back pack sprayers

[da.bees]

Backpack sprayers are for young men, old men already have too many things causing them to fall. 12-15 gallon w/12 volt pump can be set on atv,bed of truck, small trailer or fel bucket and off you go.

 

[Texasmark]

Been considering a backpack sprayer for herbicide. The hand pump ones are generally under a hundred dollars, the battery ones a couple hundred. I get a little tired schlepping the two gallon pump ups around and seems like you always pump more than you spray.

For years I have used a riding mower conversion as my "get around" vehicle. The conversion occurs when the deck wears out and I get in the mood for a new mower. I attach a 15x20 inch basket to the hood for carrying a lot of things around the farm....works great for that.

On the rear, I made a bracket and used a couple of Bungie Cords to attach a 4 gallon pump up sprayer (topic of this article) to the rear of the vehicle. I discarded all the mechanical pumping mechanism. Then I drilled a hole in the side of the tank, right at the bottom for a 3/8" hose tap. The hose goes to a 60 PSI, 2 gal/min. 12v pump with auto pressure shut off that hangs off the rear of the tank mounting bracket. Outlet of the pump goes to a wand on a hose length of my choice. I usually have it short enough to keep it away from hazards....like the rear tire/wheel.....but long enough to be able to spray both sides of the tractor. The pump has a pressure cut off so you squeeze the trigger on the wand, the pump activates, you spray something, let off the trigger and the pump shuts off. If your wand starts leaking when Its supposed to be off, I installed an ON/OFF switch for controlling the pump when I'm not spraying....like on the way to the field, no reason to have pressure on the hose so I just flip the switch and take pressure off the pump outlet.

For a use for an old riding lawn mower and the roughly $150 bucks you will be out for what I said, you just can't beat the versatility of this machine. I originally wore out a JD L110 and then recently wore out an older Husq. 46 rider and just happened to have an extra Husq. 46 rider with 146 hours on it (a neighbor gave me because they didn't understand how to use and care for a mower). Yesterday I retired the old one and transferred the parts to the newer one. Since the deck was still working as designed, I left it on. Neat thing about leaving it on is that if I am spraying say fire ants, and come upon a weed I want to whack, I now have the ability to do that without having to make a special trip out there.

The other thing I do with this type of machine is to remove the "turf" tires and replace them with "studded Snow" Tires. This way when things are wet, including standing water after a heavy rain, in/or to the area I want to spray, I don't have to worry about getting stuck.....also gives me traction where needed, like climbing the 30* bank on my pond. The other nice thing about 2 ply SSTs is that the sidewall is soft so I can drop the air pressure to about 5 PSI and get a much softer ride than available with OEM stiff wall turfs.....and "that" is a big deal for me.

I guarantee you, you can't find a more functional, inexpensive, handy, gadget than what I described here!

 

[Ray,IN]

Glennster,
I still use a 2½G hand sprayer occasionally. The hand pump quit so I drilled a hole and inserted a car valve stem just below the neck. A quick visit to my air compressor pressurizes it in 10 seconds, enough so the over-pressure valve opens if I'm too slow, been using it that way for 'bout 10 yrs now.

 

[wh]

Every sprayer i have serves a purpose. The 15 gal electric on the back of the super a is great for spraying in garden. The 25 gal electric that lives in the back of the gator in the summer works great for spraying ditches, fences and wood trails. The 60 gal pto is perfect for spraying the grassland/cropland i use. The pump up backpack works great for getting to areas the other rigs will not. As example, used the backpack couple days ago to walk thru my gourds and spray round up in the middles where some weeds and grass was coming up. Vines too big to drive anything thru. And i forgot about the 1 gallon sprayer for spraying pesticides and such in garden when needed.

 

[glennster]

so i decided to get one, stopped at Runnings and picked one up. about 80 dollars. used it today, pretty happy. here are some of my sprayers