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Need advice on building or buying a dropdeck sprayer tender trailerJump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [50 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
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| thomassmith |
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| Hello, I have been digging through the forums trying to find a nice setup for a tender unit for our sprayer. I would like to find a trailer to buy and I was wondering if anyone can give me a ballpark price on what they spent for their trailer. What I want on the trailer - 3000 gallon + tank on the front of the trailer Room for 4 300 gallon totes Room for 3" pump Drop deck with pullouts for 4730 sprayer. I want to pull it with a semi, and I think I want a 48 foot trailer. Please tell me what you think, Thanks, Tom | |||
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| emtbd1979 |
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west central illinois | i bought a trailer off an oxy actlyn dealer that they hauled the bottles on for 1000 dollars this isnt quite what you are wanting to build but thought id show you what i had in mine it is 38ft long i put 2 2100 gallon tanks on it and can haul 2 shuttles and a pallet of ams have an inductor and 3in water pump i have around 5000 in the entire outfit but i road my sprayer instead of hauling it all our farms are within a 20 mile radius so it isnt to bad | ||
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| Ten-Four |
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EC Nebraska | We have a 48' spread axle set up to feed the planter and sprayer. It is not a drop deck, wish it was. We have a 3000 gal tank at the front for water and a 2600 gal tank over the rears for fertilizer. Chemicals set inbetween the two tanks and there is enough room behind the rear tank for a four wheeler to sit. I realize that this is not at all the set up you are looking for, but there is a reason I am telling you this. When you set that big tank up on top of the fifth wheel it gets tipsy at times. More especially if you are backing into a driveway or around an intersection on a road. Feels like the whole thing is going over if you hit the brakes too hard when you are cocked. A drop deck may not be as bad with the rest of the trailer lower to the ground. If you think about it though, we are carrying as much liquid as a tanker, but without the full baffels. Just something to keep in the back of your head when you are driving it, especially with a half full tank. A few years (4 or 5) ago the '97 Wilson Alumn flatbed was around 7k. I don't know about the price of a drop deck. I know you used to be able to figure about a buck a gallon for the big tank. | ||
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| Crop Walker |
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Central Ontario | Wanting a new trailer or used? | ||
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| thomassmith |
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| Prefer a used trailer, will look at new ones though. | |||
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| thomassmith |
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| Is it easy for you guys to justify a second person during spraying season to support your sprayer vs doing everything with one trailer and one person? | |||
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| emtbd1979 |
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west central illinois | i do it all myself only thing i have to have help doing is moving and my grandpa helps me do that with the trailer capacity that gives me 280 acres a fill i try to do around 1 and a half loads a day but in town i can refill the 4200 gallon in around 20 min so the sprayer doesnt idle to long but dont get me wrong it would be nice to have someone to drive the semi but that time of year we are stretched very thin | ||
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| Crop Walker |
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Central Ontario | http://www.behnkeenterprises.com/semispray.pdf We bought a new trailer a year ago, 48' tri axle with the 3,000 gal tank mounted on top deck. Price was approx. $33,000.00. Haul a 1074 Rogator on it. At the front of the drop deck we have a 7' deep storage unit. There is approx. 4' from the back of the storage unit to the front of sprayer. In this area sits an inductor and water pump. 53' would provide more tote space. | ||
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| thomassmith |
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| How long does it take you for this unit to pay for itself compared to hauling water with a pickup or just using a semi and a second person? I spray 14,000 acres of everything a year with my 4830 and have different hands attempt to supply me with chemical via trucks, water trailers, semi trailers, double cone tanks, and whatever is handy and I am trying to figure out the efficiency and labor savings of a trailer like you purchased versus my setups. | |||
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| Phred |
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NE Mo | Here, a couple of operators have laid some type of rail across a regular flat bed trailer, then they have a drop over each side holding a runner. They straddle the flat bed trailer with the sprayer, running on the runners. They have tanks and shuttle mounted on the front of the trailer. The capacity of the tanks I am unsure of. | ||
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| dpilot83 |
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If I were going to buy a new one, I would buy one from JD Skiles in Atwood, KS. If I were going to buy a used one, I would study the design of the JD Skiles trailer and rig it up the same way they have it. Their setup has everything you're asking for, plus one very important addition: They have a number of (more or less depending on how you specify it) stainless steel tanks on the side of the area where the shuttles sit. These stainless steel tanks are shaped like a very tall cylinder. You can probably specify how much you want them to hold, but they are most likely 40 or 50 gallons a tank. You pull a vacuum on these tanks with your sprayer. Then with the valving they have set up, you can suck product out of your shuttles into the stainless steel tanks. They have sight gauges and capacities listed so you know how much you're sucking out. After you have measured out the correct amount, you re-route the suction with your valves and you can then suck out of the stainless steel tank into your sprayer. The advantage of this is that you do not have to have any pumps or meters on your shuttles. In our experience, both the pumps and the meters are a major wear item and I can't even imagine what you'd have to do to wear the stainless steel tanks out so eventually it will pay for itself that way. The other advantage is that it is MUCH faster than using the traditional pumps that you would have on the top of your shuttle. Especially with thick chemicals like parallel plus. If you are pressed for time, it will pay for itself that way as well. To my knowledge my neighbor is the first person who came up with this design. He is a large farmer in the area. He's been using this for probably 5+ years now. Someone asked JD Skiles to make another one like it for them, and they are finally starting to bring it into production. If my neighbor was not the first one in the country to do it like this, I still applaud his creativity because he is unaware of anyone who has done it like that before him. Anyways, you can go to the JD Skiles website for their phone number (it looks like their website isn't in very good shape) and talk to them about their semi nurse trailer with stainless steel product suction tanks to learn more about it. Just say you would like to talk to someone who knows about them. I can tell you for sure though, that kind of a trailer is really the way to go to keep a one man band going if you're at all spread out. You can reload your sprayer in probably 10 minutes from the time you hop out of the cab to the time you hop back in with this setup. We would have this setup but we've got a considerable amount of investment in pumps and meters now. As our pumps and meters fail, we will probably convert over to this system one tank at a time. I would highly recommend you take a look at this setup, just for design ideas if for nothing more. It is quite creative. | |||
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| dpilot83 |
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I don't know what you spray or how you do it, but I will explain how we do it. We have an old (1998) Patriot 150 sprayer. If you're not familiar, it's a pretty small, old self propelled sprayer made by Tyler (before Case bought the Patriot line). 150 HP, 75' booms and 750 gallon spray tank. Our spray tender is a semi pulling an old combine trailer. On the front of the combine trailer we have a 3200 gallon tank for water or fertilizer depending on what we're doing. Behind the fertilizer tank there is room for two shuttles and another 100 gallon tank for 24D. There is also an area for whatever things we may have in 2.5 gallon jugs. In the last five years we have probably never covered less than 20,000 acres in a year with this rig. Some years it has been significantly more. It is almost always a one man operation. The only time we need someone to run the semi back and forth for product is when we're streaming 32-0-0 on and we're putting on 30+ GPA. Most of the time our product rates are much lower than that and only one person runs the sprayer and spray tender. The first key to covering a lot of acres is to avoid having to deal with water treatment during busy times. We have a 1500 gallon tank at home that we use as a water reservoir for the spray trailer. We run a garden hose with a float on it into the 1500 gallon stationary tank. When the semi pulls in to the yard at night we stop at the tank and start pumping that 1500 gallon tank into the 3200 gallon tank on the semi. As it's pumping we pull the forklift up to the 1500 gallon tank with a pallet of AMS on it. We dump 5 bags of AMS into the top of the 1500 gallon tank and then let the water start going into the top of the tank again with the garden hose. By the time you've emptied your 1500 gallon tank you've probably put another 25 to 50 gallons of water in it. The next morning, you get up before you can start spraying and you repeat the process. You now have over 3000 gallons of treated water in your semi. We are also very careful to make sure shuttles are full before we need to start a spraying day. We also make sure maintenance is done in the off time. Even if it's not due yet, but it will fall during a busy day, it gets done ahead of schedule. Finally, you have to be making your first pass as the sun is coming up or earlier (weather allowing). If you follow these steps, you should be able to pull off 800 acres a day with your 4830 without sweating too much. The only problem is that you probably won't be under 80,000 pounds because a 4830 is significantly heavier than our Patriot 150. If that's not important to you then you're still good. If it is important to you then you probably need to leave with a little less than full capacity on your water. You can have someone bring a nurse trailer behind the pickup full of water to fill the semi just once a day and you'll still be able to get 800 acres a day. If you push hard and the weather cooperates, you'll be able to do more than that (depending on your boom width and field sizes/shapes and the distance between them).
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| jethro |
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Central Kansas | http://www.chuckhenry.com/neville.htm Don't know if a 3000 gal tank will fit. You will definitely be overweight with a 4730. And yes, the tank up on the nose will make for some scary moments if you get in the wrong place. Edited by jethro 1/9/2010 08:58 | ||
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| Tazzerblue |
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SW MN | Our co-op sold me one last year, holds like 250 gallons, has smaller 12-15 gal measuring tank underneath, you measure you product out and then suck it into your tank with water supply. They'ev sold alot of these, will pay for them selves just with bulk product. and no pump calibrating,or wear. | ||
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| TregellasFarms |
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Perryton, TX | tom, You would like having the "one man show" of a drop deck trailer. I have a 50' Neville, closed axles, 3250 tank on nose(12'nose) 23' OF PULL OUTS (only need 21' for my 4270-now 4830) can haul 4 -250 shuttles and room for pump stairs ext. I spray a little over 30,000 acres a year and wouldnt want to have two people tired up that much. I will try to post some pictures later. I have grate floor where the chemical sets so if you spill it goes to the ground not on the deckm that is a must to me keeps the trailer cleaner.I have a full deck and dove tail, no that i have had the trailer two year and not hauled anything but a sprayer, i wont waste my money on a full deck again. Good luck | ||
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| CowsNPlows |
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SW Nebraska | Tom, Several years ago I took a container trailer, less the container, and built my own. I put a 1650gal tank on the front, it has room for 4-250gal totes, 2 pallets, and pumps. I also haul my Rogator on the back. The trailer is a 48' model and with the tank full of 32-0-0, 4 full totes and the sprayer (empty product tank) I gross 78,800. That was all by dumb luck but that is how it turned out. I have a friend who did the same thing only he put a 3200gal tank on his, the room for it is there. I usually do not have much for help so I usually run as a one man show. I cover approx. 15,000 ac annually. Half of my acres are done at 5gpa so I get 320ac out of a semi fill. The convenience and logistical advantages make the trailer worth it in my opinion but the kicker is the hours on your sprayer. I used to figure on putting 500hrs a year on my sprayer, since I built the trailer my hours have dropped to 200 annually. I built it with the ability to slide the sprayer pullouts in when not hauling the sprayer, in reality I have never moved them it. I would have built them solid and saved a lot of hassle. | ||
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| RCT |
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S.C. Minn | I put together something similar to what you are doing a year ago. We found a 9 year old 48 foot drop deck trailer for $13,000. We put a 4250 gallon tank on it for $4,000. It has baffels in it. We put the tank on the lower portion of the trailer, which I felt made it feel and look safer. We had a guy put a dump valve on the rear axle of the spread axle so now it turns corners sharp. When I was looking I talked to the folks at www.jetcompany.com and they would build me a new trailer any configuration I wanted, and the price they quoted me was in the low $30,000 range. | ||
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| MN Dave 2 |
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| We put together a drop deck with 3-1700 gal tanks plumbed together with quick coupler/detach hose fittings which work out great for taking tanks off to use drop deck for moving machinery. Another friend put kind of same outfit together and did not use the quick couplers..... he said it was such a pain in the butt to take apart it kept the neighbors from always wanting to use the trailer. | |||
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| Dave535 |
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Southwest, Ohio | Go to stewart-farms.com Look under photos spring 2009. They have a nice setup. | ||
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| Lil' Hoss |
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NESD | These pics were taken of the scale system that a customer put together for adding chemicals by weight, it is really fast and accurate, they do show the complete trailer so you can get an idea how he did it, he hauls a 4930. (Picture 001 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 002 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 003 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 004 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 005 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 006 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 007 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 008 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 009 (572 x 428).jpg) (Picture 010 (572 x 428).jpg) Attachments ---------------- Picture 001 (572 x 428).jpg (84KB - 1424 downloads) Picture 002 (572 x 428).jpg (73KB - 1350 downloads) Picture 003 (572 x 428).jpg (69KB - 1300 downloads) Picture 004 (572 x 428).jpg (60KB - 1250 downloads) Picture 005 (572 x 428).jpg (62KB - 1481 downloads) Picture 006 (572 x 428).jpg (48KB - 1400 downloads) Picture 007 (572 x 428).jpg (81KB - 1247 downloads) Picture 008 (572 x 428).jpg (90KB - 1397 downloads) Picture 009 (572 x 428).jpg (67KB - 1416 downloads) Picture 010 (572 x 428).jpg (65KB - 1383 downloads) | ||
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| mennoboy |
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Rivers, MB | You spent 300 hours / year on the road ? Wow. I can see why the trailer made sense. | ||
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| CowsNPlows |
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SW Nebraska | Hard to believe but the road time and slower filling all added up. My farthest field is probably 12 miles. It shocked me too! | ||
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| somerset |
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kirkton ontario | http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=134270&posts=9... My friend north of me built the drop deck with the tarp slide, it works well for him | ||
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| TEXAS COMBINER |
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Angleton Texas | I used a volvo straight truch with a 26 ft bed 3000 gal water 3 shuttles and pump and mixing tank . I pulled a janse combine trailer long tounge. Its a lot easyer to manuver. | ||
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| WTfarmer |
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Central Texas Panhandle | Last spring we bought a sprayer trailer from Behnke Enterprises like Crop Walker was saying. Where he got the triple axle we only opted for the spread axle. 3200 gallon tank on the upper deck and room for 5 shuttles, pump, cone, and boxes. The odd shuttle was on the front of the bottom deck on the right and the space on the left is where our pump, cone, meter, and manifold setup from the shuttles are mounted. BTW that front shuttle usually stays put and holds fresh water (painted it black to keep from growing stuff inside). Four shuttles behind that and then room under sprayer for pallets of chemical or AMS. The sprayer rails are actually drop downs. They fold up and pin to the sides of the deck to make a legal width trailer when not hauling the sprayer. We haul a 4720 and spraying has to be a one man job because we just don't hire much help. The standard trailer from this place is a 45 foot tandem axle with no deck. We opted for the upper and lower wood deck option and three extra feet to bring it to 48'. We also opted for the spread axle to help distribute the weight a little better. BTW on this trailer the lower deck extends all the way to the back where most trailers designed to haul sprayers don't have a deck under the sprayer. This feature allows the trailer to be used as a normal drop deck if needed. There is an option we didn't get but allows for the addition of a beaver tail so you can haul pickups, tractors, etc. The price on our trailer was just a pinch over $20,000. Add about $3000 for a tank (our rule here on tanks is about a dollar per gallon) and your pump cost (we only have a 2" pump) and this trailer is ready to go for less than other trailers alone sell for. I am extremely happy with our purchase. As others noted, JD Skiles and Neville build excellent trailers and would be great, too. Sorry for the book. | ||
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| Wheatguy |
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Sumner County Kansas "The Wheat Capital" | Not a drop deck to haul sprayer but works for me. Old Delta flat 5 grand, 3 1600 gal tanks cheap, rear drop from local welder to hold pump and totes $200, spraying all day without having to refill the truck priceless. When tanks are full of 28% truck is 79,700#. Edited by Wheatguy 1/9/2010 12:19 (New Toys 2009 003.jpg) (New Toys 2009 004.jpg) (New Toys 2009 005.jpg) (New Toys 2009 006.jpg) Attachments ---------------- New Toys 2009 003.jpg (62KB - 1357 downloads) New Toys 2009 004.jpg (68KB - 1435 downloads) New Toys 2009 005.jpg (46KB - 1312 downloads) New Toys 2009 006.jpg (37KB - 1318 downloads) | ||
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| deereman |
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NE SD | Looks like need education to figure that many valves out. | ||
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| kb ag |
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nc ks | to me that seems a lot easier and cheaper and more flexible than turning a high dollar drop deck into a sprayer trailer. The one thing you lose is a lower deck. | ||
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| kb ag |
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nc ks | so does he just have to slow the incoming carrier liquid in order to get it to suck the chemical into the system or does he have to shut the carrier valve completely? Is it easy to obtain the specific gravity for each bulk chemical? | ||
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| Lil' Hoss |
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NESD | I believe that he only slows the flow from the water tank when he opens the valve to add the chemical, I have not checked for the specific gravity of individual chemicals but I would think that distributors would have this info readily available. I have several customers that have gone to using a scale to measure the chemical and they would not do it any differently anymore. Just build a platform to the size that fits your needs and put the load cells underneath it. | ||
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| kb ag |
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nc ks | sounds like a great idea to me, closed system and less hassel than calibrating meters | ||
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| Lil' Hoss |
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NESD | Exactly, what better way to add chemical than by weight. A Batch Boy might be as accurate but is very slow. sitting at an angle doesn't give false readings like a cone will. and most people have the scale head from a grain cart. | ||
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| mohr-power |
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West-Central IL | Yes, I know this post is form 2010! But I have been searching for ideas, and want to mark it so that I can easily find it again. | ||
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Need advice on building or buying a dropdeck sprayer tender trailer