Another question about watermakers

[NaturalPace]

Good morning all...we are currently looking at purchasing an HRO Village 500 watermaker and wondering what your experience has been with it. I love the look of the Rainman watermaker...and looking at the Cruise RO...PLUS the US watermaker Island Explorer.
And the 110 volt or ??
OMG!! so many choices..
Thanks for your help!

[SV THIRD DAY]

Keeping in mind the basics can help with the search.
Remember all water makers operate on the same principals, getting filtered sea water up to 800psi so it can then flow into the RO Membrane. At the heart of the technology, water makers are simple low and high pressure plumbing projects. 12v, 120v, portable...the concept is all the same. It's "How" the sea water is brought up to 800psi is what really defines the differences between the different brands. Do they use off the shelf parts that you can source yourself down the road or our you beholden to higher priced "proprietary" parts at a marine price premium?

A good starting point for each of the water maker brands is to download a copy of their manual and then put their customer service to the test. By that I mean, send everyone you are considering a few technical questions via email and see how long it takes them to get back to you and how do the answer the questions.

All of the brands you mention are good quality units, sure there are some differences and features but those are easy to flush out when you review the manuals. But who will be there for you during the install, start up and as questions pop up on a Saturday evening?

HRO plays the proprietary parts game, so check out the cost of replacement membranes and parts, HRO is the most costly in the industry for parts, so personally, that would boot them from my list.

You might as well start now, so here is the SM30 Cruise RO manual to download: www.cruiserowaterandpower.com/uploads/sm30.pdf
It's our most popular selling water maker for $5250 and makes 33GPH either from your diesel genset, Honda 2000 or 2000W inverter.

There are also lots of water maker threads that you can read by typing in "water maker" into the search function in the menu bar above.

Good luck on the hunt, and just shoot me an email or give me a call if you have any questions and I will be happy to help: Rich@cruiserowater.com Cell 619-609-3432

Oh and I notice you are going the Baja Ha-ha.
We did the 2007 and 2008 Ha-ha and had a blast!