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For about a $60 investment, Dave Daniel of Wentworth, South Dakota, can now be sure of the height of his sprayer boom.
Once he mounted the throttle body from a salvage-yard car onto his sprayer, Daniel ran three wires (12-volt positive, ground, and a wire that brings the signal to the voltmeter in the cab).
“The throttle body has a potentiometer, which is a variable resister, so if you start out with 12 volts, you may be coming back with just 4, 6, 10, or no volts. That third wire carries the signal, which gives the variable number,” he says.
When his boom is all the way up, the digital voltage meter reads 0.4, and the numbers range to 8 as the boom lowers. “It just gives you relative numbers. I know my best height for spraying is a reading from 4.8 to 5.2,” he says.
Project Tip: “When you remove a car’s throttle body, cut the wires at least 6 inches long. You’ll need some wires to connect to, and it’s a hard connector to try to find elsewhere,” says Daniel.