Broncslefty7;2115487 said:
what does the GPS control do? are the tanks in your units baffled?
Our gps setups consist of a main controller, servo valve,flow meter, and a solenoid valve. The controller allows you to input your desired application rate in gallons per acre and the spray width of your boom. Once these have been set the controller takes care of the rest. The controller senses your movement and adjusts the flow rate based on your speed and applies the set amount regardless of the speed you are traveling. This is especially nice when spraying small parking lots and commercial lots where you have a constant flow of traffic. When you stop the speed sensor sends a signal to your solenoid valve and stops the flow until you begin moving again.
The best part about the controller is that we can now spray the correct amount at any speed (given the flow rate of your pump and the dynamics of your plumbing to your boom). If your speed exceeds the maximum flow rate your pump can produce, a warning light will come on letting you know to slow down. Without this we used to have to calibrate our pump to spray at a certain rate and derive the speed which we could travel based on our flow. It did work, however we had the tendency to over apply at speeds below our target speeds and under apply at speeds above. We also had to derive our speeds for every application rate. We now simply change our application rate in our controller and it takes care of everything for us.
The controller also has many additional features that monitors tank level, instantaneous flow rate, total number of gallons sprayed, and gallons per account. There are many additional features, these are the ones we use most frequently.
The controller is also used to control the zones on your boom. Our 2700 gallon sprayer is equipped with a three zone boom. When all of the zones are on we can spray a 30 foot swath. When this large of an area is not needed we simply turn off the section or sections that we do not want to spray and the controller adjusts the flow rate to maintain our desired application rate. The more sections that are spraying, the more flow you need and vice versa.
This precision control has prevented us from over or under applying our liquid thus saving us money. We no longer have to get out of the truck to turn off a valve or pump and it has also allowed us to put someone completely inexperienced in our trucks without the worry of them over or under applying.
As far as tank baffles go, we have never felt the need to install baffles in our tanks. We keep our trucks full while plowing to maintain our ballast and de-ice at the end of our routes. The movement of liquid has never been a problem for us. Even when the tank is half full we have not noticed any reduction in handling of our vehicles. All of our 3/4 ton trucks are equipped with the low profile sprayers in the picture above which really helps lower the center of gravity of the truck. I understand that some do find it annoying to feel the sway of liquid behind them, however in these trucks we have found the slosh to be very minimal.
The tanks we use on our bigger sprayers, like our hooklift truck, come with molded baffles from the factory. They do a good job of minimizing the slosh of liquid.
Thanks for the question. Feel free to ask anything else about our setups and operation.
