help me build a sprayer!

[twodogs]

Gentlemen-

I have a kubota b7800 & I recently purchased a plastic tank to store my off road diesel. I was about to purchase a 15 gallon sprayer tank/pump combo when I started to think that I could probably buy one of these drums & a pump a lot cheaper, or for the same money, get a better pump. My goal is to spray my orchard. We have about 40 fruit trees of various sizes. I have a FEL that I could carry the tank in & secure it with straps & hooks. I would also consider a 3pt setup. I am game to whatever suggestions you have.

 

[Maxfli]

Here is how I did it. I bought the Fimco 15 gallon spot sprayer. It has 2 threaded holes on the bottom that fit perfect on my 3 point cross bar, so I can bolt it in place. It was $79 at TSC. I bought a few rainbird sprinkler parts for about $6 bucks and with some rubber hose I had laying around I built a spray bar that give me about a 7' spray path. Just set it on my 3 Point hitch tilted up and it works perfect. Put a switch on the dash of thetractor for on and off and I am set to go.

 

[Renovator]

I would buy a PTO roller pump from TSC and plum it to a tank. I would use a 50 gal. tank. Use a filter between tank and pump and use at least 3/4 inch hose. After the pump you need a releif valve then the hand held spray gun. This put high pressure high volume for good coverage of the tree. I drive and spray at the same time.
Renovator

 

[bigdad]

With that many trees, you're gonna need a good size tank.
This is what I came up with to spray the lawn. I started with a fifteen gallon tank but made the 3-pt. platform big enough to hold a larger one. Works good for my applications.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

PineRidge posted a thread about building a sprayer that was very detailed and seemed pretty helpful. It would be worth an hour or so to read over if you're going to take on something similar.

 

[Berniep]

After converting a 25 gallon 4wheeler spot sprayer to a 3ph boom sprayer I can tell you you won't be able to build anything cheaper than you can buy it. But you can end up with a better quality sprayer that is better suited to your needs that a ready made one.

 

[RonMar]

I guess it would depend on what you are spraying, ground, trees or both. If you look thru the Agri-Supply catalog(www.agri-supply.com), you will find quite a few options. And like Berniep stated, you will be hard pressed to beat some of the prices if you build up your own, especially if you consider your time involved in "re-inventing the wheel". I bought their plain 25 gallon spot sprayer tank/pump combo($138). Once you figure in all the piece parts and the shipping + time to assemble, it was hard to beat. This one already has the pressure gauge and a "Y" gate valve installed so adding a boom is about a 5 minute job(one side recircs to the tank for controlling boom spray pressure and to help with mixing and pump flushing, the other connects to a boom). It also has a 30' hose and wand plummed in near the gauge so you close both "y" valves and the pump cycles to 60PSI and stops automatically for spot spraying(pressure switch maintains 40-60 PSI automatically).

They have a basic 2 nozzel boom with 80" coverage for about $48(#56427). It comes with all the hardware/brackets and could be easilly connected to the bottom of the tank and the whole affair set in a FEL bucket. You might have to extend some wiring to be able to control the pump from the seat. That pump size will suport 3 of those type nozzels found on the 80" boom. That boom is also made by Fimco and I got the part numbers off the FIMCO website(they have all their manuals and parts lists online) and ordered an additional nozzel, screen and screw cap from them for that boom. Agri-Supply has the 1/2" hose to nozzel fittings that the nozzel screws into as well as the boom clamps to connect it to a 1" pipeboom(all inexpensive). I ordered up a "T" fitting and clamp from them for the center nozzel and converted the rest of my parts from the 2 nozzel 80" coverage boom to a 3 nozzel 120" coverage boom. That spray tank with 2.1GPM pump will run the three nozzels at a near ideal 20PSI/.47GPM without recircing any fluid to the tank. When at the proper height(18" above ground)Those Nozzels at 20PSI and moving at a comfortable 3MPH deliver 20 gallons per acre which is a good mix rate for the 2-4D that I lay down(1QT/20GAL/Acre) for weed control. When spot spraying with the wand, 20 gallons goes a long way. As long as your trees are not too high, that wand should work for light tree spraying also.

If I had it to do again, I would build a 3 nozzel boom from scratch to start with using those parts from Agri-Supply(one "T" and two 90 degree 1/2" nozzel elbows and brackets) and Fimco(three nozzels, screen filters and screw on retainer caps from the 80" coverage boom) and provide my own boom pipe(which I did anyway) and hose to connect it all together for about the same price in parts as the 2 nozzel boom that agri-supply sells.

Good luck

 

[HomeBrew2]

A couple of other things that may be helpful:

Adding a std hose gate valve before the "Y" valve will allow you to shut off the boom w/o disturbing the flow rate to the boom so you don't have to set pressure again.

I got a 7 nozzle boom, knowing that I probably didn't have a pump big enough to run them all but, it gives me the ability to do offset spraying if I find the need. Rather than having individual valves for each nozzle, I just use plugs that insert in each desired nozzle.

I found that the nozzles that came w/ my boom did not have check valves in them. It didn't look like it, but there's a lot of fluid in all that hose ... as I found out w/ several Roundup streaks where I didn't want them. I now have checkvalve strainers in the nozzles

 

[blacksmith]

I built my own using a 26 gal. spot sprayer. I attached mine on the back of my garden tractor with a quick attach brackets. Here is a picture of it. The left valve sets the pressure using the gage for the sprayer. The "Y" fitting turns on the sprayer and returns the overflow to the tank. The wand is attached to the "T" where the gage is located. They are plastic garden valves.

This is the sprayer on my tractor. I can spray a 60" path. I will make a larger one in the future. The wand is wraped around the tank and attached to the tank behind the seat.

This is the quick disconnect bracket on the sprayer that fits on the back of my garden tractor.

 

[RonMar]

That is nice work on the garden tractor bracket. I had initially thought of something similar, but 200 pounds of fluid + the weight of tank and pump and boom and bracket might make my garden tractor go over backwards going up some of my hills.

Homebrew That is a great idea with the valve ahead of the "Y". That was a problem having to reset pressure when shifting between wand and boom when I initially set up with the 2 nozzel boom. I don't have that problem since switching to the 3 nozzel boom. The side of the "Y' to the boom is wide open and the side going back to the tank is fully closed. The pump connected directly to the 3 nozzel boom will deliver 20PSI with no need for adjustment. I just close the valve to the boom when I want to use the wand and open it wide when I want to go back to the boom. It does dribble a bit when the pump is shut off and the fluid in the hose continues to drain out the nozzels. Where did you get the strainer/check valves for your nozzels? I havn't come across any for my nozzels. It is not a real problem with 2-4D, but that would be something I would be interested in for spraying roundup.