Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Author(s):
Sudhir Kumar Singh, RK Kathiria, Km Sheetal Banga and AL Vadher

Abstract:
Aimed at issues associated with low capacity, more spraying time, fatigue of operator with use of knapsack sprayer, noise pollution of engine operated commercial existing sprayers and the depleting resources of fuel, a walking type battery operated boom sprayer cum weeder was developed. Similarly traditional weeding operation requires more labour and scarcity of labour leads to more time requirement for weeding operation. A need of combined sprayer cum weeder machine at an affordable price was developed to fulfil the need of farmers. The objective of this study was to design and develop a walking type battery operated boom sprayer cum weeder. The developed machine had an mechanism to do both weeding and spraying at the same time and individually. The horizontal motion and spraying by machine was controlled by electric power train. The electric power train consisted of differential, gearbox, and motor. The motor was connected to the driven wheel by an appropriate teeth ratio to provide the required speed and torque. Four 12 volt batteries were connected in series to achieve 48 volts. The machine was equipped with a throttle speed controller. The gearbox designed had driving and driven helical gears in which driving gear have 16 no of teeth, outer diameter is 2.5 cm and gear width 1 cm similarly in driven gear have 53 teeth, outer diameter 7 cm and width 2 cm. The uniformity of deposition and penetration of chemical droplets to the plant canopy was increased by designed a new construction of the frame, and a uniform field distribution is realised simultaneously while weeding is done with minimal plant harm. The forged ball valve is used to control the flow of discharge when the target is identified, and the spacing between the nozzles and height from above the plant canopy is adjusted. It was observed that the pesticide droplets sprayed by the developed spraying machine had better penetration ability and good uniformity, which eliminates the runoff of chemical through the plant canopy to soil and solidification issues caused by chemical absorption into the soil. The facility of weeding system was also provided in a single machine to overcome the operational cost of weeding.