Building spray rig from 275g IBC tote

[Teamjefe]

I have about 15 miles of fence that need to be sprayed this spring/summer. I am looking at building a spray rig out of a 275 gallon IBC tote. It will be on a pallet so I can move it from a trailer to the bed of a truck with pallet forks. I am building a bracket that fits in the 2" receiver hitch with a nozzle to spray the fences I can drive next to. I also need a spray gun on a hose reel so I can spray the fences further from the roads. I would like to run a 12v pump for ease of use but I do not think they are powerful enough. Has anyone built something similar? What kind of pump did you use? I was hoping to stay away from a gas powered pump but if I have to go that route I will.

Thanks

 

[EddieWalker]

I put one on an old trailer that wasn't being used for anything. It has a 12 volt pump and some hoses that go to the sprayers. Originally I had it going out ten feet in both directions, but it wasn't very strong and I kept bending the pipes, so now I just have the one ten foot pipe with a spray nozzle at each end. I get a good twenty feet coverage, which works great for spraying my roads with roundup. It's also big enough to spray my pastures.

I ran a wire from the pump to a cigarette lighter. I just plug it in to make it work, and unplug it to stop it. Most of the time I use the Mule to spray, but it will fit on any 2 inch ball.

I had to tilt it quite a bit to get it to run dry. My trailer tilts down towards the front a bit, so I put a 6x6 block under the front of the tote to get the angle going towards the back, where the pump is.

The fittings for the tote are standard PVC threaded fittings that I reduced down to half an inch for the pump. Then just basic clear tubing to the spray nozzles.

For just doing fence line, I've thought about putting a T in the line and being able to close off the nozzles to run either another nozzle set to spray sideways, or building something I can hold by hand and spraying while driving. I'm leaning towards another nozzle since I figure it's just a matter of time until I hit the fence trying to drive and spray by hand at the same time.

Eddie

 

[SimS]

Northern Tools has a 12V demand pump that puts out 2+GPM at 70psi. I would think that would do the trick for the hand held spray nozzle. You would have to rig up some sort of solenoid valve for the receiver mounted spray nozzle(s) so you could control the sprayer from the cab of the truck while in motion. Sounds doable.

SimS

 

[CNC Dan]

.... I would like to run a 12v pump for ease of use but I do not think they are powerful enough. Has anyone built something similar? What kind of pump did you use? I was hoping to stay away from a gas powered pump but if I have to go that route I will.

Thanks

Depends on how much you want to spend. I saw a 12V "washdown" pump that was as strong as a garden hose.

 

[HCJtractor]

Did just that. I load it in the back of my truck. I built a sprayer nozzle that fits in receiver hitch and will spray a 40 foot swath. But I also added a bypass wand for spot spraying. Works great. I've sprayed over 1000 gallons with it. My pump is 12 v and the biggest/ baddest one I could find, but frankly, a cheaper one should work. I use a 12 volt deep cycle battery sitting in my truck bed and connect with alligator clips, but someday may rig a receptacle tied into my trucks electrical system. I'll post pictures

 

[HCJtractor]

Pix:









View attachment 410258

 

[HCJtractor]

I basically copied the plumbing from a standard Fimco type sprayer at tractor supply. The intake is just a PVC pipe close to the bottom. Then an inline filter, a pump, pressure gauge, a T to rear spray nozzle, a pressure valve dumping bank into tank to recirculate, and another valve to add a wand. It's all simple fittings from Northern or Tractor supply.

 

[HCJtractor]

As you can see, power is not a problem. I can dump the whole tank in an hour or two . I spray food plots with roundup

 

[HCJtractor]

Fimco sells a little wireless remote that you can switch on from truck seat, but the wire gauges on the harness is a little light for the amps. The wire heats up pretty good with this pump. So I just have a buddy in the truck bed operating the switch or just disconnecting at the battery. Some day I plan to hook into my truck in dash outfitter switches so I can operate it by myself, but haven't done that yet. Make sure you tie down your tank. That's a lot of weight sloshing around and the tote wants to move around on rough terrain. So use heavy straps. Lots of them!

 

[HCJtractor]

Pump is a Remco Fatboy, which is a heavy duty industrial pump, probably most powerful 12V I found and cost $200 ish.
A lesser pump may work, but this is rated at 7 gallons per minute so it will move some water. You can find them online or eBay.

 

[HCJtractor]

Sorry to be unorganized , but found other pix in case it helps.















Food plot was one pass of herbicide

 

[California]

Here's the first half of a solution for a spray trailer: An IBC tote is a perfect fit on Harbor Freight's little 40" x 48" trailer. This one cost me $30 used. Three summers use so far, and even though it's grossly beyond the rated weight capacity, the only repair it has needed was to stiffen the tongue. (You don't need a highway-quality safety margin in this application).

This is for watering new trees, not spraying, so I need volume instead of pressure. There's a HF 12 volt sump pump inside, suspended from its discharge hose through the top opening. This discharges 15 gpm at negative 1.5 ft lift.

I wired this pump with household extension cord that already included a touch on/touch off switch. I put the switch near the steering wheel so I can hold the wand in one hand and press the switch with the other hand.

Hope this gives you some ideas!

 

[farm boy00]

U could do for the power supply is rig it to the center hot on your 7 way trailer plug for the truck

 

[HCJtractor]

U could do for the power supply is rig it to the center hot on your 7 way trailer plug for the truck[/QUOTE

Do you think the wiring leading to that is heavy enough to handle that amperage? I if so, how is that wired? I assume two wires, one to the hot and another grounded to the chassis????

 

[farm boy00]

Last i knew it was just one big wire running from the battery to the plug,no ground. I'm sure it would be heavy enuff cause it is made for power for dump trailers. What u could do is craw under your truck and see how big the wire is and if u can't tell get me a good pic of the wire

 

[countrybumpkin]

Not sure what year and make truck you have , or if it has a factory wired seven way rv plug or not, but if it does the battery charge circuit will be fused and you need to check what amp it is. Then look at amp draw of the pump you decide to use, that will give you a idea if the circuit would run the pump or not, I have never looked at amp draw on those types of pumps so I couldn't even make a guess as to what they would pull. If it were me I would mount a battery on the skid unit, and run a charge and ground from the battery to the trailer plug to keep the battery charged. As for turning the pump on and off you could use a cheap wireless 12 volt switch. They have a key fob that you can turn on and off a 12 volt circuit from several feet away, has a control unit that would mount on the skid unit and wire the pump into, again have to check amp draw to see if the switch will handle the pump draw with out any added relay. It's really not as complicated as it sounds and would be a nice skid unit that could be set in and out of any truck or even on a trailer if need be.

HCJtractor's setup is a nice little setup, and would give years of service.

 

[countrybumpkin]

Something like this here.

 

[BukitCase]

HJC, I'm curious - how long have you been using your rig, and have the pipes/fittings plugged up or fallen off yet?

Not trying to be s-a here, it's just you seem to have a mix of brass, bronze and galvanized that the chemicals go thru - that's why the small rig I built for one of my riding mowers got all PVC and poly except where I couldn't find it in fittings I needed - I spent 35 years in industrial instrumentation, and we NEVER mixed metals because of electrolysis... Steve

 

[HCJtractor]

No offense taken. I'm not an engineer or chemical expert. Used it for three years. Only spray Roundup . And of course I flush it good after use. Never had any issue at all. I mainly just pieced it together from what I could find locally. Never thought about mixing metals.

 

[HCJtractor]

Something like this here.

Yes. I used that exact switch. It really gets hot and failed. So now I just use my alligator clip and connect / disconnect. For my use that's fine as I spray large areas. But if I wanted a better switch, I would just buy a little heavier duty one. Haven't done that yet.