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Generator & Food Truck Power Requirements

This guide helps you calculate the power (watts) required to run a Spaceman soft serve machine on a food truck or mobile generator. It can generally be ignored for “shore” or building power supplied by a utility.

How to size your generator

To calculate the power supply a machine needs, use the LRA (Locked Rotor Amperage) of the primary compressor in the cooling system. Realistically, other demands (drive motors, an auxiliary compressor, etc.) either won’t run at the same instant as the primary compressor or are too small to matter. The primary compressor is by far the largest demand and is what you size for.

When an electric motor starts from a stop, it briefly pulls far more power to get the rotor spinning — that’s the LRA. Once up to speed it draws much less (the RLA, Running Load Amps). Running draw varies with load but is much lower overall, so it should not be the basis for this calculation.

The formula: multiply the voltage rating by the LRA to get required watts. Most generators are rated in watts (e.g., a 10,000W generator), so that’s what we compare against.

Voltage × LRA = Required Watts

Example 1 — Model 6250A-C

Voltage rating: 220V
Primary compressor LRA: 55 A

220V × 55 = 12,100 W

A 15,000W generator is recommended, leaving room for overhead. A 12,000W generator would not safely run this application.

Example 2 — Model 6210-C

Voltage rating: 110V
Compressor LRA: 33 A

110V × 33 = 3,630 W

A 5,000W generator — or two 2,000W generators run in parallel — will run this application safely.

Per-model LRA

LRA and generator requirements vary by model. For exact figures on your machine, see the Spaceman Knowledge Base or talk to a Howdy Brewer specialist before specifying a generator.

Reference guide adapted from Spaceman USA documentation.