MightyMike said:
One thing to remember is the surface cleaner pushes two nozzles (two water-flows reduces each to "half"), plus the "clear away" tube that shoots water too. So each nozzle pushes (on a standard 13hp 4gpm 4000psi) appx 1300psi. The surface cleaners are LOW PRESSURE cleaners (despite what any ads might say). There is NO surface cleaner that cleans with high pressure.
Do you want to INCREASE or DECREASE your power on the surface cleaner? The stock setting is the way it was designed to work, so leave it be.
A vario-wand is for home-owners... Spray tips are for professionals. To drop your psi, you need HVLP spray tips. Since 99% of the industry still uses the white tip (and calls it low pressure), you might want to look into a 80 for shingles and a 65 for tile.. that way you ARE using low pressure.
<font color=e87400>
yikes!
<B>2 Water Flows</b> will reduce the "Flow" in each outlet by half but the PSI will remain constant, providing your unit is tipped correctly. Hence, a 4000psi machine on a surface cleaner should still output approximately 4000psi
If you're using a surface cleaner on a 4000psi machine & you put a gauge on it & it registers 2000psi you are in series need of some different tips!
My surface cleaners blast out 4000 psi! I think that's considered <b>High Pressure</b> Am I wrong?
What is a "<B>Clear Away Tube</B>"?
<B>Stock Setting of a surface cleaner</b> is nothing more than what the manufacture sees as average usage. <i>If purchased not specified I believe you'd find most cheaper units would arrive with 2.0gpm while better units would arrive with 2.5gpm tips. The difference being that most manufactures of better machines would likely assume their product is going to a user with better equipment.</i> A surface cleaner should have tips installed according to the particular machines GPM rating. As you grow you may find you have several machines with several different GPM ratings in this case you'll end up, in effect, pairing your machines to surface cleaners because of the TIPS installed in them being specific to your various machines GPM.
<i><b>TIP:</b> Surface cleaners should be pressure checked periodically to verify the tips are in tiptop shape. New tips should output close to rated PSI. As new tips wear they're orifice enlarges thus reducing pressure inturn reducing efficiency in they're & your operation. This wear can happen faster than you might think especially depending on water hardness. I used to change tips about every 80-100 hours of operation. When you're busy even a few hundred PSI pressure drop can slow you down, & on a floater it can also wear out the skirtbrush faster.</i>
If you want to drop your pressure at your wand YES changing tips is a great way to do it, but I don't think you really refer to such tips as <B>HVLP</b> Grant it that looks & sounds cooler but really the tips are just higher volume tips. Want to drop your pressure by half, pop in a tip with twice the volume, that'll just about do it. It's not a special kind of tip, it's a tip just like any other but with a little larger orfice & rather than rated at 5gpm it's rated at 10. I just bring this up because to a newbie, it may appear they have to go out in search of some special thing. <B>HVLP</b> is more of a reference to an application than to a tool!
I've been around the block a few times with pressure cleaning & I've rarely every used a <B>White Tip</b>
Cody</font>
Huh?