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Jim here with Do My Own dot com and today we're going to unbox, assemble, and talk about the features of the Birchmeier 15 liter Iris Backpack Sprayer.

Alright, Birchmeier. 4 gallon backpack sprayer.

Alright, so we've just finished unboxing the Birchmeier Backpack Sprayer. So what we have is six things. We have the sprayer itself, we have the spray hose, the handle, the spray wand, and the pump handle, along with the instructions.

So the first thing we want to do is add the pump handle. So, it's threaded on one end, slide it in, righty tighty, and you spin it until it's completely tight. And once you get it tight, that's it for the handle.

This is a bleeder valve down here and right above it is this threaded piece where it doesn't matter which end of the hose you use, they're both identical so you can't mess it up by attaching the wrong end. They're both the same identical thing. So we'll attach the hose to the sprayer first.

Then we take the end of the hose, and here's the handle. And one thing that you'll want to know is when these handles come, they're always really lose. So if you take this handle off there is a filter in here. But every time I open these, this is really loose. So the first thing you're going to want to do is tighten this up really tight. And then attach your hose to the handle. And again righty tighty. Turn it until it's tight.

Give it one little extra turn. And last but not least, we want to attach the spray wand. And when you see the spray wand, there is a threaded piece here and it floats freely along the wand. And it will slide into this spot on the top of the wand. Like this. And simply turn the black handled nut, until your tight, or at least semi tight.

And then what I like to do is when I get it this way, I hold it the way I want, and then I rotate the wand so that the tip is straight down from the handle, and then I give it one last turn so that it's completely tight.

Empty, this thing is about ten to twelve pounds. After you fill it up with liquid, of course water is eight point three four pounds per gallon, if you fill it up to the four gallons, you'll have thirty two pounds, roughly. Plus the twelve, so, you know, 44 to 50 pounds full, but obviously if you don't like it that heavy, you don't have to fill it up to the four gallons. You can fill it up to the three gallon mark or the two gallon mark. There's no rule says you have to fill it to four gallons.

The Birchmeier 4 gallons backpack sprayer comes with an adjustable tip. The tip will not spray a fan. It only sprays a cone, or a stream. So if you want a fan tip, you'll have to buy that accessory from our website. This will adjust out to a big cone or you adjust it in and you'll get a straight line stream.

As we move down the wand, we'll notice that the handle is a full four finger handle which is really nice. And we have a lock so, if your doing a lot of spraying, you can lock the handle on and keep spraying and switch hands, and you won't have to stop the spray application.

Inside this spray handle there's a filter that easily screws off. So you can just screw the top of the gun handle off, and the filter stays with this side. And so, if you've got a clog or you think you have debris or your not getting liquid out, but you've got a lot of pressure in the tank, this is probably the first place to check to make sure this filter's clear. You can just rinse this off with a garden hose and it will keep it nice and clean or a faucet, compressed air, anything to keep this filter clean. You can buy replacement filters if needed, but, these filters last a long long time. I would replace this filter probably once every twelve months.

So when it comes to the backpack itself, the one thing that most people call about is this one strap here with the hook on it. As you'll notice, this trap cannot be removed. It's on there, it cannot be removed. It's hooked on the top and the bottom. So the idea is, that you would put this on your body using the one strap and then the one really nice thing, is this is just a hook. So you just reach under and hook it. And you're done! It doesn't have to hook to any in particular part. You can hook it back here or here. It's a rail. It just slide along it and then you have it nice and done.

If you've used any other type of backpack sprayers, you'll notice that you kind of have to slide in one or the other. It's real awkward. This makes it really really easy to get this backpack on and off. And like I said, it just hooks so simply and the weight of the product in the, in the sprayer itself holds that hook in place. And it's never going to slip out or come off. And it stays tight!

So the other thing about these straps, they're padded, um, on the top where your shoulders are and they're adjustable, with a very nice pull strap. You just lean and pull and it will adjust down really tight. I had it on the loosest setting and it fit me nice. Uh, a little loose, but I didn't tighten it up.

On most sprayers that you've sen out there, or most back pack sprayers that you've seen, it's very rare that they put the pump assembly on the outside of the unit. Usually they build it into the inside of the tank, probably for esthetics. But this keeps it out of the chemical longer and keeps it cleaner.

And so this is the actual pump assembly. As you pump the handle, the pump moves up and down in here. And it actually makes it really easy to maintain it It's user friendly. Um, it's much better design. Uh, you'll notice the back of the tank is actually calibrated as well. So you have it in US and you have it in metric here. So, if you want to know where one gallon, two gallon, three gallon, four gallon, you can easily see it. It's marked on the inside as well. So you can easily see how much fluid your putting into this.

What we'll notice on most back pack sprayers is, this one included, there is a screen filter. And, this is so, when your out in the field and your adding your chemical, it will catch any debris, leaves, anything that's blowing around. Dust, any unmixed parts of, uh, powder, that are lumpy, or anything like, it will catch them in this filter.

Another cool feature of the Birchmeier 4 gallon back pack sprayer is this right here! What is this? This is full of grease. So when you open this up, you will see grease packed all the way through here.

As you need to lubricate this piston, you just simply give this a quarter turn. It puts more pressure on the grease, which forces it into the piston. So, let's say every time it starts getting harder to pump, you just give this a little quarter turn, adds grease to the piston. Once you've gone all the way down to the threads, you take it off, pack it back full of grease, and put it on the outer most setting again.

Alright, now let's talk about psi and how to adjust it. On this sprayer, there's one simple way, the faster you pump, the more psi you get out of this. And if you need to, you just stop spraying, pump it up, build more pressure in the tank, and then pull the handle and you'll get more psi.

On the handle you'll notice this locking mechanism which helps you spray constantly or consistently without having to hold the handle in. What you'll notice is, if it's not all the way up to the notch, then it's not going to hold it. It has to go all the way back to the notch in order to fully engage. If it's straight up and down, it's not fully engaged. Has to go all the way back to the notch in order to hold the handle up so that you can spray continuously without holding it, and swap the wand from hand to hand, without stopping the spray pattern.

On the Birchmeier 4 gallon back pack sprayer, the maximum distance you can spray on this is about 10 to 14 feet, but the only way your going to get that 10 to 14 feet is if you have it in the pin stream position, which is all the way adjusted out into a pin stream and as you roll it in, of course, the distance decreases.

Let's say your pumping this up, and your pumping and your pumping, and your not getting any suction, you're not getting any pressure built up. So, it's one of basically three things. One of your connections, either the connection from the hose to the tank is loose and you're loosing the pressure through here. The connection between the handle and the hose is loose and your loosing pressure there. Or your tank cap itself is loose and so you're not getting pressure. So make sure, this has a gasket in it, and it needs to be sealed all the way down. This is really nice. It' a, just a uh, quarter, quarter turn. You turn it a quarter and you can actually hear the gasket connect. So this has to be tight, this has to be really tight, and if these connections aren't tight. You're not going to be able to build pressure in the, in the sprayer.

So you're out in the field, you need a replacement part, and you're like, "Man, I don't have my manual with me. How am I going to find a replacement part for this thing?"

Well, lucky you, right on the back, right here, is a QR code. So you take your handy dandy smart phone, snap a picture of the QR code, and up pops a blow up diagram of all the parts. You blow it up on your phone, you go, "Oh there's the part I need."

We're doing spraying for the day. SO now what are we going to do? We're going to want to make sure that the wand and everything is empty of any chemicals, then what we're going to do is simply take the top off, fill it with clean water up to the one gallon mark. Take your tip off the end of your spray wand, and spray that one gallon through it. It will come really quickly if you take the tip off. Put the tip back on, put one more gallon in it, maybe spray about a half gallon through, just to make sure this tip is clear.

If you want to, you can open this and clean the filter after every spraying but as long as you sprayed clean water through it, I think you're good. But it's always nice to check this filter just in case.

One thing we always want you to remember is safety. So, you should wear a long sleeve shirt, long pants, gloves that are, go up to just below the elbow, 9 to 13 inches, and we always want to make sure we're wearing eye protection so we don't get anything in our eyes. Safety first.

I'm Jim with Do My Own dot com and this has been shop talk. If you like this video please give me a thumbs up.

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