Talk to me about gensets !

Hesston4860s

Member
Location
Nr Lincoln
Know nothing about em other than electric comes out of em !.
But it looks like it’s going to be the only route to getting electric in my yard, now I’ve found one I like the look off 30kva 3 phase Cummins engine Stamford alternator fancy digital display thing that does everything apparently. Now looking on the makers website it says it’ll use 6.7 ltr hr at full load which I suppose is fair enough, but what can I expect it to use realistically as it won’t be at full load all the time if ever Surely.
like I say I know nowt about em.

thanks
 

Mur Huwcun

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North West Wales
Not 100% sure but think you need to size your genny to match your loading as running them ‘light’ as per say won’t do them much good. Also if it’s a three phase one you will need to balance the phases as regard to single phase loading.
 

Hesston4860s

Member
Location
Nr Lincoln
Not 100% sure but think you need to size your genny to match your loading as running them ‘light’ as per say won’t do them much good. Also if it’s a three phase one you will need to balance the phases as regard to single phase loading.

It is 3 phase as well as single phase, I only need the 3 phase to run welders and a compressor which my mate does happily of a 20kva.
however you never know what ya might get in the future.
 

Drillman

Member
Mixed Farmer
We have 80kva to run drier. It’s also set up so we can run farm off it in case of a power cut.

When running farm we have to have every light switched on, electric fires on, shed lights on, and normally fire washing machine an tumble drier up in an attempt to put enough load on it to stop the engine hunting.
 

Hesston4860s

Member
Location
Nr Lincoln
We have 80kva to run drier. It’s also set up so we can run farm off it in case of a power cut.

When running farm we have to have every light switched on, electric fires on, shed lights on, and normally fire washing machine an tumble drier up in an attempt to put enough load on it to stop the engine hunting.

so are we thinking 30kva is to much for me ?. I only want to run a 3 phase 350amp welder a few lights grinders and sometimes a 3 phase compressor oh and not forgetting the radio.

what I don’t want is to go to big now and use all the diesel in Lincolnshire, but I also don’t want to small and then have to swap it in a year.
 
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so are we thinking 30kva is to much for me ?. I only want to run a 3 phase 350amp welder a few lights grinders and sometimes a 3 phase compressor oh and not forgetting the radio.

what I don’t want is to go to big now and use all the diesel in Lincolnshire, but I also don’t what to small and then have to swap it in a year.

To be fair, a 15kva would be more than enough for you.

They are best off being worked fairly hard otherwise you get glazed bores etc
 

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
bugger !
really liked the looks of this one as it’s got all the stuff on it I wanted in really nice condition and not the other side the planet to fetch it.

Get it bought if it's the right price. Very many hedgecutter tractors (for example) will do very high hours without much of a sweat with little drama.

Believe me, being underpowered on a genny causes many more problems than being overpowered.

We have a Perkins phaser powered 95kva that runs our grading line. The same job used to be done by a 20kva with a 36000hr 3cyl iveco engine, and a 30kva on the PTO of our 3075. Both gave bother in the electrics, not the engines. Bigger one murmurs a bit when it first starts up, but that's it. Same genny also runs a borehole in summer.
If an implement needs 100hp, what do you put on it, given the choice, 105 or 125hp? Exactly.
 

wdah/him

Member
Location
tyrone
when I was working at an engineering place the generator was serviced and then it was put through a loading test or something to, made the engine work, it never stuggled anyother time think it was 45 or 65 for driving a press brake, and welders, just 1 welder at a time.
 

Hesston4860s

Member
Location
Nr Lincoln
Bit of an update.
I haven’t been and bought a generator, but someone has most kindly lent me on an unlimited time basis a PTO driven generator. Now couple of questions if anyone knows anything about em, it has 3 lights on it orange=underspeed green=correct speed and red=over speed. Now I’ve had it running and for the life of me I can’t get it on green, it appears that half a rev and goes from orange to red !.
I can get it so the red is just dim and it runs my grinder fine, it just flashes back to orange then back to dim red on switching the grinder on. Is this ok or does it need looking at ?.
 
What tractor are you running it on, 540 or 1000 speed not all tractors keep a steady pto speed. Independent or dual clutch ?
Had a pto generator years ago 20 kva NJ Froment run by a Massey 135 ran up to speed and you wanted the light steady and not flashing ,if the load increased governors opened up to keep the speed steady ran well. Once a neighbour put their 956 Turbo on it no problem, dry clutch steady drive.
A friend had a pto generator tried to run it on a Massey 398 possibly 1000 pto to save diesel but it wouldn't run steady up and down, put it onto their Massey 165 it was perfect. The reckoning was the dry clutch pto on the 165 and my 135 had a more constant speed than the oil pto or independent as it was called then on the 398 which varied a lot more. It was the tractor not the generator.
 

Hesston4860s

Member
Location
Nr Lincoln
What tractor are you running it on, 540 or 1000 speed not all tractors keep a steady pto speed. Independent or dual clutch ?
Had a pto generator years ago 20 kva NJ Froment run by a Massey 135 ran up to speed and you wanted the light steady and not flashing ,if the load increased governors opened up to keep the speed steady ran well. Once a neighbour put their 956 Turbo on it no problem, dry clutch steady drive.
A friend had a pto generator tried to run it on a Massey 398 possibly 1000 pto to save diesel but it wouldn't run steady up and down, put it onto their Massey 165 it was perfect. The reckoning was the dry clutch pto on the 165 and my 135 had a more constant speed than the oil pto or independent as it was called then on the 398 which varied a lot more. It was the tractor not the generator.

Running it on my JD 3050 as it’s the smallest tractor I have, currently tried it in 1000 pto @ 1300 rpm to save fuel.
 

Andy Nash

Member
Arable Farmer
It won’t matter what type of pto clutch you have because if you had any slippage it would burnout in seconds on heavy load.
It is all down to how closely the governor in the fuel pump can control the engine speed and running in 1000 speed makes it even more critical.
I have a 20 kva Froment too and I only have 1 tractor that can keep the orange light steady in varying loads.
 

quattro

Member
Location
scotland
I’ve a 165kva and have used it in a remote area just use a 9in grinder and it never sounds any different than running the dryer once it’s up to speed
 
Tractor governors are generally not tight enough. The governor on a generator engine is set with very little droop which means it reacts very quickly to engine speed changes .
Tractor engines have more droop therefore as you add load you have to adjust the throttle lever to compensate .
The reason for this is a generator governor fitted in a tractor would make the throttle response too abrupt and make the tractor impossible to drive smoothly.
Some of the newer tractors may have a pto mode which would help I have no idea.
Basically a proper generator will be better especially on uneven loads
 

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