I update the Gator Sprayer into the Gator Sprayer Maximum Overdrive Firetruck Potential Gator Delux (GSMOFPGD)

There are ideas, there are good ideas and there are successful good ideas. A lot of the difference is in the execution of the aforementioned idea...

My Gator Sprayer project is a grand example. 

It was a project I thought about while driving in circles and concentrated on while sitting in the Emergency room for two days. The codeine combo may have adversely affected the design. (or is it effected-I never know)

The Gator Sprayer has proved to be incredibly handy. The spacing is correct for corn rows. It works for applying hay preservative as you can turn on boom sections to do two windrows at once, it is great for spraying pipelines and ditches.

When I was employed by the Sodomite Learing University I set up a sprayer for a Mule. Due to their lack of understanding on why employee's steal stuff, they would not let me order the sprayer from my brother's business, instead they got royally screwed by a local ag dealer who I am not related to.

Probably because the University sits on stolen land... 

(I have nothing against the salesman. He was super helpful.)

When the sprayer arrived I then had to significantly modify the sprayer to get it to fit in the Mule and to be easy to run by whatever idiot would follow me. It does fit in the Mule and I built a somewhat rickety stand that allows one person to install and remove the sprayer. However, there is no one who can run now it as apparently speed, pressure, and color coded nozzle charts printed by T-Jet are beyond comprehension. (Click here for the link) Also, they "lost" the GPS speedometer. 

But I digress...

I wanted to build a new sprayer from scratch. I had the Gator, I had a box of oddball MicroTrak rate controller parts, I found this trash pump on sale at Harbor Freight, and I found a sprayer tank cheap on Ebay. So I put it all together.

This was the first incarnation with three boom sections and simple plumbing. It has gotten quite complicated since then.

 

It sort of works. The main problem is that I used a small trash pump. I would swear the specs said max output was 65lbs but I could never get more than 45lbs. High volume and now pressure does not work with an automatic rate controller.  It appears that to go to 90lbs I needed a $2,000 pump. The point of the exercise was to see if I could build a skid mounted UTV sprayer that was inexpensive and sell a few. This turned out to be pointless as every farmer I know wants to build their own or buy something from the local snooty GPS seller/dealer.

I used it last year and it sort of worked. The rate controller was too slow to respond which was frustrating. After a season of frustration I decided to upgrade the pump for more pressure. 

I asked CoPilot artificial intelligence and was directed to a Honda Powered 92 PSI pump at Northern Hydraulics for under $1000.  Unfortunately I did not think of the difficulties in plumbing in a new pump with 2" input and output vs 1.25" in and out. This required all new plumbing so I gutted it and started from scratch with a bypass system because I have so much excess flow with a trash pump.

 

It is a mess of plumbing at this point

It has turned into a plumbing adventure. With the new high flow high pressure system I went from a restricted flow set up to a bypass flow control setup. I was advised putting the filter on the output was a bad idea and it needed to go onto suction. My tank outlet is only 1" so I have a restriction there so I went from the tank to the 1 1/2" filter inlet as close to the tank as possible. 

I plumbed the autorate controller valve bypass outlet into the suction line between filter and pump. It should be running a lot of bypass. I plumbed a range control/agitation line right off the pump, then the boom, then the rate controller bypass. I decided to run the sprayer wand off the boom circuit so I could still get a gallon readout. 

I finally just drew it all out on a piece of cardboard big enough I can read without glasses.

This is my regulating valve. I might be too slow for my set up as I am going from 1 to 10 mph with a Gator. 

I got annoyed and gave up at 8:30 pm last night.

Perhaps I should get on it this morning...

But, I have hay fields to look at and fertilize, a leak on the lower the three point link on the White 2-155 that requires a serious pressure clean and transmission drain, feed to make, oats to pick up, and I need a nap already at 8 a.m.

We shall see what the day brings... 

Update: Last night I got into an argument with AI CoPilot about the sprayer plumbing. I think it will create a feedback loop. Now CoPilot says I should plumb the bypass direct to the tank.  I looked up the MicroTrak schematic also which is different. Here is the deal... I used CoPilot because I could give it the hose sizes and it could figure flow. I have a restriction at the tank on suction so I routed the auto bypass back to the pump and the manual bypass to the agitation. I suspect that the whole high volume and medium pressure cheap pump plan will be a failure. Should have bought a roller pump and mechanically adapted it to a cheap Harbor Freight GX Clone...