Chapin 63985 20V Backpack Sprayer is something that we use a lot in my work, and I can tell you pretty good experiences with this sprayer. Both good and bad, but I just have some experiences that I can share. First of all, we purchased this sprayer last year, and this is our eighth one. One of them we sent back right away because of poor packaging. The box was expanded, and it looks like someone took it out and put it back in. Previously, when we put it together, the hose leaked, so we returned it right off. This one is also kind of bulging and kind of torn up. Luckily, it was inside another box, so it got extra protection during the shipment.
When I said, this is the seventh one we’re going to be using in the last year, that’s on four different crews. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you use it as much as we do and we’re talking about five days a week maybe spraying total time of perhaps an hour to an hour and a half a day, that’s a decent amount, so these things do wear out. You can get spare batteries from Black and Decker batteries, so they’re pretty standard.
We put one of these per truck, and we use an inverter that we plug into the truck cigarette lighter port to keep the batteries charged. Doing this, they last a full day, and we don’t have to worry about running out of battery. Exceptions of that are if we have a big job where we’re going to be spraying an acre or something like that, it may not be reasonably last that long, and we’ll put a spare battery on the truck. You can get extra batteries for these relatively cheap, maybe thirty to forty dollars.
Then when the sprayers do go out because of a problem with the electric motors, diaphragm, or valve or whatever might be the problem, you always have the batteries that will last longer than the sprayers, so then you have spare batteries.
The sprayer unit got the hose, and the straps are thin, but they last. Get the straps that go over the shoulder, and then you can also put them around your weight. You got the filter at the mouth, so you don’t get contaminants in it—a couple of units of this leak from the diaphragm area. Here I haven’t done any repairs on any of them myself, but we do have a couple that is laying around that I will take a look at. We just need to get them cleaned out get our chemicals out to figure out if I can repair those.
The 20-volt battery connects on the bottom, and it is easy to put and remove. Just slides right into the base, and we’ll click in when it’s in. the power button is on the side, and the charger is included as well that you can plug into either a wall or an inverter inside of a truck.
You got your nozzles and a couple of spare nozzles, and here is a charger. We’ve got the different sprays that put off the various patterns. We go with the brass one that’s in here. It just seems to be sufficient for us. You just got to get everything connected, but as I said, this wand is not precisely straight, to begin with. It’s got a slight bend to it already, but it won’t break easily.
Nozzles tip spray pattern:
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Brass: Circular spray pattern
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Black tip: Circular spray pattern and it looks to be just a little smaller than the brass tip.
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Red tip: This gives you a flat line. This is a pretty decent amount of spray. Instead of the circular pattern, it provides that straight line that puts out a lot of sprites.
The line is better for getting edges on sidewalks are around houses so that you don’t hit the home, and you just keep a line there where the round one I kind of just spray a whole area, so they’re all excellent. They all work until you have a problem. From what I know is, over time, these hoses will break, and you’ll have punctures. Sometimes, it’s related to people getting caught in a gate, truck tailgate, or trailer gate. Once you compromise these by nicking them, it makes them weaker, but we have blowouts in these all the time. If they’re close to the edge, we’ll just cut it, put it back on, and keep using it. You can see how the hose is reinforced, but they still have many problems. So that’s something to keep in mind. Sometimes you can tell that it’s not from user error because it actually blows out, and you can see it’s like it has a bubble, and then it eventually explodes chemicals everywhere.
Earlier, we also have leaks that come out above the battery compartment. We’ll probably repair the sprayer if we can make one work and find out what’s causing these failures. But generally, even with the manual pump ones, they will also last six months, but these are much more efficient because you can just spray it, and you’re not pumping it.
One of the problems I had with the manual pumps is you don’t know how much pressure you have nor how much is too much. I have had guys pump it to a point where the line explodes, and that’s no good and when if you have to do a yard that’s an acre takes a lot of a lot of strength just to keep pumping and pumping and pumping where this is just much more efficient even though they’re twice as much as the manual pump ones I’d rather have this.
In my experience, they last very similarly to the manual ones, and for my work purpose, the battery one is much preferred.
[Edited]
I found a couple of simple problems with one of my older units. It got no straps on it as people have taken it off the parts, but I put it back together. I found that this clamp that goes around the bottom if it’s taken off and not put on exactly where it goes even if it’s off a slight bit up or down it’s going to leak, so I went ahead replaced some bolts on this because didn’t have the right ones on. One of the clamps was blown out where the bolt head or the nut had gone through the plastic, so I replaced it with a washer. Another one wasn’t just tight enough, but otherwise, this unit works fine. Put the battery, in turn, on, and it sprays without any leaks. You have to have the seal around the mouth perfectly to build pressure. I can probably just order online, and I’m not worried about that. The only thing that’s going to happen is if that seal is not good, it might leak on someone’s back if they’re walking around with it. I had three in the back, and I went ahead and repaired three. So the four that I have plus the three that I’ve fixed, I’ve got seven of these now there wasn’t much wrong with it. If it was leaking, it might need some minor repairs. Hopefully, I won’t have to buy any for a while. I know I said they were only working for about six months, but they’re working for a longer time. I started buying these, I’m going to say fifteen months ago, and I except for one is missing don’t know what happened to that one but the rest of them I still have it every single one of them.
14 to 15 months later, we are still using them every day. All the batteries work except before I have had one battery failure that came with it, and I bought a spare battery from another company off of Amazon. I’m going to recommend this product because it works well and it’s worked for a long time.