Travelling Gun Irrigator

[worntorn]

I built this about twenty years ago and it has had lots of use. So far the only major repair cost has been replacement of the plastic hose. The hose weighs about a ton when filled with water so there is a lot of pull and stress on it as it wraps onto the drum. After about 15 years the hose started to break down.

Power is from a 240volt 360 to one gear motor. That drive goes into the large 40 to one gear reducer and then there is a further gear reduction in the drive chain and sprockets. Total reduction is 24,000 to one.
On the opposite side a drive chain comes off to run the powered fairlead assembly. The fairlead is geared to move exactly the diameter of the pipe for each revolution of the drum. When the fairlead gets to the edge of the drum, it reverses and heads back the other way, much like some fishing reels with geared fairleads.

The travelling cart moves at 1foot per minute and waters a 180' circle. I run it mainly at night to reduce evaporation. In a 12 hour shift it winds all the way in and shuts of automatically. The pipe is 800' long so it irrigates approximately 3 acres per night.

Power is supplied to the field by an underground 240 volt supply line. I put it in the same trench as the 4" high pressure water supply line. The water supply is 60 gallons per minute at 110 PSI, from an irrigation well we drilled.
There are 5 risers located in the fields. From these 5 risers the machine will reach the entire pasture area, about 20 acres.

Glen