Knight trailed sprayer

[jh.]

Used to collaborate with a near neighbour but now back home at own place . It was their sprayer .

 

[RmfJ]

Used to collaborate with a near neighbour but now back home at own place . It was their sprayer .

Ah right, I’m sure if any extra info is needed Knight sprayers would be able to give advice, surely an advantage of buying British!

 

[Andy26]

As already mentioned, phone Knights they are very helpful.

Sight gauges can be very sensitive to the angle the tanks at, so are only a rough guide.

If you suspect somethings amiss yet on a jug test it performs as expected, just turn the RDS box off, I can see the gauge for the Ramsey valve in your first picture, so pump it up manually via the shrader valve. Do a jug test on each boom section. If you have 025 nozzles fitted, then at 3 bar pressure you should have exactly 1 litre through each nozzle in 60 seconds. Then choose a forward speed to get the desired output, e.g. 12km/h will be 100 l/ha.

This will get your spraying done and accurately, obviously if you dont have GPS, calibrate your tractor speed to.

Then you can find the root cause at your leisure, i would suspect its a flow or pressure sensor at fault.

 

[jh.]

Think I need a pony flow[emoji15].

I was sure a sight level would at least be consistent between 2000 down to 1000 but everything is now pointing to me being wrong .

Won't post more pics but basically , filled 200 into tank with cans. Reset the sight float to bang on 200 . Filled full and at 2800 on gauge had to switch off as was going to over flow . So straight away gauge is out at full. Sprayed out a field totalling 3031litres applied via RDS . Sight gauge after reads just over 200 and there looks about that in bottom of tank , most of which will be the 5% over capacity most sprayers have as standard .

After all the jug and speed tests I was sure output was right , just couldn't back up with level .

Only thought is tank shape and scale not representative or even consistent .

Sprayer electrics and sprayer itself must be fine .

 

[jh.]

Shoot me now , I've had 3 days of stress and now realise a pony flow or weighing over a bridge would have sorted this no problem . Awe well lesson learned

 

[jh.]

a dry sight level is a guide not a true measure, if you haven't got a flow meter to fill via try filling an IBC to 500/1000L and put that into sprayer to see if it matches up

With the pony flow did you ever brim it from fully empty .

Around 3230litres ?

 

[Flat 10]

Glad you are sorted jh. You aren’t the only one to have problems, see my other thread

 

[Bobthebuilder]

With the pony flow did you ever brim it from fully empty .

Around 3230litres ?

Never brimmed it with pony flow but I did run on the fact it was 3150 when full

 

[jh.]

Phillips loaned me a pony flow . Just need to tidy the gauge up but should all balance out now. For last 2 days I've been using my "30" as full . Add in some unmetered chems and I wasn't far out .

Few pics with last load before the pony arrived . Fair chuffed with the machine . Steering works well as with old case trailed , I always felt the tractor needed a few weights to help nose turning on hills plus it was quite snappy , the knight seems a lot smoother and no weights . Finding I like it in manual rather than on and off with master .

Thanks for all the help and suggestions

 

[Flat 10]

Phillips loaned me a pony flow . Just need to tidy the gauge up but should all balance out now. For last 2 days I've been using my "30" as full . Add in some unmetered chems and I wasn't far out .

Few pics with last load before the pony arrived . Fair chuffed with the machine . Steering works well as with old case trailed , I always felt the tractor needed a few weights to help nose turning on hills plus it was quite snappy , the knight seems a lot smoother and no weights . Finding I like it in manual rather than on and off with master .

Thanks for all the help and suggestions

Manual? V Master?

 

[Chae1]

Phillips loaned me a pony flow . Just need to tidy the gauge up but should all balance out now. For last 2 days I've been using my "30" as full . Add in some unmetered chems and I wasn't far out .

Few pics with last load before the pony arrived . Fair chuffed with the machine . Steering works well as with old case trailed , I always felt the tractor needed a few weights to help nose turning on hills plus it was quite snappy , the knight seems a lot smoother and no weights . Finding I like it in manual rather than on and off with master .

Thanks for all the help and suggestions

How much does a pony flow cost?

 

[jh.]

Manual? V Master?

Can set tracking to auto so only kicks in when master off to make a turn but pulls locked straight in work . I prefer on all time unless i flick it to road to say back into a corner or work on a hill. Think it was called sprayer dependence in manual . Hit plus to turn on and minus to turn off iirc

 

[jh.]

How much does a pony flow cost?

I locked it in house as it's seemingly 6 to 700 bucks

 

[Chae1]

I locked it in house as it's seemingly 6 to 700 bucks

Ouch! I'd like one, but not at that money.

There's loads on Amazon but i suspect the flowrate would be too fast.

 

[jh.]

Ouch! I'd like one, but not at that money.

There's loads on Amazon but i suspect the flowrate would be too fast.

Be handy but now gauge marked and backing up the RDS I probably won't need it again unless ball valves or something go .


It was a 1" like on my controller

 

[Robt]

Phillips had 3 visits to get it moted. It seems a good solid sprayer just something not adding up , either operator fudge up , RDS setting or machine leaking internally.

Was supposed to be moted at start of month , then due to problems never got done until 15th , thought we had it sorted but still haven't been happy enough to actually do a load with chems yet

Spent a hour trying to work out pipe runs today , using laser recirc from clean water tank seems a very slow draw . Can see why bob thought it never cleaned much

Does there not come a time when you really should call knight out to ensure you are getting the best from it? What value do you put through it each year? Knight are a great company to deal with . What price do you put on accuracy?

 

[jh.]

Does there not come a time when you really should call knight out to ensure you are getting the best from it? What value do you put through it each year? Knight are a great company to deal with . What price do you put on accuracy?

Not really imo. The machine came straight from kelso to my place . The sprayer chap hadn't seen it until the day he came to start the MOT . So basically first day was to really see if and what it needs , second visit was fit the parts but then he stripped the manifold and found the ball needed done , so had to go back and order it. Had it been one of the brands they retail he probably would have had one in his van the pile of stuff he had.

He had pressure checked each section and jug tested a set of blue nozzles. I was planning to run reds with angled caps so I told him I could finish off myself. I was happy to let him test the blues thinking any breaking up seals etc got caught in them rather than my new red set.

Due to the ball issue I decided to try a part load with plain water just as a final check . This was where it went to f**k as firstly noticed the RDS flow differences with less sections on , plus actual rate different from target . Read manual and thought the flow system should be set to "n" given it's not a full time recirc . Phillips confirmed this so tried and it worked as expected after that .

Then the fun started again as the gauge was so far out , it at first seemed stuff had to be returning back to tank . I was sure ignoring lower than 500 and higher than 2500 contents would be consistent enough to be closer over 4 or 5 hecs . It wasn't. That was when I tested and double tested , nozzle output and speed sensors myself . I've been using RDS for years , have tank nudged before but this swung cal factor wildly from lower to over dose. Because of lack of consistency I didn't feel I could simply set the rate controller to get what I wanted , say by asking for 225litres a hec to get 200 , or even spray in manual mode .

When I set the contents gauge to a known 200litres and then couldn't get more than an indicated 2800 in it all started to make sense that the gauge was well out and not consistent with its spacing either .

Frustrating but got there in the end. Yeah knight might have got there sooner or noticed if the wrong contents gauge has been fitted but it's also good for me to be familiar with the machine under the panels .

If I had a pony flow like BTB I would probably have never given it a second thought as I'd have known right from the start what was going in. Folk had warned me the gauge could be out , just never had a sprayer as far out before and I've used a fair few from different manufactures.

 

[Robt]

i wasnt knocking the mechanic, i was more suggesting you pay knight to fix it and to show you how to care for it and use it correctly

 

[Bobthebuilder]

Not really imo. The machine came straight from kelso to my place . The sprayer chap hadn't seen it until the day he came to start the MOT . So basically first day was to really see if and what it needs , second visit was fit the parts but then he stripped the manifold and found the ball needed done , so had to go back and order it. Had it been one of the brands they retail he probably would have had one in his van the pile of stuff he had.

He had pressure checked each section and jug tested a set of blue nozzles. I was planning to run reds with angled caps so I told him I could finish off myself. I was happy to let him test the blues thinking any breaking up seals etc got caught in them rather than my new red set.

Due to the ball issue I decided to try a part load with plain water just as a final check . This was where it went to fudge as firstly noticed the RDS flow differences with less sections on , plus actual rate different from target . Read manual and thought the flow system should be set to "n" given it's not a full time recirc . Phillips confirmed this so tried and it worked as expected after that .

Then the fun started again as the gauge was so far out , it at first seemed stuff had to be returning back to tank . I was sure ignoring lower than 500 and higher than 2500 contents would be consistent enough to be closer over 4 or 5 hecs . It wasn't. That was when I tested and double tested , nozzle output and speed sensors myself . I've been using RDS for years , have tank nudged before but this swung cal factor wildly from lower to over dose. Because of lack of consistency I didn't feel I could simply set the rate controller to get what I wanted , say by asking for 225litres a hec to get 200 , or even spray in manual mode .

When I set the contents gauge to a known 200litres and then couldn't get more than an indicated 2800 in it all started to make sense that the gauge was well out and not consistent with its spacing either .

Frustrating but got there in the end. Yeah knight might have got there sooner or noticed if the wrong contents gauge has been fitted but it's also good for me to be familiar with the machine under the panels .

If I had a pony flow like BTB I would probably have never given it a second thought as I'd have known right from the start what was going in. Folk had warned me the gauge could be out , just never had a sprayer as far out before and I've used a fair few from different manufactures.

i cant ever remember the sight gauge being THAT far out, when its empty it has a SET mark at the bottom, the black line in the middle of the red block in sight glass should be on the SET mark, if it's out as much as you seem to think there must be a problem with the float or the string attaching it to the block in the gauge

 

[jh.]

All seems fine now and gauge re-scaled with the pony flow [emoji106]