I was wondered why I was seeing so many "new" in the box Ryobi 4 gal sprayers showing up on Craigslist. This explains it, getting rid of old stock.

 

I bought one recently and have used it only once. The Ryobi is my first powered backpack sprayer, so I don't have much to compare it with. However there are 2 things about this product that I don't like right out of the box. First, the wand is bendy. Maybe it's better to make the wand bendy than to make it breaky. I broke the wand on my previous sprayer (Harbor Freight) twice. The wand material of the Ryobi is thicker and less rigid, so it may bend instead of break in the event of similar accidents. But it's off putting to see the wand bend just because you stuck it into the retaining clips that are molded onto the side of the tank for storage. I'll be replacing that wand with a brass model (going for the DFW wand setup).

Which brings me to the second thing I don't like about the Ryobi. The hose is a little bit short, thick and not easily replaceable. The hose puts tension on the bendy wand when you try to stow it on the side of the tank, enough tension to bend the wand. It also causes some more pull resisting my handling and positioning of the wand than I'm used to. So I was already replacing the wand - what if you also wanted to replace the hose? For that you will have to open the plastic housing to get at the connection of the hose to the pump. There is a plastic screw down connection, like the one you can see connecting the hose to the handle, but it's completely inside with the pump. Outside all you can see is a metal crimped on collar - that is not the connection. The hose can't be unscrewed at that point, only from inside. Opening the housing requires you to remove 7 Torx T20 screws that are deeply set -fully 3 inches down in narrow holes- in the plastic molding. When you do get the clamshell molding apart you will break a warning label that they plastered across the seam, which presumably voids your warranty - but I can't be sure about that since none of the writing on it is in English. The pump end of the hose is held in a clamp secured by 2 Torx security screws, sized - CR-VT-10

This is hardly a full review of the Ryobi's performance or reliability or anything. Just one or two points which are probably just nitpicking. The bendiness of the wand probably is not going to be a problem for most people who end up buying this sprayer, and isn't in all likelihood going to ever detract from its performance. I don't like it and was disappointed, although I can see how it may make the product more durable. If you want to replace the wand, though, the hose can in turn become an issue, depending on what you'll end up replacing the wand with. Or you may find the length and stoutness of the hose to be simply not to your liking. As with the wand, I wasn't thrilled with the hose ergonomics. To replace the hose for whatever cause, you will need to get at the hose to pump connection and that wasn't made very convenient. In fact it seems to have been deliberately made very inconvenient. I don't know for certain that it voids your warranty to break the the warning sticker and open the housing, but I wouldn't be surprised if they told me that if I sent it in for repair of the pump or something. Ticked off, yeah - but not surprised.

 

Thanks for the review. I have the previous version and the hose and wand look exactly the same . And yes, the hose length does bend the wand a little when it's on the side holder.

In looking at the pictures again I noticed both models have a second horizontal wand holder in the tank cap.. You may have to turn the cap so its in the right direction, but it's another option.

 

I bought the new model this morning and love it! They had a lot of the older model in stock, but was the same price as the new model. I sprayed my entire lawn with prodiamine after I charged the battery and it was a breeze compared to my 4 gallon manual pump sprayer. I have other 18v Ryobi tools and hope this sprayer will be as reliable as those have been.

 

I bought the new model this morning and love it! They had a lot of the older model in stock, but was the same price as the new model. I sprayed my entire lawn with prodiamine after I charged the battery and it was a breeze compared to my 4 gallon manual pump sprayer. I have other 18v Ryobi tools and hope this sprayer will be as reliable as those have been.

Did you happen to use a teejet tip with the new one? I noticed the tip on the new one looked a little different vs the old model.

 

I bought the new model this morning and love it! They had a lot of the older model in stock, but was the same price as the new model. I sprayed my entire lawn with prodiamine after I charged the battery and it was a breeze compared to my 4 gallon manual pump sprayer. I have other 18v Ryobi tools and hope this sprayer will be as reliable as those have been.

Did you happen to use a teejet tip with the new one? I noticed the tip on the new one looked a little different vs the old model.

Yes, I was able to use my Teejet nozzle on the new one with no problems.

 

I bought the new model this morning and love it! They had a lot of the older model in stock, but was the same price as the new model. I sprayed my entire lawn with prodiamine after I charged the battery and it was a breeze compared to my 4 gallon manual pump sprayer. I have other 18v Ryobi tools and hope this sprayer will be as reliable as those have been.

Did you happen to use a teejet tip with the new one? I noticed the tip on the new one looked a little different vs the old model.

Yes, I was able to use my Teejet nozzle on the new one with no problems.

Great! Ordering one today! Thanks!

 

One thing I've noticed is the Petra, Cardinal, and Ryobi all have similar design now.

 

I just had this delivered to my house from Home Depot a few days ago. Picked it up for $119 (I didn't need the battery as I already have them). Looking forward to using its in a few weeks. Thanks for the comments!

 

Im thinking about getting one of these new style sprayers. I like the variable pressure dial, and I just looked through the user manual and it said this thing can pump out up to 90 psi! Does anyone have a way of determining what pressure you are actually spraying at if you turn the dial down? I remember Allyn (LCN) talking about calibrating your sprayer so you can know how much you are spraying, but I think that also the T-Jet nozzles have different spray patterns depending on the pressure, so knowing exactly what the pressure seems like it would be helpful. I could be over thinking it though.

 

Im thinking about getting one of these new style sprayers. I like the variable pressure dial, and I just looked through the user manual and it said this thing can pump out up to 90 psi! Does anyone have a way of determining what pressure you are actually spraying at if you turn the dial down? I remember Allyn (LCN) talking about calibrating your sprayer so you can know how much you are spraying, but I think that also the T-Jet nozzles have different spray patterns depending on the pressure, so knowing exactly what the pressure seems like it would be helpful. I could be over thinking it though.

Interested to hear the same. I need to spray tenacity in a week or so with this new sprayer. I'll test it out with water at first to try and determine flow rate. I'll report back if I find anything definitive.

 

Has anyone done a pressure test on this unit? Supposedly it reaches 90 psi but I seem to be getting about half that based on output. I have tested 3 different TeeJet (AIXR,Turbo,XR) red tips and I'm getting about 50 -52 oz/min output in my measuring cup.

According to the Tee Jet chart it should be:
77 oz/min

 

I don't think it is anywhere near the 90 psi they advertise in the manual. I would guess it's somewhere in the 50 to 60 psi range with the dial at max. I may throw a pressure gauge on mine soon, hopefully this week and I'll update everyone what I find out.

 

I just upgraded to this sprayer from the old ryobi one. The variable pressure was what sold me. However it is a problem to dial in a specific pressure since it's not marked. I had problems with CF valves on the old one. I've yet to try it on this one, but we'll see how it goes. So far I love it.

 

I don't think it is anywhere near the 90 psi they advertise in the manual. I would guess it's somewhere in the 50 to 60 psi range with the dial at max. I may throw a pressure gauge on mine soon, hopefully this week and I'll update everyone what I find out.

Let us know... Best I can tell its roughly 50 - 55 which is fine for me.

 

I don't think it is anywhere near the 90 psi they advertise in the manual. I would guess it's somewhere in the 50 to 60 psi range with the dial at max. I may throw a pressure gauge on mine soon, hopefully this week and I'll update everyone what I find out.

Let us know... Best I can tell its roughly 50 - 55 which is fine for me.

The results are in! I used a liquid filled gauge with a range of 0 - 160 psi. The test was performed with a Teejet XR8003-VS blue nozzle & a Teejet AI11003-VS blue nozzle. Pressure gauge read 98 psi with the dial switched on in any position and the wand handle not engaged. The following pressures were recorded with the wand handle engaged.

XR Nozzle
28 psi dial at 3 o'clock position
38 psi dial at 6 o'clock position
48 psi dial at 9 o'clock position
50 psi dial at 10 o'clock position (max setting)

AI nozzle
30 psi dial at 3 o'clock position
40 psi dial at 6 o'clock position
51 psi dial at 9 o'clock position
53 psi dial at 10 o'clock position (max setting)

 

I don't think it is anywhere near the 90 psi they advertise in the manual. I would guess it's somewhere in the 50 to 60 psi range with the dial at max. I may throw a pressure gauge on mine soon, hopefully this week and I'll update everyone what I find out.

Let us know... Best I can tell its roughly 50 - 55 which is fine for me.

The results are in! I used a liquid filled gauge with a range of 0 - 160 psi. The test was performed with a Teejet XR8003-VS blue nozzle & a Teejet AI11003-VS blue nozzle. Pressure gauge read 98 psi with the dial switched on in any position and the wand handle not engaged. The following pressures were recorded with the wand handle engaged.

XR Nozzle
28 psi dial at 3 o'clock position
38 psi dial at 6 o'clock position
48 psi dial at 9 o'clock position
50 psi dial at 10 o'clock position (max setting)

AI nozzle
30 psi dial at 3 o'clock position
40 psi dial at 6 o'clock position
51 psi dial at 9 o'clock position
53 psi dial at 10 o'clock position (max setting)

Great! Thanks for following up and the pressure is about where I had estimated it to be.

 

I don't think it is anywhere near the 90 psi they advertise in the manual. I would guess it's somewhere in the 50 to 60 psi range with the dial at max. I may throw a pressure gauge on mine soon, hopefully this week and I'll update everyone what I find out.

Let us know... Best I can tell its roughly 50 - 55 which is fine for me.

The results are in! I used a liquid filled gauge with a range of 0 - 160 psi. The test was performed with a Teejet XR8003-VS blue nozzle & a Teejet AI11003-VS blue nozzle. Pressure gauge read 98 psi with the dial switched on in any position and the wand handle not engaged. The following pressures were recorded with the wand handle engaged.

XR Nozzle
28 psi dial at 3 o'clock position
38 psi dial at 6 o'clock position
48 psi dial at 9 o'clock position
50 psi dial at 10 o'clock position (max setting)

AI nozzle
30 psi dial at 3 o'clock position
40 psi dial at 6 o'clock position
51 psi dial at 9 o'clock position
53 psi dial at 10 o'clock position (max setting)

Great, thanks for sharing this information. I'm new to the sprayer world and looking forward to using my new Ryobi. In terms fo your nozzles above, which products do you spray with each? Is one better for fert or pre em and one better for herbicides?

 

@athenslb57 & @dport you're both welcome. @dport I use the XR nozzle for herbicides & the AI nozzle for prodiamine pre-emergent. The AI nozzle produces larger droplets for soil applications. The XR nozzle produces a fine mist that is good for herbicides so they cover more leaf area of the weed you are trying to kill.

 

@athenslb57 & @dport you're both welcome. @dport I use the XR nozzle for herbicides & the AI nozzle for prodiamine pre-emergent. The AI nozzle produces larger droplets for soil applications. The XR nozzle produces a fine mist that is good for herbicides so they cover more leaf area of the weed you are trying to kill.

Excellent. Just ordered the AI nozzle as I am going to use tenacity in a good chunk of my lawn this spring as it requires a bit of an overseed.

 

Thank you for the testing @01Bullitt! Makes me wonder what the actual output is on the old one now. Doesn't really matter for me though. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the new style sprayer.

I've seen a number of people thatbuse the red t-jet nozzles. Is there a reason you went with the blue? I'm still really new to a lot of this so if it's obvious please excuse my ignorance.

 

Thank you for the testing @01Bullitt! Makes me wonder what the actual output is on the old one now. Doesn't really matter for me though. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the new style sprayer.

I've seen a number of people thatbuse the red t-jet nozzles. Is there a reason you went with the blue? I'm still really new to a lot of this so if it's obvious please excuse my ignorance.

You're welcome, I picked the blue one because it was mentioned a few times on here in the past and I have an acre of grass, so the blue Teejets will require less fill ups compared to the red ones. Here is great discussion on the Teejet nozzles.
https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=33

 

Thank you for the testing @01Bullitt! Makes me wonder what the actual output is on the old one now. Doesn't really matter for me though. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the new style sprayer.

I've seen a number of people thatbuse the red t-jet nozzles. Is there a reason you went with the blue? I'm still really new to a lot of this so if it's obvious please excuse my ignorance.

You're welcome, I picked the blue one because it was mentioned a few times on here in the past and I have an acre of grass, so the blue Teejets will require less fill ups compared to the red ones. Here is great discussion on the Teejet nozzles.
https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=33

@01Bullitt can you do a quick glance at my math using this sprayer and nozzle? I have 12k sq feet of lawn. The teejet chart says the blue AI-11003 nozzle sprays at 0.68 gallons per 1000 sq feet when walking at 3 mph and set to 40 psi.

12k * 0.68 = 8.16 gallons . So for my application of tenacity I will essentially need 2 full tanks of the Ryobi sprayer to cover my entire lawn. Does this make sense?

 

@dport I ended up measuring a 1,000 square off with some plastic orange cones and sprayed water. I measured from a gallon sized pitcher that had the measurement lines for every 1/4 gallon. I poured a gallon of measured water from the pitcher in to the sprayer and sprayed the 1,000 square feet area. After I sprayed that area I emptied the remaining water from the sprayer back in to the pitcher and measured what was left, so that would tell me how much liquid I used in a 1,000 square feet. I did this 3 times to get the results.

 

@dport I ended up measuring a 1,000 square off with some plastic orange cones and sprayed water. I measured from a gallon sized pitcher that had the measurement lines for every 1/4 gallon. I poured a gallon of measured water from the pitcher in to the sprayer and sprayed the 1,000 square feet area. After I sprayed that area I emptied the remaining water from the sprayer back in to the pitcher and measured what was left, so that would tell me how much liquid I used in a 1,000 square feet. I did this 3 times to get the results.

Thanks! Teejet arrives today so testing begins tomorrow.