NorthStar Tow-Behind Trailer Boom Broadcast and Spot Sprayer - 31-Gallon Capacity, 2.2 GPM, 12 Volt DC

The media could not be loaded. Works great! Thirty-two gallons of preemergent went down with no problem. The pressure was spot-on and easily adjustable. A key to longevity on one of these sprayers is to flush with distilled water after use. The hitch setup on my Jeep was easy to make. I used a lengthened receiver tube to get it further away from the vehicle. The key to longevity on one of these sprayers is to thoroughly clean the tank, tubes, and pump afterward. I use distilled water. The only problems: missing two 5/16" nuts and the plastic drain cap drips even with the rubber washer installed. A silicone washer should take care of that. Overall I'll give it an A+

Took about 1 leisurely hour to put it together. I was short some of the 5/16 bolts and nuts, but fortunately had spares in my junk box. Directions were OK, but bolt shortage caused me to have to re-assemble the chassis. Axel washers were not packaged with other hardware but strung over the wand.I have 40 acres of forest in the western Sierra and am working to make it healthier, removing ground and ladder fuels. I have used this sprayer for just about 6 hours now, dispersing six 30-gallon loads. It really puts the herbicide out there. The 2-head spray manifold is a bit flimsy but works well and stows nicely for storage, The swath is actually more like 9 ft. I was pulling it behind my Suburban, 4WD over modest terrain. The wheels are a bit small for the forest floor but fine for yard work, bushings rather than bearings, but with a grease Zerk. The wand is all plastic fittings, rather leaky, but works. The wand hose was somewhat short for my application. The pump seems pretty robust. I powered it independently with a 20 Amp-Hr LiFePO4 battery, which only had to be recharged about a 30 minutes during the 6 hrs.Plan to replace the wand with brass, add a wand hose extension, possibly retrofit with 16" tires (will require raising the tank), and pull it with a 4WD Quad (or maybe retrofit to mount to the quad rack.) Will provide a 6-month update.

We have a 1.5-acre property on a hill, which I mow with a Cub Cadet 42" electric lawn tractor. We had been using a 4-gallon backpack sprayer the last couple of years, which was a multi-day effort for each of the treatments (weed preventative, grub treatment, and mole repellent (castor oil mixture). Decided to bite the bullet this year and get a tow-behind sprayer.The Cub Cadet tractor itself is electric (60V), but doesn't expose a 12V terminal at all. So, I bought a small (small enough to fit in the little "phone holder" tray in the tractor) 10Ah model car battery with sufficient continuous amp delivery of 10A (the manual for this says the pump takes 8A of 12VDC current; I should note however that the fuse on the power line is a 15A fuse, so I might have to rethink this battery).# AssemblyFirst thing i found when assembling was that there were no assembly/usage instructions included. Luckily, assembly instructions are available here on Amazon (look for the "User Manual" link on the Amazon page), so I was able to reference that.Once I had the instructions, I found they were pretty easy to follow. I did find that there were only 2 #10 washers included instead of the necessary 4. I got a few from my spare parts bucket to use instead. All other parts were present, albeit loose in a large ziplock bag so there was definitely a lot of sorting required. Note that for the screws attaching the pump to the tank one of them is *very slightly longer* (the one that the tether for the lid attaches to is 1/8" longer than the other three), so pay attention there. The base on which the tank is secured included tightening two "wings" on the main support too early; they are somewhat adjustable and need to be adjusted to line up with the holes on the tank prior to actually torquing them down, so I had to loosen them a few steps later to adjust it all correctly.Everything arrived in good condition *except for* the strainer cap for the pump draw tube. That was somewhat crushed by being in a large baggie with a bunch of heavy hardware, just banging around inside the tank while in transit. That said, it appeared to have a good "seal" around most of the the rubber and hence seems like it will continue to be effective at doing its job (keeping anything that happens to fall into the tank, or undissolved solids, from being pulled up through the motor and into the sprayer nozzles).I later found (see issues below) that the drain cap was apparently supposed to include a rubber washer inside so it would make a good seal without needing to use teflon tape. Mine did not (it is just the plastic cap, which tightens onto the nub and if you over-tighten "clicks" as the threads go out the "back" of the threads on the tank).# QualityA lot of leaks apparent on first use.- The drainage cap could not be tightened well enough to stop leaking. I applied teflon tape (not included) on the threads there and that fixed the leak. I'm going to look into getting a gasket for the cap instead of trying to seal along the threads, as I would need to re-tape fairly frequently after unscrewing the cap and putting it back on (works fine for a few times, but it definitely is wearing out). Looking at the "exploded view" at the end of the manual, it shows a "rubber washer" going inside the drain cap, which was not present in my kit nor mentioned in the assembly instructions. This might be just another quality control issue where I ended up with a cap missing its rubber washer. So, finding an appropriate gasket will return this to its "as designed" state.- The sprayer assembly (comes put together) leaks around the nozzles (specifically, where there is a cap that tightens down to secure the nozzle in place). It is a slow leak, and only when actually spraying, so not a huge deal. Will probably disassemble and apply teflon tape here as well.- A few were my fault for not tightening the hose clamps sufficiently (but I stand by the approach there: avoid over-tightening and deal with leaks on the initial run).Nothing major, just some annoyances that have me ad libbing instead of things working out of the box.The biggest gripe is actually with the tank lid. It is hard to get it aligned to the threads properly, I think because the two halves of the tank aren't *perfectly* aligned, and the lid spans that slightly-off seam.That said, note that this is not a "pressure tank". The spraying pressure comes from the motor pumping the solution through to the sprayers, not from the motor building up pressure in a tank and letting that air pressure push the solution through the sprayers. This is a pretty big difference to most hand or backpack sprayers where you (or a motor) pump up the tank then spray until the pressure starts to waver and pump up again etc. So, really, the issue with the tank lid isn't super significant; it keeps leaves/whatever from falling into the tank just fine.# DesignOne gripe with this tank is that it doesn't drain well. That is, the bottom is mostly just flat. The strainer cap is domed, and the draw tube is pointed, so the last ~inch of liquid in the bottom of the tank simply will never be drawn out. Also, it won't drain well unless you detach the trailer with the drain cap off and tilt the whole thing up. Finally, if you are spraying anything that is not perfectly level, the pump will start sputtering with a lot more liquid still in the tank because it is sloshed away from the draw tube. In other tanks I've seen a molded drain trough, where the draw tube and strainer and drain cap itself would all pull from, leaving very little unusable solution in the tank when the pump can't draw any more up and being much less susceptible to hillsides making it stop early.Another gripe is the measurement of how much is in the tank. They are on one end of the tank only, and don't really line up well with reality even on a perfectly level surface. That said, in reality most people won't be filling this on a perfectly level surface, so a better design would include gauge markings on all four "corners" of the tank so the actual contents can be better estimated.I would strongly suggest "calibrating" it wherever you will most often be filling it (put 2 gallons of water in, mark all four corners at the water level; put another 2 gallons in, mark all four corners at the water level; etc).A silly omission: the tank doesn't "stand up" for quick storage. Some other tanks have molded "feet" so when storing you can tip it "back" on those feet and it will securely stand "up" while in storage. This one doesn't. This makes it harder to store. However, it isn't the worst thing to deal with: just make a "nest" for it to sit in holding it upright. It is just annoying that no one thought of storing this when it was designed. There are "storage" instructions in the manual, but they involve loosening and removing multiple bolts, the wheels and axle, a couple of pins for the boom arms, and then hanging on the wall; this will be fine for end-of-season storage, but isn't useful for "I need to use this again tomorrow / next weekend" quick storage.A common issue is that there is just one "speed" of spray here (there is a pressure regulator on the pump that you can adjust, but you won't be adjusting that while out spraying, just at most once when you start). To get an even flow you'll need to keep your tractor running at a constant speed and also calibrate that speed so that it sprays a known amount of liquid out while working at that velocity. That is, if something says "x ounces of concentrate treats x,000 square feet" you'll need to figure out how many square feet get how much liquid sprayed when you are running at your "normal" tractor speed. This is a fairly common issue with garden and lawn sprayers, so not unique to this tank by any stretch, but something you'll need to think about especially if you are used to a granule spreader (broadcast or drop spreader) where volume sprayed is pretty much tied to how fast you are pushing it. In any case, the manual does provide good tables to make calibration as easy as possible, but it is really up to you to keep that steady and correct speed for the expected spray rate (this is harder for me as the Cub Cadet doesn't have a speedometer, so I have to go by "feel" and use the "cruise control" to keep speed constant).# OverallOkay, there were a lot of little annoyances up there. But overall, this tank does what it is supposed to, and seems sturdy enough to last for a while. It *definitely* saves a lot of time compared to a backyard sprayer, to the point that I'm kicking myself for not getting this a few years ago. I would definitely recommend a tank *like* this to anyone with enough property that you are using a lawn tractor or zero-turn to mow it. I'm happy with this particular tank, but not enough to hands-down recommend it over other similar tanks.

This is my third powered sprayer, and my first broadcast sprayer. It came quickly and assemply was super simple. As far as these things are concerned, this unit seem pretty sturdy.I filled it up with water, add roundup concentrate, towed it behind my ATV for a half mile accross an uneven field. No problems. I went slow, but with so much weight, I thought I'd lose a wheel or something.I have it hooked up to a separate battery..a 12V 22Ah battery (12 Volt 22 Ah AGM Sealed Maintenance Free Battery). Fully charged the batter lasted then entire tank full. I was able to spray about one acre fairly heavily.Just some facts I didn't know about when I bought this:1. The spray booms folds in or out, but the width is not ajustable.2. The boom sprayers can rotate in or out, you you can direct your spray path. I think that I can get good coverage out to about 7ft.3. There's a shut off vavle to each side of the boom, so you can do a half width spray if you want.5. The hand wand can be used in conjunction with the boom. I turned the booms off when I wanted to use the wand aloneOverall, I like this unit. It's held up well so far, and I save at least 2 hourse spraying my field compared to my wand only sprayer that I used before.