Self-Cleaning Screen Keeps Irrigation Intake Clean
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"I've got half a mile of poplar trees along my irrigation canal and their leaves were always plugging up the screen on the suction box in my dugout lagoon," says John Satre, who designed and built a rotating screen cleaner to solve the problem.
"I spent six years perfecting it. Water now flows continually through the system, greatly improving the efficiency of my high-pressure Cornell pump," says the Medicine Hat, Alberta, farmer. He irrigates 100 acres of alfalfa, hay, corn and potatoes with a traveling gun that pulls 700 gal. of water per minute through his 2-ft. dia. screened suction box.
The screen cleaner consists of two jet tubes fitted to opposite sides of the suction box. The jets are made out of 3/4-in. dia. pipe fitted with irrigation nozzles. A series of 7/32-in. dia. holes is drilled in the pipe at staggered intervals so the en-tire screen surface is cleaned as the jets revolve, powered by suction from the irrigation pump.
The jets turn at about 50 rpm's and pro-duce enough pressure to keep debris from collecting on the screen, he says.
"All moving parts are pressure-lubricated and flushed constantly by water," he says. "I can't discuss all the details because I don't have my patent yet. But I believe this is the only screen cleaner ever developed that will work in trashy, adverse water situations like mine. Commercial units I've looked at simply wouldn't operate under these conditions."
Satre's hoping to find a manufacturer to produce the screen self-cleaner, which he built from miscellaneous odds and ends.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, John Satre, General Delivery, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada T1A 7E4 (ph 403-527-0257 or 526-5704).
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Self-Cleaning Screen Keeps Irrigation Intake Clean IRRIGATION Acessories 19-5-11 "I've got half a mile of poplar trees along my irrigation canal and their leaves were always plugging up the screen on the suction box in my dugout lagoon," says John Satre, who designed and built a rotating screen cleaner to solve the problem.
"I spent six years perfecting it. Water now flows continually through the system, greatly improving the efficiency of my high-pressure Cornell pump," says the Medicine Hat, Alberta, farmer. He irrigates 100 acres of alfalfa, hay, corn and potatoes with a traveling gun that pulls 700 gal. of water per minute through his 2-ft. dia. screened suction box.
The screen cleaner consists of two jet tubes fitted to opposite sides of the suction box. The jets are made out of 3/4-in. dia. pipe fitted with irrigation nozzles. A series of 7/32-in. dia. holes is drilled in the pipe at staggered intervals so the en-tire screen surface is cleaned as the jets revolve, powered by suction from the irrigation pump.
The jets turn at about 50 rpm's and pro-duce enough pressure to keep debris from collecting on the screen, he says.
"All moving parts are pressure-lubricated and flushed constantly by water," he says. "I can't discuss all the details because I don't have my patent yet. But I believe this is the only screen cleaner ever developed that will work in trashy, adverse water situations like mine. Commercial units I've looked at simply wouldn't operate under these conditions."
Satre's hoping to find a manufacturer to produce the screen self-cleaner, which he built from miscellaneous odds and ends.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, John Satre, General Delivery, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada TIA 7E4 (ph 403-527-0257 or 526-5704).
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