Richard Malcolm was the inspirational force of Full Coverage Irrigation, Inc. His experience in the irrigation industry exceeds 30 years. Some of his major accomplishments...

• Designed and manufactured more than 30 sprinklers in just three years for Buckner as their Chief Engineer.
• Launched Weather Tec Corporation in 1970 for the purpose of providing San Joaquin Valley farmers with improved sprinklers.
• Over the course of Richard's career, he designed 19 agricultural sprinkler products for Rain Bird®, as well as, Buckner®, Toro®, LR Nelson®, Weather Tec®, Skinner®, and General Sprinkler of South America.

Richard became an expert on creating products to overcome weaknesses in irrigation systems, i.e. wind and low pressure. He concluded that a one-piece nozzle was frequently the limiting factor and developed a variety of devices to improve water distribution. Richard also played a large role in convincing Pacific Gas & Electric to offer rebates to farmers for conserving water and energy.

Richard's son, David Malcolm founded Full Coverage Irrigation, Inc. with the knowledge and information that was necessary to produce hundreds of tiny, customized nozzles.

FCI Nozzles = Quality & Precision

Factory plastic nozzle performance can vary with each production run due to shrinkage and warping of orifices, varying plastic mixtures, as well as molding temperatures and cooling rates. FCI Nozzles are made with high grade brass (nozzle bodies) and stainless steel orifices avoiding these problems.

Our nozzle bodies are machined from brass to closely monitored tolerances. Orifice plates are manufactured from high-grade stainless steel. Stream straightening veins and flow control devices (when required) are injection molded and the only plastic found in our product. Nozzles are individually assembled by hand to assure proper alignment of all components. Great care is taken in every step of the design and manufacturing processes to assure consistent performance.

Performance of FCI Nozzles vs. Factory Nozzles

A typical straight bore plastic nozzle delivers water to the first half of the coverage pattern with the spreader nozzle and to the second half of the pattern with the range nozzle. With FCI’s unique orifice plate design, a small amount of water is stripped from the range nozzle stream and mechanically atomized. This water is precisely placed across the entire coverage area. This design does not overburden the spreader nozzle coverage and eliminates areas lacking coverage near the head or the center of the pattern when properly overlapped.

Additionally the mechanical atomization process provided by the stainless steel orifice design improves distribution when operating at lower than optimum pressures. 

Typical Straight Bore Nozzle Performance

Typical FCI Orifice Plate Nozzle Performance

 Stainless steel orifice plate slots (left) and water exiting the orifice plate slots (right).

Water drawn from the orifice plate slots is placed throughout the entire  pattern, enhancing uniformity without disrupting the distance of throw.  Note water exiting the orifice slots in the photographs above and below.

The result of using FCI high uniformity brass and stainless steel constructed nozzles is less performance variation at varying pressures. This will reduce wet spots, dry spots and eliminate of donuts!

The 3D graphics below show the difference between stock factory nozzle performance and FCI nozzles at both 50 and 65 psi. The graphics were developed using Utah State University's Catch 3D Sprinkler Analysis software to evaluate actual catch can field data of sprinklers spaced on 65 foot equilateral triangular spacing.

Each FCI nozzle is designed to perform within 5% of the flow rating of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) equivalent nozzle. Profile, radius, flow and recommended spacing information are available upon request.

FCI Nozzles = Value

Considering that a retrofit with FCI nozzles typically costs between 1% and 2% of a complete irrigation system replacement, the superior performance of FCI nozzles makes them an exceptional value. FCI products always exceed the performance of the original manufacturers’ nozzles when used at recommended spacing and operating pressures.

Improvement in turf quality is not the only benefit of improving distribution uniformity. Our customers report long term savings of water energy and hand watering labor which translates to budget dollars!

FCI Nozzle Orientation

Due to the unique design of the stainless steel orifice plates in most FCI nozzles, proper orientation is necessary to obtain optimum performance. Orientation information is supplied with each order.

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