Power take-off

What is

it? So what you're hearing is a PTO-driven manure spreader, but it's not spreading manure.

Of course.

Of course.

But farming was the most dangerous profession in the United States for decades.

And I lost two of my cousins who have died, one in a PTO accident, one going up on top of a grain bin, got a pant leg caught in the drive shaft that ran the auger up into the top of the grain bin and kills them.

Yeah, it's no joke.

You got to give farmers a lot of credit.

It was called New Idea.

We got a flail manure spreader.

It ran off a PTO shaft and it moved the manure to the back and it would flail it.

And we bought a new one, but we got it shipped to us and we put it together ourselves in the garage.

It's a routine task, something he's done a thousand times before.

John connects the auger to a tractor using a PTO shaft, a short steel cylinder that transfers power from the tractor's engine.

When the engine's on, the shaft spins and the auger turns.

John starts the tractor's engine and the PTO shaft begins rotating rapidly, about 1,000 rotations per minute.

Ordinarily, PTO shafts are encased in a plastic safety shield, but times are hard on the Thompson's

farm.

It was a very tough life and we couldn't afford everything.

He yawns and scratches his chin.

And, um, you know, like thinking back of the show we did with Justin the other day, he told us that the Walker mowers have no belts.

The deck is, uh, Gear driven off a PTO shaft with shear pins to protect the gearboxes.

Guys, would you trust that over a belt driven deck long term? Greg, I had no idea that that type of walker mower had that.

I was basically clueless.

video of

it, though.

Oh, a PTO generator.

That's unique.

Um, there's a, there's some belts, um, you know, you've got the motor and then there's belts that run the drive.

Well, they run the blower and then yeah, it runs a PTO shaft that goes to the deck.

And then there, so there is a PTO, uh, shaft that's spinning gearboxes on the deck that spin the blades so that's how that works but so they can run a little smaller motor because it's all so compact and the debris takes a much shorter path and more direct path to the hopper on the back which actually works really really well the blower itself can be smaller um and it's it's in the mower so you're not sticking out the side of your deck and you don't have the big hose to deal with and all those things.

It really is, to me, an impressive system.

It does suck up leaves really, really well.

Right.

It's just all gear driven.

There's a PTO shaft spinning gearboxes and that's how it spins the blades.

It's governed, all right, to that speed.

And so the thing is that what happens is that on a steady-state engine of any type, whether it's a Briggs & Stratton or on a lawnmower, a Tecumseh on a snowblower or what have you, an engine on a seed tender, is that just like you'll have a PTO, you have PTO-operated equipment, and for the most part, most of them are designed to operate the most efficiently at 540 miles pto rpm so if you have a mower you have a anything that's designed to run will it run below 540 and above 540 yes but it's the most efficient at 540 rpm and the same thing happens with a steady state engine so what they actually do so let's use that ford engine as an example but what they'll actually do is they'll design the cam profile they may design on an older engine that's carbureted, they would design the carburetor, the CFM of the carburetor, the metering circuits of the carburetor, and they would design everything around having the optimum efficiency at a given RPM, whereas on a transient engine, you cannot do that.

So on a transient engine, you are going to try to get, as I said, so you can't have an optimized camshaft profile.

You can't have an optimized intake manifold design.

And then you end up with all these canes, and you run it through this mill.

Now, this mill is driven by a tractor, the PTO, but it used to be driven by a mule.

And he would walk in a circle like you'd see in these old movies of grinding grains for a grinding flour with the same principle.

And that's what they do.

Don't be telling secrets.

So I don't have that type.

I have a newer version that was probably in the early 1900s, which was hooked to a PTO of a tractor, and it does a wonderful job.

I'll probably do some videos of all of us coming over.