My new Sprayer, Quite proud of my build

[jfield676]

Thought my ideas might be helpful to those who are looking for an acreage sprayer. The only help was the local Hutts that did the welding for me. (screwed that up in my new garage-no power for welder..)Wanted to show off my new sprayer I built this spring, we built a new acreage and I wanted a sprayer that I could spray 2 products from, roundup along driveway, and around trees, and just weed spray on grass. I did not want to spend time cleaning it out in-between chemicals, since I work overseas a month at a time I my time at home is precious. So I designed and built one for my 2032R tractor. It has 2 33gal tanks, with 2 RV pumps, 2 sets of nozzles on the boom (1 set from each pump), breakaways, 3-section control (manual) pressure adjust, electric actuators (cylinders to raise wings) and also 1 handgun that comes from each tank, agitation (return from pressure relief/adjust) and the control panel that is within reach while sitting on tractor. I have a on/off wired in where the cable passes to the battery, and the battery has a permanent connection with a 2 prong plug so it is easy to plug and unplug when I hook it up. ...

 

[Leejohn]

Well you should be very proud, nice!!!!!!

 

[murphy1244]

That's very impressive.

 

[denm74]

looks like you put a lot of time into the sprayer, nice job :thumbsup:

 

[boggen]

welcome to the forums! awesome craftsmanship there! i can tell you took a lot of time putting it all together! below is some issues that have came up for me over the years that required me to fix stuff.

be easy on it, when going over rough terrain that will cause things to vibrate. the pvc hard plastic fittings and valves, will more likely want to crack/bust on you. *been there done that* add in some pipe hangers to securely attach your manifolds (valves and fittings) to your boards, should reduce chance of some sort of premature cracking/breaking of the hard plastic fittings. if you need to replace fittings down the line, go with metal fittings.

you may have issues with the ball valves sticking rather good, and hard to open/close and to adjust. there is a lot of the cheap ball valves that are just plain hard to open/close more so once a little bit of grit / grim gets in around them and or from simple temperature (cold as in fall/spring, to summer and things just swell up). if you need to replace them down the line, go with a metal gas valve, that ya turn 1/4 for fully open to fully closed via a single metal handle.

in the mean time you can create a "cheater bar" per say for the ball valve handles. find yourself 2" 2.5" or 3" fitting that you can notch out to slide over the handles. and then use some reducers to goto say a 3/4" pipe with a T, and a couple short pieces of pipe out the T to form a handle. this gives you a bit more leverage and a bigger handle to turn the valves with. just be careful not to over torque the cheater bar handle and bust off the handles on the ball valves this way. when i say notch out, take a dremal, and just grind in some "groves" into end of the the 2",2.5, or 3" fitting. ((you are more likely to bust ball valve handles with a large pair of channel locks due to not fitting very snugly and generally only able to grab hold of one side of handle vs this cheater bar make shift handle))

come winter, and it is time to drain stuff, so nothing freezes and causes cracking/bursting of fittings and hoses. pay extra attention to the 2 pumps. hard to follow all the hoses, but it looks like you might have a possible spot that will not drain completely of liquid on either side of both pumps. could care less about the hoses, but rather the pump and hard plastic fittings and making sure there is no liquid in them. the hoses should be able to take some freezing without cracking/splitting. if you can find a couple spots, T off and install some quick connects for an air compressor quick connect. were you can just simply attach hose from air compressor, and blow everything out. you may need one on each side of the pumps. (hard to follow your hoses), due to pump acting like a closed valve when not on.

if you don't i would advise adding in some micron filters between pumps and tanks. it doesn't take much to clog up a boom nozzle to cause it to plug up completely or start squirting a completely different pattern. the hand guns easy enough to reach over and re-adjust nozzle to clean them. but boom nozzles not so much nor the pumps. they make some cheaper inline barb filters. cut the hose some place slip the filters in, add a couple pipe clamps and your done.

if you can find some light weight metal or hard plastic extensions that will fit hand gun nozzle, recommend approx 3' to 5' length for the hand guns. with quick easy undo of them. so you can spray right down to were you want the spray or even seat on tractor and do some spot spraying without having to get off of tractor *ya i am lazy, but it works* it gets you away from pee'ing your chemicals away (almost solid stream), vs being able to set hand gun nozzle to more of a mist. and getting a much better coverage.

for large project spraying, tend to have a second person helping me. one driving other one walking and spot spraying. it is nice to have enough hose to let it purposely drag on the ground behind the tractor/sprayer. i think i have TWO 10 or 12 foot length of extra hose i can add in for the hand gun. ((re did ends of the hoses to accept a generic cheap garden hose ends)), on/off tractor or simply having to make a large turn to re position, it gets old just for a couple extra feet to get around something sprayed. the whole getting off tractor and walking around some helps a lot (flower beds, shrubs, hitting both sides of a LP / propane tank, and just letting tractor set there)

i ended up with "much larger" loops for coiling the hoses for hand gun back up. makes for quicker undo -> spray -> re coil -> move to next spot -> repeat. trying to mess with small coiling up of hoses = a nightmare and constantly fighting the twists in the hose. you have 2 large tanks (use them) add a few pointy things (4 total) on each corner of tank, if it was a square shape box. and let the hose for hand guns lay inside the 4 pointy things. or hang off the side *using clean out holes* to hold hoses or something. a piece of wire or some velcro strips come in handy to making sure hoses do not unravel and fall off while doing other things. ok maybe not best idea but you have a huge amount of room between your "booms" and rear tires of tractor. use that space up to hang hose for the hand guns with nice large coil of hose. vs what looks like a fist full of tightly wound hose for the hand guns.

 

[JD3520Cab]

Very nice! Now design one for the back of a 4-Wheeler so I can copy it!

 

[MAX28HST]

That looks very nice! Great design / build!

 

[jfield676]

welcome to the forums! awesome craftsmanship there! i can tell you took a lot of time putting it all together! below is some issues that have came up for me over the years that required me to fix stuff.

be easy on it, when going over rough terrain that will cause things to vibrate. the pvc hard plastic fittings and valves, will more likely want to crack/bust on you. *been there done that* add in some pipe hangers to securely attach your manifolds (valves and fittings) to your boards, should reduce chance of some sort of premature cracking/breaking of the hard plastic fittings. if you need to replace fittings down the line, go with metal fittings.

you may have issues with the ball valves sticking rather good, and hard to open/close and to adjust. there is a lot of the cheap ball valves that are just plain hard to open/close more so once a little bit of grit / grim gets in around them and or from simple temperature (cold as in fall/spring, to summer and things just swell up). if you need to replace them down the line, go with a metal gas valve, that ya turn 1/4 for fully open to fully closed via a single metal handle.

in the mean time you can create a "cheater bar" per say for the ball valve handles. find yourself 2" 2.5" or 3" fitting that you can notch out to slide over the handles. and then use some reducers to goto say a 3/4" pipe with a T, and a couple short pieces of pipe out the T to form a handle. this gives you a bit more leverage and a bigger handle to turn the valves with. just be careful not to over torque the cheater bar handle and bust off the handles on the ball valves this way. when i say notch out, take a dremal, and just grind in some "groves" into end of the the 2",2.5, or 3" fitting. ((you are more likely to bust ball valve handles with a large pair of channel locks due to not fitting very snugly and generally only able to grab hold of one side of handle vs this cheater bar make shift handle))

come winter, and it is time to drain stuff, so nothing freezes and causes cracking/bursting of fittings and hoses. pay extra attention to the 2 pumps. hard to follow all the hoses, but it looks like you might have a possible spot that will not drain completely of liquid on either side of both pumps. could care less about the hoses, but rather the pump and hard plastic fittings and making sure there is no liquid in them. the hoses should be able to take some freezing without cracking/splitting. if you can find a couple spots, T off and install some quick connects for an air compressor quick connect. were you can just simply attach hose from air compressor, and blow everything out. you may need one on each side of the pumps. (hard to follow your hoses), due to pump acting like a closed valve when not on.

if you don't i would advise adding in some micron filters between pumps and tanks. it doesn't take much to clog up a boom nozzle to cause it to plug up completely or start squirting a completely different pattern. the hand guns easy enough to reach over and re-adjust nozzle to clean them. but boom nozzles not so much nor the pumps. they make some cheaper inline barb filters. cut the hose some place slip the filters in, add a couple pipe clamps and your done.

if you can find some light weight metal or hard plastic extensions that will fit hand gun nozzle, recommend approx 3' to 5' length for the hand guns. with quick easy undo of them. so you can spray right down to were you want the spray or even seat on tractor and do some spot spraying without having to get off of tractor *ya i am lazy, but it works* it gets you away from pee'ing your chemicals away (almost solid stream), vs being able to set hand gun nozzle to more of a mist. and getting a much better coverage.

for large project spraying, tend to have a second person helping me. one driving other one walking and spot spraying. it is nice to have enough hose to let it purposely drag on the ground behind the tractor/sprayer. i think i have TWO 10 or 12 foot length of extra hose i can add in for the hand gun. ((re did ends of the hoses to accept a generic cheap garden hose ends)), on/off tractor or simply having to make a large turn to re position, it gets old just for a couple extra feet to get around something sprayed. the whole getting off tractor and walking around some helps a lot (flower beds, shrubs, hitting both sides of a LP / propane tank, and just letting tractor set there)

i ended up with "much larger" loops for coiling the hoses for hand gun back up. makes for quicker undo -> spray -> re coil -> move to next spot -> repeat. trying to mess with small coiling up of hoses = a nightmare and constantly fighting the twists in the hose. you have 2 large tanks (use them) add a few pointy things (4 total) on each corner of tank, if it was a square shape box. and let the hose for hand guns lay inside the 4 pointy things. or hang off the side *using clean out holes* to hold hoses or something. a piece of wire or some velcro strips come in handy to making sure hoses do not unravel and fall off while doing other things. ok maybe not best idea but you have a huge amount of room between your "booms" and rear tires of tractor. use that space up to hang hose for the hand guns with nice large coil of hose. vs what looks like a fist full of tightly wound hose for the hand guns.

Ryan,
Thanks for the advice. As for draining for winter, not sure where you are from but its gets to -40C here, I set up the pumps on the back if you look closely for the following: I need to winterize with RV antifreeze, so on the back of the sprayer there are 2 valves (2 spots to suck from) 1 is the tank, and the other is just a hose hanging there to put into a pail of RV antifreeze. so what I did was to winterize was the following
1. drain tank - (tank has a T on the bottom of it with 2 valves, 1 drains straight down, other is too the pump in case I spring a leak I can close off tank directly)
2. RV antifreexe in tank, then turn on pump (antifreeze into lines to pump from tank)
3. Drain tank again, and leave tank open to drain
4. Fill pail with antifreeze
5. Suck antifreeze from pail and pump antifreeze through each boom section at a time individually to get the highest flow to purge water 3 sections each boom, and then the handgun
6. repeat x2 for the other tank and system

I have 2 rows of trees 400m (1300ft) each along my driveway, They were planted in a row under a 3 ft wide black plastic (punched holes to plant trees), what I do is spray along the plastic about a 1-2 ft strip so I don't have to mow and risk hitting the plastic, My wife drives tractor and I walk. I can do it in about 20mins all of it. I used to use a 2 gallon hand pump tank, would take me half the day....
Under the tank where the T is I also have a 100mesh strainer to filter water. I use water from my house Reverse osmosis system so the water is perfect anyway, but in case something gets in the tank, I am covered.

I used to be the sprayer specialist for John Deere in Saskatoon!

Next project will be installing a GPS with auto section control...just kidding...although I could...

 

[EddieWalker]

Beautiful job!!!!!


Eddie

 

[jfield676]

Thanks, did a lot of thinking while I was work....lol