Raven developed an electric shock absorber it calls the variable damper for controlling the centre section on sprayers. Applying more voltage makes the variable damper stiffer. Eliminating voltage neutralizes the damper.
“Sprayer companies put so much resource into controlling that centre section,” said Raven’s Greg Gessner.
“It carries the load going through ditches and waterways, so it has to float and keep the wings off the ground. So sometimes it’s designed to be a little sloppy.”
Adding boom-height control to a sloppy centre section makes it difficult for the system to keep the boom on target. So Raven devised the variable damper. This shock or damper is only activated to stiffen the centre section when it needs to move the booms. Gessner said it doesn’t really do anything with the bounce of the booms.
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“We sometimes need to make the centre section stiffer so the wings can be controlled more aggressively, so we install two of these dampers on the centre section. With no voltage to the damper, the centre section is as loose as the manufacturer designed it to be.
“Then we’re spraying and coming up to a waterway. The boom is rolling, say, 40 feet per second going down. The variable damper stiffens the centre boom only as much as it needs for the height control system to adjust. When we’re back on the level, we remove the voltage and the centre section loosens up again.”
