Update after first use - I sprayed 40 gallons of broadleaf weed killer on my one acre lawn yesterday, here are some observations...
- I had picked up the Pro cap for the tank, it has a flap opening at the top for a hose so stick the hose in there and fill without worrying about the hose floppy out. Also large enough for a brass quick connect hose fitting, all my garden hose is fitted with them. The Pro cap also has an attached 32 ounce measuring cup, after measuring and dumping in the weed killer you just screw the cap on and the measuring cup is stored inside the tank upside down, brilliant!
- I had no plans to use the hand sprayer yesterday but there's no shutoff valve for that so I had to attach it then open and clean it out after. I will probably attach a shut off valve in line with the hose and quick connect for convenience.
- The two ball valves for the tank intake hose and spray boom, pretty odd. You would think turn them both one direction On, the other direction Off, but no just the opposite turn the tank intake one direction and the boom sprayer the opposite direction for On and Off weird. Momentary confusion but after I figured that out no biggie.
- The 2.1 gpm pump arrives set to 60 psi, I had thought about lowering it to 30 psi as some had mentioned doing. But its only 60 psi when the boom valve is closed, when you open the boom valve and its spraying the pressure drops to 20 psi so its not blasting out the nozzles at 60 psi. Ditto for the hand wand. 60 psi seemed just about right for the weed spraying I was doing. 40 gallons lasted a long time, I think I as spraying for nearly 2 hours moving the tractor really slow.
- I had a lot of obstacles to navigate, a dozen fir trees, the house, etc. The boom was a lot easier to navigate than I thought it would be. The tractor treadle pedal and HST helped a lot, I felt like I had very precise control over where I was spraying. As the spray was not blasting out I was able to go slow and not feel rushed like I had to keep the tractor moving fast like with a dry broadcast tow behind spreader.
- I purchased the cigarette lighter power cord, worked flawlessly plugged into the 12 volt port next to the seat on my
BX2380. The inline on/off switch also worked well, I sat it in the cup holder. On/off is not instantaneous the pump pressure has to bleed out then it drips a bit from the nozzles so Off is maybe 10 seconds long. I also have the wireless remote, time will tell but I'm not sure I'll ever use it.
Summary - worked awesome. I can't even imagine how long it would have taken me to hand spray 1 acre and the broadcast two behind spreader that flings dry weed and feed wow hugely expensive. Typically takes 4 50 lb bags of that stuff at $54 per bag so over $200 per treatment and its not very effective on these weeds. Kills a few, makes some of the clover sickly, it mostly suppresses new growth imo. The Speedzone broadleaf weed killer I sprayed yesterday only cost about $30.
