Boom Upgrade and Electric Reel Fit-out on a Farm Sprayer

Placeholder post. A good example of a modification job — worth showing the “before” as well as the finished result.

The brief

The sprayer itself was sound: good tank, good pump, plenty of life left. The problem was coverage. Spot spraying a whole paddock off a hand lance was slow going, and the old manual reel was hard work by the end of a long day.

Rather than replace a perfectly good unit, we modified it.

What we changed

• 8 metre three-section boom with breakaway outer wings, mounted to a new rear frame
• New nozzle bodies at 500mm spacing, set up with air-induction tips for drift control
• 12V electric rewind reel with 60m of hose, wired through a dash-mounted switch
• Pressure gauge relocated to where the operator can actually see it
• Re-plumbed the return line so agitation works properly at boom pressure

Checking it works

Before it went home we ran a catch test across the boom to make sure output was even across all nozzles, and calibrated it against the operator’s target rate and ground speed. The numbers went on a laminated card in the ute.

The result

What used to be an afternoon is now about forty minutes, with better coverage and far less operator fatigue. Total spend was well under a third of a new sprayer.

Got gear that’s most of the way there? Talk to us about a modification before you write it off.