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Post by torriem on Oct 15, 2020 21:02:09 GMT -6
With cold weather coming for the next week, I figured it was time to winterize the sprayer, a 4430 Patriot. I might yet want to spray some Valtera ahead of next year's lentils, but for now I figure spraying season is over. So I did my usual winterization which consists of running air through all the circuits--tank rinse, agitation, inductor, individual sections with their drain valves open. I just have an air chuck and valve attached to the main fill port. It's not too hard to get everything blown clean. Then I drained the pump and undid a few fittings to drain hoses that don't blow out very well, especially on the inductor. Took about an hour to do and it's pretty dry now and I'm confident it will winter just fine. I feel like even the solenoid bodies are pretty dry now. I see no reason to run any antifreeze through the system. Never needed it in the past. I can see that it might be quicker and simpler to use antifreeze but I've seen even dealerships screw up the winterizing and have cracked fittings even with antifreeze. Just wondering if I'm only one that just uses air or what you all have found works best for you.
How do you winterize your chem handler? I drained it as best I could and removed a few clamps to let water drain out of the hose on the venturi part.
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Post by kevlar on Oct 15, 2020 21:23:55 GMT -6
We use the sprayer antifreeze, not RV like in the poll. We drain everything the best we can, take off all the in line filters and drain them, then run antifreeze through it, then take off the filters again so that if for some reason there was still enough water in it to raise the freezing point, it will have some room to expand. One year we never drained the bowls after we put antifreeze in and by spring it had expanded enough to push some antifreeze out the threads, fortunately it never broke anything. We used to just drain all the lines on our pull type Flexicoil with no antifreeze and always made out good, but a high clearance is a little more complex.
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Post by Beerwiser on Oct 15, 2020 21:37:26 GMT -6
I just drain the chemhandler and and make sure the valves that are bolted together are half open. The screw together ones get loosed and left half open too. With the sprayer I take the check valves off the ends of each boom section and the feed lines from the manifold. I have a nice hill that drive on the side of and use that to drain the boom. I used to take all the check valves off, but found it unnecessary. Tried it on a old boom first. The only valves I have to worry about is a couple of electric ball valves. They get a bit of antifreeze since you cant get them to sit in the half open spot. Takes me about an hour to do the high clearance too.
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Post by slipclutch on Oct 16, 2020 4:51:16 GMT -6
I drain all the water. Then just use windshield washer. Did it that way for 25 years. No problems
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Post by cptusa on Oct 16, 2020 7:23:48 GMT -6
I blow out with air then run RV antifreeze through and blow with air again.
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Post by torriem on Oct 16, 2020 8:16:06 GMT -6
Pretty thorough, cptusa ! By the way, kevlar , sprayer antifreeze and RV antifreeze are the same thing. I bet a barrel of sprayer antifreeze is cheaper than RV-marked stuff. I often wonder why the non-toxic RV antifreeze isn't used on regular cars and trucks. Would make disposal much easier! Although I also read that airplane de-icing fluid is basically just ethylene glycol (regular antifreeze) and it sprays on the ground and goes into the soil where it's quickly broken down. Although sometimes they use propylene glycol (RV antifreeze). Anyway interesting that it just goes into the environment and tends to disappear safely. |
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Post by kevlar on Oct 16, 2020 9:16:25 GMT -6
I’ll have to look to see if the stuff we got is the same as rv antifreeze or not, says it’s lubricated.
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tbone95
New Member
Posts: 12
Likes: 11
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Post by tbone95 on Oct 16, 2020 9:32:53 GMT -6
I flush the sprayer with RV antifreeze. As for the chem handler, well, I just stay inside when it gets too cold out!
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Post by meskie on Oct 16, 2020 10:08:46 GMT -6
We drain all the water out we can. We have air blow out on our boom. Then we put in sprayer antifreeze run it through everything then drain again blow out the booms again.
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Post by Lucas @ Wilger on Oct 16, 2020 10:43:29 GMT -6
Especially if you have PWM solenoids on your sprayer, if you are blowing it out with air and you have pretty harsh winters you might run the risk of having liquid trapped in the back part of the solenoid poppet. Doesn't take much freeze in there to cause havoc with that poppet catching the sides of the solenoid.
If you are looking at running RV/Sprayer antifreeze, prepare for the 20-30 gallon capacity of the plumbing on the sprayer, and probably spraying out another 10-15 gallons to make sure you get the antifreeze/etc into the nooks and crannies.
As far as a general rule, if you are running the sprayer with pink stuff, run it until you can see the solid pink through all of the sections equally.
Doesn't take much for broken parts to justify the ~$100-200 in antifreeze. Cheap insurance.
As far as running air through it, might be good to have that air chuck go after the flowmeter to spare any issues that you might cause with that if you are blowing it out after you run antifreeze through it. In my opinion, if you are putting the antifreeze through it, you might as well let it winter with it in the sprayer plumbing as you'd have less chance of stuff crystalizing up or residue chalking up in the boom, whereas a bit easier to keep it moving in the spring if it stays wet.
Again, I see a lot of guys get lucky (or so they say), but makes a big difference in where your sprayer is being stored (e.g. Southern Alberta Winter vs. Central Sask Winter vs. Michigan Winter).
Some guys will be 100% OK filling it up with 28-0-0, some will be fine with washerfluid, some are fine leaving water in it, but I'd say be smart about what kind of winters you typically get, and how many surprises you want to deal with in the spring.
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Post by Beerwiser on Oct 16, 2020 11:05:35 GMT -6
You make a good point about 100-200 worth of antifreeze Lucas. Maybe I have been just lucky. I am not convinced leaving the booms or anything full of antifreeze though. With some of the temp swings we get it could be just as bad if it is a dead end run. Blowing the antifreeze out is not needed IMO, but draining it is.
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Post by Lucas @ Wilger on Oct 16, 2020 12:18:20 GMT -6
Yeah, for keeping it full, you are probably right that isn't foolproof to just leave it full of antifreeze. Even last year we had stuff with -55 rated (and tested) antifreeze freeze up solid on some lines.
I've also heard of some guys using urea/washerfluid/etc, but I know there are some seals that can be antagonized if it is sitting in seal contact for a long time.
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Post by cptusa on Oct 16, 2020 13:21:52 GMT -6
I just buy a drum when local FS gets a shipment in, it may actually be sprayer antifreeze but I just call it RV antifreeze.
They shop around but it usually comes through the local NAPA store.
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Post by torriem on Oct 16, 2020 17:53:09 GMT -6
Well guess I'm the only one to use air exclusively. And I didn't vote in my own poll. Haha. Been using air exclusively for many years with zero issues, and will keep on doing it (just using shop air compressor). Haven't had any issues with the solenoids thus far. We shall see how it goes. I don't really have a desire to run antifreeze through my sprayer. I guess I'm surprised that very few people use air, especially with the simple traditional sprayer systems. Also everyone blows out their underground sprinklers and those have valves but never have had a crack there either, and the fancy turbine-driven sprinklers seem to be fine. I have never worried about my sprayer flow meter with compressed air. My older sprayer I rebuild the flow meter every year anyway, and the Patriot has a turbine-style flow meter that I wouldn't worry at all about with air.
With cold weather approaching tonight, I just finished pulling out my intakes from the ponds. Will blow out the underground mainlines next week (yes we use compressed air for just about everything related to winterizing! :) ) Thinking seriously of buying our own big compressor. Makes short work of blowing off the combines, besides blowing out main lines.
And if warm weather returns, I may tank up the sprayer again and go put some Valtera down for lentils next year.
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Post by kevlar on Oct 16, 2020 18:19:15 GMT -6
I haven't winterized ours yet either, got too cold too fast and waiting (hopefully) for a warmer day! Sitting in the heated shop, was optimistically hoping it might warm up enough to do a bit more, but next week I think the warmest day is +3. Was -11 this morning with a wind, have been cleaning up a grain pile the last few days, it's been cold and windy, some smaller sloughs are already froze over, I think we are done.
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