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Cleaning Sprayer Lines

3K views 6 replies 7 participants last post by  Dryland 
#1 ·
I currently have a 220 spray coupe was just bought recently and hasn't been ran for quite a few years. I sprayed about a 100 acres with it and seemed to run fine until the end. The pressure started to build up so I cleaned all the screens and noticed my nozzle screens were very dirty. It seems to me all the old chemical and grime that was in the sprayer is finally beginning to loosen up. This grime is clogging the nozzles quite frequently. The only thing that I can really think of to do is to keep running water through the sprayer trying to flush everything out, removing the nozzles one at a time and run water through each nozzle body at a high pressure. I'm looking for a better way to clean out the system or hopefully find a chemical that I can try. The sprayer currently has 100 mesh nozzle screens, 3 boom screens one for each section and a main inline strainer directly after the pump. The only strainers that really are getting dirty are the nozzle screens.
 
#2 ·
Ammonia. Fill sprayer with a high concentration ammonia water solution....agitate and leave it sit in the booms for as long as you can, over night is best. Rinse with water, and everything should be clean. There is other chemical cleaners designed or sprayers, but I've always found ammonia to be the best. Check with your chemical supplier to see what they have.
 
#5 ·
If the lines are that dirty, I would spray that ammonia rinse water on the gravel road, not in your field. I once cleaned my lines out with ammonia and let it sit in the booms for almost a week and then sprayed it out in my un seeded field. Nothing grew there in that couple acres for almost a full year, not even weeds. It really cleaned them lines though.
 
#6 ·
When you get it clean, put a 100 mesh in in you inline main and get rid of the section and nozzle screens. If your mainline screen is downstream of your pressure sensor, you will know it is getting clogged when your pressures go up. If it is upstream of your pressure sensor, you will know it is getting clogged when your machine wont hold rate unless you slow down. With section and nozzle screens, you don't know if they are clogging or not. If one starts to clog your rate will be reduced on that section (or screen) and increased to the others but there will be no indication in the cab that anything is wrong until the situation gets so bad you can visually SEE a difference in the spray. By then, you likely have been spraying a varied rate for quite a long time.
 
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