Matabi Berry 7L Sprayer Review - It is Junk :(

I treated myself to the Matabi Berry 7L Sprayer. What a piece of junk



Good points:

The plunger is removed to be the filler, and the top of the sprayer, around it, is concave so easy to fill and any spills of chemical are then washed into the sprayer.

Pump plunger handle is a generous size and aligns (on mine at least) in just the right spot to carry the pressure vessel in one hand, and spray with the other. Plus, as the sprayer empties, there is another handle towards the front, angled somewhat so not comfortable for carrying when full, which then causes the pressure vessel to tilt backwards, which means that the uptake hose is nicely position in the declining reservoir of chemical.



I didn't find the shoulder strap useful (partly because the plunger handle worked so conveniently,) others might.

The trigger handle is excellent. Shuts off promptly, and a concern that I had, of there being no "lock on" for my somewhat arthritic hands, was unfounded. No effort required to keep it applied - which has to be better than locking it on and then potentially struggling to unlock it! Slight downside is that its like a hair-trigger, so easy to knock the trigger when sorting something out and thus causing a short burst of spray.

There is a pressure release valve. When the sprayer is empty it is light enough to hold it by the valve (opening it) and thus releasing pressure as you walk back to refill - it takes about 20 yards to release the pressure totally

I bought the extension lance (carbon fibre or something like that)

and a set of nozzles - which provide an excellent Fan shape and are very useful for treating a large area.

These are in addition to a more conventional nozzle which you adjust by rotating the nozzle cap to widen / coarsen the spray pattern. I also bought the service kit (not needed that as yet)



Cons:

The concave shape of the top means that the inside is convex. It is therefore impossible to pour out the last 1/2 Litre when rinsing, making it neigh on impossible to switch from one chemical to another (in my case total weedkiller Roundup to selective weedkiller for the lawn)

The joints are useless. They have a nice O-ring, and what seems to be a sensible cone-shaped clamp, which should grip and tighten everything when done up, but they don't hold. The connectors, and their threads, are just plastic and work loose.

There are several such joints -

Pressure vessel to Tube
Tube to trigger handle
Handle to lance
Lance-Extension double connector
Extension-to-Spray head

The first one that leaked was from pressure vessel to tube. This is, of course, under pressure so I had weedkiller coming out under pressure and not in a position where I wanted it. I assumed that I had not tightened it properly in the first place ... until it happened the second time. I then worked out that the tube being jiggled somewhat, by me moving the lance side to side etc., was enough, over time (i.e. a couple of tankfuls), to loosen the connection. Thereafter I checked it for tightness every few minutes - most of the time it was fine, occasionally it would take a 1/8th turn

At times it leaked from both the lance-extension connection (no idea why, it felt tight when I then checked it) and the extension-nozzle connection - that happened several times so I can only conclude that it worked loose.

But the worst was the handle-lance connection. The slight whipping action on the carbon-fibre lance caused the connected to work loose, but worse still it weakened the plastic screw thread in the process (i.e. causing the connection to jump-threads rather than to undo) and now I cannot properly tighten it. (At no time have I tightened it more than hand-tight, so I am sure that I have not over tightened it). So to finish the job I had to tape it up ...

I may look for a lance with brass connectors so that I can get it leakproof - but that will still leave the inability to properly rinse it out.

 

That's the problem I've found with most modern designs and it's a PITA disconnecting the hose at the base every time you want to flush it through (and that's after flushing the hose and lance). I thought about raising this earlier in the thread, but read (somewhere) that those Matabi Berry's could be drained out.

I have these:

Good old Hozelock Killaspray design sprayer (just turn upside down to empty) on left hand side

and

A typical rubbish new PITA design sprayer (take off lance hose, keep turning around, use hosepipe to flush out, etc.), strap gets soaked with spray, design of clips to hold lance is useless, etc. on right hand side

 

I have one of those Hozelock sprayers and it has worked well for the last 4 years. Did tread on the spray head and had to buy a new one, but that was my stupidity rather than a fault of the machine. Only caveat is that there is always a half inch or so of water left in the thing which the tube does not reach. Bit of a waste of chemical in a way.