How To Clean Water Spray Nozzles

Forums
Arable Farming
Cropping

You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

Cleaning Sprayer Nozzles

Thread starter Just a farmer
Start date Jun 6, 2019

Quick question to see how people clean their sprayer nozzles with the interest being towards those that have a long orifice such as the guardian air or billericay bubble jet?

Basically as a bit of background I was spraying sugar beet today with a mix of betanal, debut and ethofumesate. I had 025 flat fans in and all was spraying as it should be. No blockages, pressure where it should be for the rate and forward speed and the sprayer emptied when it should have.

Once that was completed I did a quick triple rinse with water before moving on to a small tank of glyphosate to spot spray bad patches of black grass (0.5ha). When doing this I also changed nozzle to 035 guardian airs. At the time I was using a very high water rate so I could have a low forward speed and kept my eyes outside. I did catch myself going up to 5 bar at times but given that 6km/h would put me at 3bar given the water rate I didn't pay much attention apart from pull the stick bad.

Following that I began the process of a full wash out which for me was a triple rinse, followed by all clear, suction and in-line filters swapped to fresh ones, followed by another triple rinse to be certain. When doing this I set the speed input from gps to manual to allow me to set the rate against a fixed speed (12km) which lets the nozzles stay at whatever pressure I want them regardless of speed changes. For the GA nozzles that meant 140l/ha which would sit the wash out at 3bar...

Only it went to 3.8bar.

I fiddled about turning sections on and off to see if there was a difference (there wasn't), I got out and checked the pressure gauge on the rear manifold to see if the cab display pressure was wrong (it wasn't), I pulled the filters out to see if they were dirty (they weren't), I inspected the nozzles spray patterns (all fine + they are new). I changed the rate to what should give 2 bar and also to what should give 1 bar. Both gave the correct pressure for the correct rate. Back to rate for 3 bar and it jumps up to 3.8bar. Rate for 4 bar sits at 5 bar. I also check if its the same for other nozzles (which it wasn't) and concluded that it must be the guardian airs.

Before I pulled all 48 nozzles off the sprayer I quickly shoved in 500l of water to see if it sprayed it out over the correct area (and back on gps speed input) and it did. So I can only conclude that the inside of the nozzles are caked in something that is meaning the sprayer has to build more pressure to force liquid through. Visual inspection by blowing through 4 randomly picked nozzles and holding them up to the sun didn't show anything out of the ordinary.

So back to the original question, anyone had a problem like this? Am I right to think the nozzle is the issue? What do you think the best way to dislodge dirt (that I can't see) from the nozzle is.

Thanks

Do a jug test on the nozzles. Do you have or have access to a pressure gauge that has a coupler that goes directly onto the nozzle fittings?

Is your sprayer on pressure control or flow control? Where is the sensor or feed pipe to the pressure gauge? It should be just beyond the main pressure filter assembly so you'd know if that was blocked.

Jug test is on my to do list but I planned to preemptively clean the nozzles first. I just couldn't work out an easy way to do it. The pressure gauge is on my 'to buy' list. I have been relying on the yearly NSTS results to do it for me but it seems it would be useful having my own.

To my knowledge the sprayer runs off flow control. The sensor is just after the in line element filter which I've swapped to a clean one (the old one was clean anyway but I needed to switch to a bigger mesh for the higher rate). I think if there was something wrong with that it would be across all nozzles not just the guardian airs.

hot water, detergent and soak. blow thru with air gun after - not sure its foolproof depends how sticky the chemical residue has been. Liquid fert is like sand blasting i am told............

glyphosate fixes onto nozzles and can't be cleaned off, says my sprayer techician / NSTS tester.

DeSangosse make Tank & Equipment Cleaner which is great for shifting residues. Mine comes from Frontier when I order other chemicals.

For nozzle cleaning I use neat All Clear Extra in a bucket for soaking the nozzles. It's better than people think.

If you have washing machine for overhalls etc put them in old pillow case or something come out like new

glyphosate fixes onto nozzles and can't be cleaned off, says my sprayer techician / NSTS tester.

Glyphosate is one of the best things for cleaning a sprayer tank out
Obviously have to rinse after the glyphosate

Dishwasher.

While the wife is at work....

Dishwasher.
While the wife is at work....

Thought I was bad saying washing machine

Thought I was bad saying washing machine

I was wondering how you get the pillowcase dry and back on the bed before she gets home.

"Neutralize" (new tank cleaner chemical) and an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner from amazon or argos. Works well after a few rinses and blow with air line to remove excess. We had a similiar problem with glyphosate and a premium pendamethlin product. All good now!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I've had another crack at unclogging them today which involved flushing through lots of water, another all clear clean and (after that failed) taking them off and putting the tips into a sieve which I put in a shallow bowl that was then filled with grime remover and boiling water. I spent 5 minutes shaking them around before letting them soak over my dinner break. I then renewed the bowl with clean boiling water and set to each with a toothbrush and more shaking. After that I gave each a squirt of compressed air. This still failed to solve the problem.

I also did more checks to make sure it wasn't the rate controller or anything on the sprayer end and all signs still pointed to it being the nozzle. Finally I jug tested every nozzle. All were spot on.

If I carry on like this it will be cheaper and faster for me to just buy a new set of nozzles.

Have you got top hat filters in by any chance?

Nope,

I had them in for a short time when we took delivery of the sprayer back in 2015 but found them a bit of a nuisance. The large variety of crops I spray means I tend to do a lot of washing out and inspecting and cleaning the 2 main filters is always part of that. I've also found that the feature of the prime and purge plumbing that puts clean water through the boom lines before it gets to the tank during filling keeps things relatively clean in the pipe work so I took them all out.

had a similar problem until i realised i had the wrong nozzle characteristics set in the sprayer controller (default settings), jug tested , put in right figures and all good again

Nope,
I had them in for a short time when we took delivery of the sprayer back in 2015 but found them a bit of a nuisance. The large variety of crops I spray means I tend to do a lot of washing out and inspecting and cleaning the 2 main filters is always part of that. I've also found that the feature of the prime and purge plumbing that puts clean water through the boom lines before it gets to the tank during filling keeps things relatively clean in the pipe work so I took them all out.

What brand of glyphosate? Sounds horrible stuff.

I think the glyphosate was called Rosate. Only used 3l diluted in 400l of water for blackgrass spot spraying. Can only speculate it either reacted badly with any residue of previous sprays or something to do with temperature affecting the chemical.

That jewellery cleaner looks like a handy tool.

Forums
Arable Farming
Cropping