming at just over half throttle. My best calculation is that the fuel consumption should be under a liter an hour running the generator, but that's never been tested over that length of time. We then took that sweet spot rpm on the output shaft and installed pulleys on the shaft and generator which resulted in close to the correct rpm.

As mentioned by other posters one needs to measure the output Hz and I want to say I've got a frequency gauge on there too. I'll look when I wander out to the shop next time, but I know we installed two gauges to ensure the output current wouldn't fry the electric motors in the fridges and deep freeze that I most want to run.

Hopefully that made some sense and was useful.

All the best in your project whichever way you decide.

Dwayne

Rockinbbar, when you run your 30k pto gennie do you have a hold down, outriggers, or chain braces to keep it from flipping from a sudden change of load? I don’t see anything in the pic that would keep it from flipping.

Be prepared for huge fuel cost

Don't listen to them pipeline guys.

If the fit up ain't perfect, or there is paint grease or rust, or if the helper hasn't prepped it...or if it's not a circle...they ain't worth a shìt!