Standby Power Generation the N Tractor

[grhuck]

Has anyone on here used there Ford N series for pulling a power take off generator for home/farm standby power backup?

I'm wondering how well it would pull a 10K AC gen @ the normal 115Volts/60Hz, for several hours at a time.

Any of y'all have any experience with that?

 

[duey]

Not my area of knowledge.... but it seems an INVERTER Generator would be the most likely candidate... Otherwise, the Hertz output is RPM sensitive and 'N' governors are notoriously lazy. Inverter generators are not RPM specific. My vote would be to find a good used conventional generator of a size to support your needs. There are a number of *other* considerations for adding Standby Power...

 

[Ultradog MN]

Good topic gehuck.
I have thought about those before.
I bid on one at an auction a couple of years ago. It was a 16 kw which my tractor could power. It sold for well above my pay grade but I still think about them now and then.
You might ask this on Tractor Talk or Tool Talk boards here on YT.
Much larger knowledge base and readership there. I for one would be interested in their replys.

 

[Bruce (VA)]

A close friend was raised on a tobacco farm in Brunswick Co VA. In the summer, they would use the tractor to pump water out of the farm pond to irrigate the tobacco. At night. As the youngest kid on the place, his job was to sit in the tractor seat all night watching the oil pressure and water temp gauges. Because it was cheaper to have the kid watch the gauges than to install cut-off switches for low oil pressure or overheating coolant.

The moral of the story is if you plan to use the tractor as a stationary engine, install the cut-off switches.
75 Tips

 

[grhuck]

(quoted from post at 13:26:42 05/13/21) A close friend was raised on a tobacco farm in Brunswick Co VA. In the summer, they would use the tractor to pump water out of the farm pond to irrigate the tobacco. At night. As the youngest kid on the place, his job was to sit in the tractor seat all night watching the oil pressure and water temp gauges. Because it was cheaper to have the kid watch the gauges than to install cut-off switches for low oil pressure or overheating coolant.

The moral of the story is if you plan to use the tractor as a stationary engine, install the cut-off switches.
75 Tips

My neighbor who used to dairy farm before turning his place into a golf course would use his old JD 4020 to pump water from the river into his his slurry pond on then into traveling irrigation rigs. They would do this all day and into the night sometimes, that 4020 down in that bottom all by itself and the old machine could easily be graded as rough.

I asked him once what would happed if the coolant hose ruptered or it lost oil pressure etc. He said, "it's a tractor and she will have died doin' what she loved". So, this, plus I'd rather rebuild another engine than to have another child.

The greenhouse in my area has a small late model John Deere probably 50hp. He pulls a generator with it in the spring for stuff in the hothouse and for standby power. It's a bigger tractor than an N of course and he pulls a bigger gen than I would but he says he sets the rpm for 540 pto speed and the volts and cycles fall right in place. I'm sure the gens now days have some built in load banking and trimming for the kind of engine governing you'd see on a row crop tractor. My goal would be to find a gen with that kind of ease of use but not too big for an N engine.

 

[Smokeonthewater]

Also keep in mind... while these generators may be fine for lights and fans, running modern appliances and electronics w them could cost ya dearly when the volts or hertz get out of whack... not to mention whether it's 'clean' or 'dirty' power

 

[zuhnc]

Any PTO generator will produce power indistinguishable from commercial power as to waveform. No "clean" or "dirty". As long as the frequency is within a range of 62-58Hz, and voltage is 120/240 +/- 10%, and is fairly steady, there will be no issues running any equipment.
Modern electronics use a switching power supply - converts whatever AC is incoming to the proper output voltage electronically, and doesn't really care about what the input source looks like.
As has been mentioned, the only issue is correct governing by the prime mover - generator output has to be kept between 58-62Hz, and the prime mover should take care of that, depending on load. The N's probably aren't a good choice for this application, unless your loads are stable; i.e, no motors turning on or off frequently, etc. Lighting doesn't care how stable the generator output is (unless you are over voltage by a good bit. zuhnc