Foam Lance

Talvanos

Talvanos

New member
Joined
Jul 15, 2012
Messages
52
Reaction score
0
I have been trying to get the foam right on my foam lance for a couple of weeks now, and i just cant seem to get it right. My pressure washer is 2450 psi and 2.5 gpm. I am running on city water with really good water pressure. I am sure there is a science behind it but i just have not figured it out. The soaps I have been trying are CG Honeydew, CG Wash & Gloss, and CG Wash & Clear. I have tried 4,8, & 10oz./32oz. water. Tried adjusting the lances chemical feed ratio, but have come up empty. I am getting foam, but it simply isnt sticking for any length of dwell time. I do not pre-rinse.

I would appreciate any and all suggestions.
 
Have you tried hot water .? I use cg honey dew all the time 2oz in the 32 oz bottle. I get plenty of foam and the dwell time is about 5 min for me . I pre soak to and use city water not hot water either . I pre mix it in a gallon jug also.
 
aside from adjusting the cannon itself ,and playikg around with soap ratios - try fill up bottle with hot water , then add soap and give it a shake . that's the only tweak I have . what kind of foam cannon u have ?
 
Turn your water pressure down going into the bottle...you have an adjustment for that...otherwise, and this is like I think too....The suds don't stay on the car long enough..lol...I'm there with you Buddy...I want to spray it down and be able to use my Wolly-Booger-Hair Monger wiping the panels clean while the soap stays on, but that's not the case...I keep a 5 gal. bucket full of suds ready to take care of drying spots till I can get them rinsed.

You can't do an average car without the soap drying....It is however a good c'mon to your Detail Shop when you can stand out front and spray one down!!!
 
jgibson2980 said:
Have you tried hot water .? I use cg honey dew all the time 2oz in the 32 oz bottle. I get plenty of foam and the dwell time is about 5 min for me . I pre soak to and use city water not hot water either . I pre mix it in a gallon jug also.
Click to expand...

2oz per 32oz bottle, so you mix 8oz per gallon? I will have to try 2oz then. I do use hot water while mixing the soap and water but not hot water into the pressure washer. What psi/gpm is your pressure washer?

poweraid said:
aside from adjusting the cannon itself ,and playikg around with soap ratios - try fill up bottle with hot water , then add soap and give it a shake . that's the only tweak I have . what kind of foam cannon u have ?
Click to expand...

I added soap first then hot water. My foam Cannon is MTM Hydro. I have worked with parts long enough to know that many companies re-badge things as their own. If you have a looksee on the net no other company manufactures this specific water cannon/foamlance. IMHO i believe AG and others just get their label printed on the bottles and sell them as their own.

cutter said:
Turn your water pressure down going into the bottle...you have an adjustment for that...otherwise, and this is like I think too....The suds don't stay on the car long enough..lol...I'm there with you Buddy...I want to spray it down and be able to use my Wolly-Booger-Hair Monger wiping the panels clean while the soap stays on, but that's not the case...I keep a 5 gal. bucket full of suds ready to take care of drying spots till I can get them rinsed.

You can't do an average car without the soap drying....It is however a good c'mon to your Detail Shop when you can stand out front and spray one down!!!
Click to expand...

I bought the pressure second hand and dont have a manual on it so I dont know how to adjust the pressure on it. Also I have done numerous searches for a part on it but cant seem to find anything with a parts breakdown. I know some parts are generic but this one has me baffled. Its badged as a Troy-built with a Honda motor, but the plate on the frame with the model number says Briggs & Straton. o_O I can upload pics tomorrow of the pressure washer if you wouldn't mind pointing to what I need to adjust. The part that was broken was a small brass nipple for the chemical inlet feed on the pump. The housing(cast aluminum) was cracked from trying to use an eazy out to extract said nipple. After finding the pump was going to cost more then the $75 I paid for the pressure washer I opted to just seal the hole off with some very heavy duty grade aircraft bondo. Needles to say it works like a champ now.

First thing I am going to try tomorrow is 2oz of soap to 32oz of water though. If that doesn't work I will move on to see how to adjust the pressure washer.
 
Sorry if I ask you the wrong question, but what kind of foam lance are you using the one that comes with your pressure washer or the custom one like one sold here in autogeek ? Most 8oz soap in 32oz solution should give you some serious foaming action if it doesnt give you a serious clingy foam that kinda sound like you're using the one that comes with your PW.

If you're using the foam cannon sold here in AG that means you're getting a malfunctioning unit, a phone call to AG will sort that out for you.
 
My pw is a 2.3 gpm and 2300psi. I don't use hot water in mine . But I have and some time I mix it with hot water in the gallon jugs I don't think that does anything tho . I just see that a lot of people recommend hot water . And I would fill the gallon jug with water first and the add the soap . If you don't it will foam up a lot . I also have the mtm hygro. Bought it from water cannon . Great price and like you said I bet its the same product just a fancy sticker on some and priced about fiffty percent higher imo.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using AG Online
 
Talvanos, did you buy the foam cannon new or did it come used with the pressure washer?

You obviously have tried it on maximum foam ratio (top adjustment) & are using it on the widest fan spray(front adjustment)?

How thick is the foam you are getting? Bucket of suds foam or shaving cream style?
Are you foaming in sun or hot weather? Very slick LSP or coating on the car?
 
sulla said:
Sorry if I ask you the wrong question, but what kind of foam lance are you using the one that comes with your pressure washer or the custom one like one sold here in autogeek ? Most 8oz soap in 32oz solution should give you some serious foaming action if it doesnt give you a serious clingy foam that kinda sound like you're using the one that comes with your PW.

If you're using the foam cannon sold here in AG that means you're getting a malfunctioning unit, a phone call to AG will sort that out for you.
Click to expand...

It's the same style as sold here, but I didn't buy it from here.

jgibson2980 said:
My pw is a 2.3 gpm and 2300psi. I don't use hot water in mine . But I have and some time I mix it with hot water in the gallon jugs I don't think that does anything tho . I just see that a lot of people recommend hot water . And I would fill the gallon jug with water first and the add the soap . If you don't it will foam up a lot . I also have the mtm hydro. Bought it from water cannon . Great price and like you said I bet its the same product just a fancy sticker on some and priced about fiffty percent higher imo.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using AG Online
Click to expand...

Your pw is very close to mine. I to think the hot water in mixing doesn't do much.

neat e34 said:
Talvanos, did you buy the foam cannon new or did it come used with the pressure washer?

You obviously have tried it on maximum foam ratio (top adjustment) & are using it on the widest fan spray(front adjustment)?

How thick is the foam you are getting? Bucket of suds foam or shaving cream style?
Are you foaming in sun or hot weather? Very slick LSP or coating on the car?
Click to expand...

I bought the foam cannon new. The pressure washer didnt come with a foam cannon.

I have tried adjusting all the settings on the foam cannon and they seem to work fine. BTW, on maximum foam ratio these things really suck down the juice. LOL

The foam I am getting is very liquidy. This last time I tried it I actually had large bubbles coming out with the foam. That was at 10oz/32oz ratio. Weather was partially cloudy, high 60's/low 70's. No LSP left on the car. I am thinking I really need to cut back on the soap to get the dwell time I am looking for. I probably started way to high to begin with. A video I saw on youtube showed 1-1/2 of soap mixed with water which came out to 8oz/1 cup. That was my starting point. I will try again in a few minutes with 2oz soap and 32oz water.
 
Have you tried taking the lance apart? There is generally a wire mesh filter and this is something which can often get 'blocked'. The symptoms of this are a weak and watery mix instead of a thick foam. It is quite straight-forward, especially for a chap who is an aircraft mechanic!
 
Mr Megane said:
Have you tried taking the lance apart? There is generally a wire mesh filter and this is something which can often get 'blocked'. The symptoms of this are a weak and watery mix instead of a thick foam. It is quite straight-forward, especially for a chap who is an aircraft mechanic!
Click to expand...

No I have not taken it apart to check if the screen is blocked. I use a bottle of clean water to rinse out the screen after each use. When I do take it apart I will be sure to have some spare screens on hand from here.

Here is a pic of what my foam looked like today. Seems a bit none foamish(if that is a word) still, but the dwell time seemed longer this time. This was with 2oz CG Honeydew & 32oz water.
View attachment 16267


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
That looks good to me . I think the outside temperature has some thing to do with the dwelling

Sent from my SPH-L710 using AG Online
 
That is definitely not the thickest of foams, you should be able to get a lot thicker in theory. That said, from a scientific point of view, that is about right for the ideal operation of a foam cleaner.
 
The only way I've achieved a lot of foam is add more soap . I've add 4oz of soap and that produced a lot of faom. But wouldn't that strip lsp possibly? Plus I detail for a living and using 4oz of soap is just wasting product. I produce a good amount of foam with 2oz of soap. Imo all the pics and you tube vidoes of thick foam are with a high concentrate of soap . Now if you a striping the paint of lsp and all add some apc and dawn to the foam lance. That will make good foam and the dwell time is a lot longer .

Sent from my SPH-L710 using AG Online
 
So for 2oz of soap this is about right then? Temperature today was in the low 60's when I did this.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Talvanos said:
So for 2oz of soap this is about right then? Temperature today was in the low 60's when I did this.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

It could just be the water that is being fed to your pressure washer. Honestly, those results look fine to me.

But if your water is very hard, then yeah you will get sub-par results.
 
Get a ph test kit at the hardware store id put money on its too high of ph. And if its not id hate to say it but a defect in the cannon. There was a guy posting last month and it ended up being a defective cannon. What brand is your cannon???

Sent from my SGH-T889 using AG Online
 
pH and water really should not be an issue. Consider that many dedicated snowfoam products (I appreciate they are rare in the US) are alkaline and even caustic. I could name several products, popular in the UK, which are based around sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) and have pH approaching and in excess of 14 - they will produce shaving foam thickness. Water might once have been an issue but one would really hope that your product is not using surfactants which are this sensitive to water hardness - technology has moved on from such problems and most commonly used surfactants will now be quite insensitive to water hardness.

Looking at your dilutions, it could well be that you do not have enough product. A proper formulated snowfoam will want to be something between 50 and 200:1 on the surface. I cannot comment for the lances you are using because this depends on how the venturi is arranged but the lances here will dilute at approx 10:1 - it is probably a reasonable guess that yours are similar because they are all probably coming from the same chinese factory! Thus to get the proper level on the surface, you need to have a mix of between 1 part in 4 to 1 part in 20. If one is to translate this to your 32oz, you would need between 2oz and 7oz. The 2oz you used would be on the low side for a formulated snowfoam product. To give you a further guide, as a rule of thumb, we would use 1-2 inches of product in a 1L foam lance bottle (topped up with water).
 
pH and hardness are two different things. pH measures from 1-14, hardness measures by ppm. water above 20 ppm are considered "hard" for detailing.

You'd get better foaming/cleaning power/slickness with soft water.

Foaming also doesn't always mean ph > 7 , a good foaming shampoo like optimum car wash is actually ph 5-6 and IMO not only foams the best but also clean the best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top