Gardiner back pack or pure freedom trolley

[shaunk1983]

Which is the best for use in a car as I don't have a van Gardiner back pack or a purefreedom trolley and I no there is a big price difference and which battery would last all day

 

[Iron Giant]

Which is the best for use in a car as I don't have a van Gardiner back pack or a purefreedom trolley and I no there is a big price difference and which battery would last all day

The Gardiner BP is rarely in stock so that can be almost instantly dismissed

 

[ched999uk]

The Gardiner backpack should last you a day no problem.
Personally I would say which is easiest to use. i.e. will a PF trolley fit in the back of your car height wise? A gardiners backpack and a handy sac truck are cheaper, and lighter but you have to attach the 2 together each time you get them out of the car, and visa versa on packup.
The PF trolley uses a 'standard' pump so you can have a long extension hose to enable you to leave it at the front of the house and work round the back. Gardiners say only 20m extension hose plus pole hose.

 

[Marko067]

I've used a standard PF Trolley now for 16 years working from a Nissan Primera Saloon.

We now have two PF trollies as my daughter works with me a couple of days a week as well. I confess, I have also now modified them to make them lighter and easier to use. However, I did work with them in their standard form for many years before making the mods and they are very robust.

I went the trolley route as I didn't like the idea of filling a backpack from barrels due to the weight of a full barrel.

If you are interested in the modifications I made read on.

As I have never needed more than 20m of hose to reach all of my work I replaced the pumps with backpack pumps and use backpack batteries. This reduces the weight of the trollies tremendously making them much easier to get in and out of the vehicle.

I also didn't like working with the hi spec digital controller that came on my second trolley so I replaced it with simple 20amp PWM controller, similar to the one that came on the first trolley I bought back in 2007.
I don't have a problem with the hi spec controllers in general. It's just that when fitted to a trolley and used with a relatively short length of inflexible PU hose, they can be very irritating. In this configuration, and because of the way they work, you often find yourself waiting a few seconds for water when you open your valve. When I open the valve on my pole I want instant flow. This is not a problem though with a long length of softer hose attached.

Some have said that backpack pumps don't last long. However, if wired up correctly with a 40amp auto relay to carry the switching current they will last years. At least this has been my experience.

All of this equipment is also much cheaper to replace should it go wrong.

 

[JEM]

Gardiner backpack with a 50m or 100m hose reel, for a car I'd go with Claber reel as they are lighter for if you lift it in and out the car

 

[Dave B]

Gardiner backpacks last a good few days between charges although @Marko067 has the better idea
Go on flea bay and you can usually pick up pf trolleys that don’t work for cheap and add your own pump and battery for under 50 squid and have a good set up

 

[JEM]

Or build your own pump box i built a simple setup
Then you don't even have to remove the barrels just drop the hose with a one-way valve in to the barrel between jobs, then a Claber hose reel

Cost

Speed controller £15

Pump 100psi 5lpm £11

Battery £24 12v 12ah

Toolbox B&Q £10

This is the box I built https://windowcleaningforums.co.uk/threads/non-fixed-van-system.34692/#post-493843

 

[ched999uk]

Gardiner backpack with a 50m or 100m hose reel, for a car I'd go with Claber reel as they are lighter for if you lift it in and out the car

Just so OP knows Gardiners only warranty their backpacks with a max of 20m extension hose + pole hose. I do think others are running longer ones and don't have an issue.

 

[Marko067]

I doubt any factory supplied backpacks are wired up to truly suit the way we want to use them for window cleaning.

We want to be switching the pumps on and off far more than their intended purpose. This is not too much of a problem as long as we don't load them up too much trying to force water down longer hoses or hoses with small bores. The longer the hose, or smaller the bore of the hose, or combination of the two, the greater the back pressure on the pump will be. This means the running current will be greater and the switching current will be even more. The pumps and motors handle the extra load with ease but the pressure switches don't do so well. As a result they can fail fairly quickly bringing everything to a standstill until you can either change the pressure switch or replace the whole pump. This is probably why companies like Gardiners will only guarantee them if used with a relatively short hose. A longer hose will increase the chance of an early failure.

When I first fitted one to my trolley, and used it with 25m of PU pole hose with a 5mm ID, I was replacing the little microswitch on the pump about every two months. Then someone on the forum suggested wiring it up with a 40amp auto relay to take the load off the little microswitch on the pump. I did this and the pump has now been going strong for about four or five years now. It was a great tip. I recon If I was to buy a backpack I'd open it up and rewire it with the 40amp relay after the first year.

 

[AndyD]

Which is the best for use in a car as I don't have a van Gardiner back pack or a purefreedom trolley and I no there is a big price difference and which battery would last all day

Nan trolley all day, amazing bit of kit, looks more professional as well.

 

[Marko067]

Nan trolley all day, amazing bit of kit, looks more professional as well.

The Nano's do look like a nice piece of kit. If memory serves they hadn't put it on the market when I bought my last trolley from PF. Either that or there was a question as to whether it would fit in the boot of my car as it's a saloon. Weight wise my modified standard trolley is not a lot different from the stated weight of the Nano.
I must admit I have wondered about using a Li-Ion battery on my modified standard trolley. So far the price hasn't justified it for me though. 12v/10ah SLAs or AGMs work just fine on mine.

 

[Pjj]

The best one is the pure freedom nano trolly excellent piece of kit but it’s £650 so not cheap . Gardiner’s back pack is around £120 works very well but not in the same league as pure freedom trolly , but you wouldn’t expect it to be at that price , we used them for years for softwashing and chemical applications and they are very good , will easily last all day on one charge .

 

[AndyD]

The Nano's do look like a nice piece of kit. If memory serves they hadn't put it on the market when I bought my last trolley from PF. Either that or there was a question as to whether it would fit in the boot of my car as it's a saloon. Weight wise my modified standard trolley is not a lot different from the stated weight of the Nano.
I must admit I have wondered about using a Li-Ion battery on my modified standard trolley. So far the price hasn't justified it for me though. 12v/10ah SLAs or AGMs work just fine on mine.

Fits it the back of my VW Golf boot easily with room for kit and barrels. Battery lasts ages and charges pretty fast, can also easily lift with one arm no probs so pretty light compared to the standard one (which I think is 12kg heavier, not sure though?).

 

[Marko067]

Fits it the back of my VW Golf boot easily with room for kit and barrels. Battery lasts ages and charges pretty fast, can also easily lift with one arm no probs so pretty light compared to the standard one (which I think is 12kg heavier, not sure though?).

That was my goal when modifying my trolley. Making it light enough to lift easily with one hand.
Most of the excess weight was in the Sureflo pump and golf cart battery. If memory serves the standard trolley weighed almost as much as a full barrel of water before you even put a barrel on it. The solid tyres used to be much heavier than the pneumatic ones as well. However, the last ones I bought were made of a much lighter material. I also did away with the huge battery box as well and made it bare bones which makes it super easy to maintain as well.

 

[Den]

we Have gardiner back packs and nano the nano as a smaller footprint than a backpack on a trolley as good as the back pack is for the money they are like night and day, the nano winning hands down by miles.

 

[JEM]

I doubt any factory supplied backpacks are wired up to truly suit the way we want to use them for window cleaning.

We want to be switching the pumps on and off far more than their intended purpose. This is not too much of a problem as long as we don't load them up too much trying to force water down longer hoses or hoses with small bores. The longer the hose, or smaller the bore of the hose, or combination of the two, the greater the back pressure on the pump will be. This means the running current will be greater and the switching current will be even more. The pumps and motors handle the extra load with ease but the pressure switches don't do so well. As a result they can fail fairly quickly bringing everything to a standstill until you can either change the pressure switch or replace the whole pump. This is probably why companies like Gardiners will only guarantee them if used with a relatively short hose. A longer hose will increase the chance of an early failure.

When I first fitted one to my trolley, and used it with 25m of PU pole hose with a 5mm ID, I was replacing the little microswitch on the pump about every two months. Then someone on the forum suggested wiring it up with a 40amp auto relay to take the load off the little microswitch on the pump. I did this and the pump has now been going strong for about four or five years now. It was a great tip. I recon If I was to buy a backpack I'd open it up and rewire it with the 40amp relay after the first year.

That's a very good point on the loads etc, which is why I fitted the one-shot remote, it turns off the power to the pump between windows and jobs, so I never rely on the pressure switch, which in turn is maybe why mine was perfectly fine and still is.