Finally made decision on watermaker -- ordered Spectra Ventura 200T

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by Cherod

( without wanting to sidetrack this excellent thread ),, i checked around 6000$ , while i dont doubt that this is one of or maybe the best one available it is however out of reach of many,, i refrain from saying most as it seems more and more that one needs to be a near millionaire to go cruising nowadays !!

LOL, and those are the inexpensive ones. Santa just threw some magic pixie dust at us. VT200T manual version Christmas special just for you. $5,200. Sell it in 4-5 years when your done for 2.5-3K and you've bought the least expensive top-O-the line watermaker. Ho Ho Ho!

[Capt.Don]

New question -- in thinking about the placement for the watermaker thruhull, I'm wondering if there's an issue using the sink discharge for brine AND having the watermaker intake thruhull nearby. I could imagine the Clark pump discharging high salt concentration water and it being drawn back in via the seawater intake.

I was planning on installing the thruhull next to the engine intake (top right attached image), which is about 1' from the sink discharge. I could move the new thruhull +/- 6" either way and still have it accessible.

Any thoughts on discharge concentration and problems with intake??

Thanks
Don

[senormechanico]

I am somewhat mystified at the recommendation to plumb the pressure water to the spectra flush intake.
I just teed the output of my water tank for fresh water flush AND Spectra output to fill the tank.
All it took was a Y valve for input select (salt for production or fresh for flush) and a
three way valve for reject, test and save.

It's been working flawlessly like that for 18 years.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

I am somewhat mystified at the recommendation to plumb the pressure water to the spectra flush intake.
I just teed the output of my water tank for fresh water flush AND Spectra output to fill the tank.
All it took was a Y valve for input select (salt for production or fresh for flush) and a
three way valve for reject, test and save.

It's been working flawlessly like that for 18 years.

So you are flushing the system with unpressurized water?

[Capt.Don]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

I am somewhat mystified at the recommendation to plumb the pressure water to the spectra flush intake.
I just teed the output of my water tank for fresh water flush AND Spectra output to fill the tank.
All it took was a Y valve for input select (salt for production or fresh for flush) and a
three way valve for reject, test and save.

It's been working flawlessly like that for 18 years.

I would assume it is a question of pressure from the column of water in the water tank. Consider a very tall tank would have considerable "weight of water" on the output fitting. The Clark pump would have to overcome that pressure, otherwise water would flow into the pump. I think they are just being conservative.

What I'm now planning is to tap into my tank fill port on top of tank. I found a 1/8" NPT tap (in my garage). I hope there's enough material for threads to hold one of the 90 degree 1/4" fittings (If not, I'll tap into the top of the tank). This seems pretty easy compared to finding 1/4" - 1/2" adapters and tee's.

Don

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by Capt.Don

New question -- in thinking about the placement for the watermaker thruhull, I'm wondering if there's an issue using the sink discharge for brine AND having the watermaker intake thruhull nearby. I could imagine the Clark pump discharging high salt concentration water and it being drawn back in via the seawater intake.

I was planning on installing the thruhull next to the engine intake (top right attached image), which is about 1' from the sink discharge. I could move the new thruhull +/- 6" either way and still have it accessible.

Any thoughts on discharge concentration and problems with intake??

Thanks
Don

Not quite sure what you are saying here. But there will be no water drawn back into the system. I highly recommend you install a brine discharge a few inches above the waterline as per the instructions.

[senormechanico]

To add a bit of detail, I purchased the boat with the watermaker already installed.
I reinstalled it in a better location, but that's not relevant.
The point is, I never got any install instructions with the boat.
The original owner used a bucket to flush the membrane, and it was in a horrible spot for maintenance, so that's one of the reasons I moved it.
I just assumed that flushing would involve feeding it clean, fresh product water, and running the Spectra, so that's what I did.
I remove the intake filter and replace it with a carbon filter according to Tellie's instructions (Thanks Tellie!) and flip the intake ball valve to the fresh water tank supply line which feeds the rest of the boat.
When I'm making water, that same line becomes the Spectra feed to the tank.
No pressure water pump.
Why is this not the way? I'm all ears.

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

I am somewhat mystified at the recommendation to plumb the pressure water to the spectra flush intake.
I just teed the output of my water tank for fresh water flush AND Spectra output to fill the tank.
All it took was a Y valve for input select (salt for production or fresh for flush) and a
three way valve for reject, test and save.

It's been working flawlessly like that for 18 years.

It depends on the system. Once the system starts using vane pumps then tapping into the fresh water pressure side is important. If the system is a smaller manual system like the Cape Horn Extreme it can certainly draw water if it is plumbed correctly. But it would benefit far more from being tied into the fresh water pressure side. You could even add a cheap timer to make it into an auto flush system using your house pressure pump.

[senormechanico]

....yet another boat project to add to the list...(sigh)
OTOH, the Spectra is below the level of the bottom of the tank.
Would that make a difference?
Sorry to hijack the thread.

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

....yet another boat project to add to the list...(sigh)
OTOH, the Spectra is below the level of the bottom of the tank.
Would that make a difference?
Sorry to hijack the thread.

LOL, sorry, I'm good at adding projects for other people. But seriously, what you have been doing for 18 years obviously works. The original systems actually did show a bucket for the fresh water flush so I know what you are taking about. As far as plumbing into the fresh water pressure side, I'm old school, if it ain't broke......

[Capt.Don]

Just a quick follow-up to my original post. Up until this weekend, the watermaker is mostly installed with everything mounted, all the plumbing components snaked through the boat, and electrical connected. Yesterday, I decided to make the final connections to the Clark pump, freshwater flush and brine discharge.

To summarize, on our 35' Tartan, I installed the feed-pump (w/charcoal filter), 5 micron filter, pressure accumulator, and product selection valve all under our galley sink. Yes, it was a tight fit, but everything fit nicely. The Clark pump is under the forward settee (we don't use the space much). Hose runs are about 6' between the filters and Clark pump. I know this is controversial -- the brine discharge is tee'd into the sink drain. I made sure this was above the waterline and added a bit of a loop behind the sink. The only challenge was fitting 5/8's hose to 1" drain -- I found the proper set of threaded adapters and 1" x 3/4" x 1" tee. Product water fitting is tapped directly into the steel port water tank. Electrical is less than 15', 10awg wire to 15 amp fuse to house battery. I made a custom panel for the pressure and flow gauges, and replaced the decorative cover behind the galley sink.

Right away I learned a few things,

I had the grey feed-pump valve set to flush and the freshwater pump started cycling. I inadvertently started to flush the watermaker! Turning the valve to 'closed' solved that problem. I also found a few leaks: one of the threaded elbows to the prefilter and both filter housings were not tight enough. Tightening a few things and it looked good. I was encouraged.

Since I don't have the thruhull installed (yet), I decided to test with the "artificial ocean". One of the things Spectra doesn't mention is you need to use non-chlorinated water when making the artificial ocean (this makes sense). I decided to do the fresh-water flush, taking tank water (city), run through the chlorine filter, and purge the chemicals. After a few minutes I started to capture the discharge (now chlorine free) into a 5 gallon bucket. Spectra makes this very easy with the quick disconnect discharge fittings. Mixing 1 1/2 lbs of aquarium sea-salt made the artificial ocean. I tested the salinity, it was above 999 on the TDS meter; also tested the nearby ocean, also above 999.

When doing the freshwater flush, the system ran down my 27 gallon fresh water tank pretty quickly. I kept having to refill the tank while performing the initial 20 minute flush. Pressure seems correct, per the manual at 20-25psi.

As described in the manual, I routed the brine discharge and service intake hose into the 5 gallon bucket.
After closing the pressure relief value on the Clark pump, pressure jumped to 80psi, 9gph and the product water measured 171ppm. I ran making product water for about 10 minutes, checking the system for leaks, pressure, flow and quality of product water. The product water looked clear, clean and tasted great!

The Clark pump is amazingly quiet. Every 5 seconds, there'd be a little click and product water flow would momentarily pause. The feed-pump is a constant pump sound, a little louder than a house fan. The pump does not vibrate or move. We can certainly live with the Spectra unit running during the day - it is very quiet.

I didn't study the amp draw -- just noticed it was about 10 amps, which is what I was expecting. I'll check this again under normal operations.

I'm pleased to have the installation and testing mostly done. All we need to finish is the dedicated thruhull, which we'll install in a few weeks. Now to decide whether to pickle the system or just flush every 5 days till we head for Mexico. Pretty exciting.

Don

[Boatguy30]

Or run some alcohol free RV antifreeze into it.