Calibrating a boomless sprayer

[Wakey]

I figured this would be the right place to ask. Last time I looked this up they mentioned putting a tarp on the ground and measuring the liquid off it so needless to say I just went with trial and error.

Since I'm starting anew I found what looks like a rational way to calibrate the sprayer. The meat of the video starts at the 3 minute mark.

Also, I wrote up a list based on the video to make it easier for those with limited bandwidth. The list is my instruction guide so it has info specific for my application.

What do you folks think?
Large tape measure
2 - 5 gal. buckets
3 stakes
2 flags
hammer
large measuring cup

1. Measure spray width and set flags.

2. Measure width =

3. Multiply width by .80 This is the effective spray width=

4. See Chart, use effective spray width to find travel feet. =

5. Measure travel feet and set flags.

6. Time tractor in travel feet at PTO speed and proper gear and record seconds=

7. Capture each nozzles output (independently) for the time to travel sum in seconds. Add both outputs in pints and multiply by 8 to determine gallons of water per acre.

*****************************
16 ounces is a pint
8 pints is a gallon
128 ounces to a gallon
*****************************


**********Chart*************

Spray Width Travel Feet
20 273
22.5 243
25 218
27.5 199
30 182
32.5 168
35 156
37.5 146
40 137

**********Chemical Quantity*************

Grazon Next HL 1.6 Pints per acre (Need 4 Gallons)
Pasturegard 10 Ounces per Acre (Need 200 Ounces or 12.5 Pints or 1.562 Gallons)
LI Surfactant 1 to 2 quarts per 100 gallons as per Grazon Label

 

[leeave96]

If you are using teejet nozzles, they have an app where you can put in your MPH, boom width and gallons per acre of liquid you want to spray. It will then give you a list of tips and their appropriate pressures to get the amount of gallons per acre desired. I use an iPad and iPhone, their app isn稚 working for iOS 11, but emailed and they are updating it. Android side may be OK. The teejet app is really good.

I especially like their air induction nozzles for limiting drift.

YMMV

 

[Wakey]

If you are using teejet nozzles, they have an app where you can put in your MPH, boom width and gallons per acre of liquid you want to spray. It will then give you a list of tips and their appropriate pressures to get the amount of gallons per acre desired. I use an iPad and iPhone, their app isn稚 working for iOS 11, but emailed and they are updating it. Android side may be OK. The teejet app is really good.

I especially like their air induction nozzles for limiting drift.

YMMV

The people that did this video have an app now as well (Noble Research Institute). We started to do it the way this video instructs and I was going to check it against the results in the app. The top link was too long to make the sprayer level so we will have to modify a toplink before this will work.

 

[LD1]

Are you spraying a field with a 60' sprayer? Or a yard with a 2-nozzle boomless?

I spray my yard with a cheap 2-nozzle boomless.

I fill it with water and run it down my paved driveway to get my width.

I time how long it takes to pump the whole 15 gallons of water out.

Based on that....I can calculate my travel speed for desired application rate. Pretty easy

 

[M5farms]

I have an app you just catch water from several nozzles for a specific time and enter you speed and number of nozzles . It sure makes it a lot easier that the figgerin methods i was taught in school

 

[Wakey]

Are you spraying a field with a 60' sprayer? Or a yard with a 2-nozzle boomless?

It's a single nozzle setup and 20 acres of pasture. Running 50 PSI it covers about 45' but so much of a breath of wind wrecks the pattern :laughing:

It came with detailed literature so we will just use that to calibrate it. Capturing the water from the nozzle @ 50 PSI was quite a laugh. :duh:

For my yard I pull a 3 nozzle boom trailer behind my zero turn. In fact I sprayed my 2 acre yard this morning. Fimco 3 Gal. Trailer Sprayer at Tractor Supply Co.

 

[Jerry/MT]

I use a weigh technique. I capture all the water in a jar that flows from one nozzle for one minute at a fixed pressure. I know the weight of the empty jar and weigh the jar plus the water subtract the tare weight of the empty jar and get the weight of the water that flowed in for one minute. Since water weighs 8.34 lbs/gallon I get the gpm per nozzle. I do this for several pressures. Since I know the width of the spray per nozzle and I want to spray 10 gallons per acre I can calculate the speed that will allow me to do this. I do this for several pressures and get different speeds. I plot this up and have a map of flow versus ground speed for several pressures.
I generally spray at 4mph and that requires 19 psig.