What About A Tractor PTO Powered Pellet Mill?

One of the many questions we receive about pellet mills is the option of a pellet press run from the PTO of a tractor. If you do some research on the internet you will come across many pictures of small Chinese flat die pellet mills been run from a PTO. However this situation is by no means ideal, and ultimately the costs of operation are very expensive. First it is easy to see why this is so appealing, as for many people it is a source of power they already own. It may also appear as the ideal way to make the pellet mill mobile. Finally for many people they see it is as the cheaper option as they do not then need to purchase a motor for the pellet machine. However there are significant obstacles to this approach. First the tractor can only power a pellet mill, so unless you already have material milled and dried you cannot use the pellet mill for your raw material. In the past we have seen setups with a hammer mill on the back of one tractor and a pellet mill on the back of the other. To put it simple the cost to run these two machines for the productivity of pellets they produce is very expensive. This is still the case with a single tractor powering a single pellet mill. Even if you have the perfect pellet mill prepared the amount of fuel needed to power the press makes the costs of production very high indeed. There are several other negatives such as the fact that you do not really have that much control over the speed of the mill. If you lower the speed of the PTO you will loose torque and you will quite easily stall the tractor. Many people do not appreciate how much power is required to compress materials through a die. There is also the issue of safety. If you have seen pictures of the Chinese equipment there is no guards at all. Unlike most other PTO equipment, you spend a lot of time very close to the rotating shaft while feeding the pellet mill. Putting all these issues together a PTO pellet mill is not something we recommend or provide. To learn more about the whole process of making pellets with our five free guides please click the link below.

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