A little fall seat time

[woodlandfarms]

Well, I got lucky and picked up a commercial shooting in Portland (and originating from a Portland company). It is a bit of a nightmare, stars Faith Ford of all people. She is sweet as sugar, but her people are working hard to make my life miserable. I guess that is how you make your 10%.

Anyway, it bought me a fimco 25 gallon sprayer with a boom arm. Hopefully the rain will stop here soon so I can get on spraying some of these blackberries. But hmmmm boy are they good. Too bad they are a weed.

I am permanently going to hot wire the tilt seat and then run the sprayer off the tilt seat switch...

Did one of 4 large burns. My first pile that is 20X20X8. It is now day 2 and it is still smoldering out there.. Next piles get progressivly bigger, with the last 16 feet high and 30x30. Code is 4x4 so I am glad I am in the sticks.

 

[MossRoad]

Movies, tractors, fires! Man! You've got it all!!!

I've got "my computer won't turn on" and that's about it.

 

[SnowRidge]

Murphy Brown, one of my favorite shows. So, you're shooting "Corky Sherwood," and what is Corky selling these days?

 

[Red Zebra]

I've got a 16 gallon version that I'd like to hook up.... Hot wiring off the lights come to mind but I have no idea how-much juice the little pump motor draws.

I'm waiting to burn two large piles of debris collected over the summer. We've had two days of rain to mention in the past 6 weeks. I'm afraid to light them lest I start a brush fire! My property is dry as a cotton ball in the desert...(you know what I mean).

 

[woodlandfarms]

We got rain 2 weeks ago and it really hasn't stopped.

I believe the Fimco motors pull a max of 7 amps (the big ones - 3.8GPM)

Carl

 

[ponytug]

You can add it to the accessory line in the panel, which was Terry's recommendation. I tried that for awhile, but I found that I was doing most of my spraying with the tractor stationary, and rewired it to the main line. I added a waterproof fuse panel behind the lower service plate, and put in a water resistant accessory outlet pointing downwards just outboard of the steering column, i.e. fastened vertically onto the central column, just over where your knee would be. My intent was to put the outlet in the driest possible location and situated such that water spray would drip off and not intrude. The upper portion of the outlet is encased in adhesive lined heat shrink tubing, again trying to keep water from dripping into the socket.

With the outlet not controlled by the key switch, I can spray from an operating tractor if needed, or I can spray on foot.

Having a 25 gallon tank, enables me to drive the tractor into the the brush, and then spot spray the noxious weeds on foot, and then move on. I used some 3/8" air hoses to give me 150' or so of sprayer hose. I have a second spray hose rigged up, so that my wife and I can be spraying at the same time; since the spraying is intermittent, it isn't an issue. It enables us to get all of our spraying done in a day. It used to take three days by the two of us.

I also added an additional tee and valve to the pump outlet that enables me to recirculate the fluid for mixing. It works very well for dissolving up fertilizer and hard to dissolve materials, and I would highly recommend adding it. I drilled an additional hole in the top of the tank on the far side of the suction port for the mixing line to dump back in. The line is long enough to be completely submerged to reduce foaming during mixing. I also added a two inch piece of brass pipe at the end of the suction line to keep the inlet at the lowest part of the tank at all times. We have enough slope that the pump would occasionally run dry because the inlet hose had slipped up. The pipe keeps the hose in the bottom of the tank and doesn't seem to corrode.

There are high flow, high pressure pumps available that can put out 6gpm at 60+psi. In retrospect, I wish I had gotten a high out put pump, as it would have made a better pump for spraying fire retardant. (Fire being a Bad Thing close to the house here in California.)

My sprayer has a 10A fuse in a waterproof holder inline with the power cable. The outlet is fused at 15A.

The electrical parts were from Del City, but you could get them many places. The tank and pump from Northern Tool, and the hoses from Harbor Freight.

All the best,

Peter

I've got a 16 gallon version that I'd like to hook up.... Hot wiring off the lights come to mind but I have no idea how-much juice the little pump motor draws.

I'm waiting to burn two large piles of debris collected over the summer. We've had two days of rain to mention in the past 6 weeks. I'm afraid to light them lest I start a brush fire! My property is dry as a cotton ball in the desert...(you know what I mean).

 

[woodlandfarms]

All great ideas Peter. I bought that Fimco, have yet to put it together. Good idea on the second sprayer wand. Getting the wife to join in is usually a mess as she does things one way and I do it the other.

I bought some trailer hitch wiring connectors, and because I have the electric winch as well I am going to try to "universalize" the plugins. I wish I had a decent drill and I would hard mount a bunch of things, but drilling more than a half inch wide hole with my dewalt is problematic.

I am going to examine the wiring and if it rains this weekend I will do some rewiring.

 

[ponytug]

Dear Carl,

You can get a hole saw and go for it. It takes awhile, but I've drilled (bored?) 1-3/8" holes through old porcelain sinks with it.

I went with the cigarette lighter because it was cheap and easy. They are definitely inferior connectors. "Who would design a connector with a spring that is actively trying to disengage it?"

Trailer connectors have the advantage that they lock in and provide lots of circuits, but I don't think that they are sized large enough to handle a winch. The 7 pins typically max out at 40A on the power circuit and the 6 pins are rated at 35A on the power circuit. The other circuits are 15A or less.

I've used the dual link connectors for high power hookups. They are used on many winches. They have the advantage that they are high power, and that there is only one way to hook them up. If you do use them, I would recommend adding a switch and relay, so that you don have a high power connection point out in the rain.

Here is roughly what they look like;

Of course, a cigarette adapter isn't going to power a winch either.

All the best,

Peter

All great ideas Peter. I bought that Fimco, have yet to put it together. Good idea on the second sprayer wand. Getting the wife to join in is usually a mess as she does things one way and I do it the other.

I bought some trailer hitch wiring connectors, and because I have the electric winch as well I am going to try to "universalize" the plugins. I wish I had a decent drill and I would hard mount a bunch of things, but drilling more than a half inch wide hole with my dewalt is problematic.

I am going to examine the wiring and if it rains this weekend I will do some rewiring.

 

[Central_PA_Chris]

Yep, a bimetal holesaw and some determination will put some big holes in pretty darn hard steel. I once put a 4" hole through a ARB winch bumper so I could sorta get my hand it to flip the speed switch on a Milemarker Hydraulic winch and did it with a DeWalt 18v drill. Lubricating the cut is key to keeping the hole saw alive.

Speaking of hole saws, I've been contemplating how to fabricate a nice looking Arch/Half circle for a dual exhaust system for the 425 and I think I'll use two sizes of hole saw and cut the resulting metal doughnut in half.

 

[Marks481]

I bought some trailer hitch wiring connectors, and because I have the electric winch as well I am going to try to "universalize" the plugins.

I mounted a trolling motor socket on the metal plate the bolts on to the front of the control column as a "universal outlet", primarily used for an electric winch. That metal plate was the easiest choice, since I could pull it off and cut the 1-1/8" hole for it through the metal plate easily on my drill press... better then trying to cut a big ole hole like that through the 1/4" plate of the tractor.

I chose this socket because I wanted something that would handle high current, was waterproof, had a twist-lock feature, and was not a circuit lighter style (which is the worst possible type of socket... something that constantly works to eject the plug doesn't work well in high vibration environments).

SOmething like this... a bit spendy, but there you go:

West Marine: ConnectPro Trolling Motor Plug & Receptacle Product Display