Dessalator D60 dumping fresh water directly overboard

[sgtPluck]

I have a problem with my Dessalator D60. It dumped my water tanks overboard on a passage last night and now if I try to put water in the tank and turn on the pressure pump it appears the water is getting send out through the watermaker raw water intake valve.

Anyone have this model and have experienced this issue?

I had noticed recently that the auto-flush cycle took longer than it should, inasmuch as the freshwater pump ran for a few minutes after shutting down the watermaker rather than 30 seconds. I didn't think too much of it, and this morning after an overnight passage I ran the watermaker for a few hours and when it was done I very foolishly let it shut down in auto flush mode, I listened and thought the freshwater pump wasn't running but that was masked by the diesel engines running and in my sleepless state I wasn't being smart about it. At any rate, it emptied my tanks, and now I can't turn on my pressure water system without it flushing the water oveboard as described.

I can try to cap off the pressure water feed so I at least I can fill my tanks with shore water until I can figure this out, but I wanted to see if anyone had experienced this before and has an idea of what's not working?

[HeinSdL]

OK I have the same system and am following because at the moment I find it a bit of a black box and would like to find out more.


Having said that, there are two ways the system communicated with the fresh water tank. The first is the flush facility whereby turning a valve fresh water is pumped through the hp pump and membranes to rinse after use. Obviously if that valve is left in the wrong position then the fresh water tanks will eventually empty themselves.


The second way the system 'communicates' with the fresh water tank is when the control panel determines the water produced by the membranes is good and is diverted into the fresh water tank.


So what I would do is confirm if the panel is doing its job, ie is the control light turning green and you hear that 'click' to indicate fresh water is being produced and being sent to the tank. If that is so then I would be fairly happy it's not the control panel which is faulty.


And then I would check the tubing & valves to see if the set up is correct (although I would have thought so since the system worked previously?). In particular if that valve which is used to flush the system is working correctly because if it starts flushing water out, overboard, when you turn on the water pressure then that valve must be faulty...

[sgtPluck]

Problem solved - and it was actually very simple.

Dessalator were great and helped walk me through the fix.

The problem is very simply that dirt needs to be cleaned out of the flush valve (the one with the solenoid)

Also, they recommend you include a shutoff valve on pressure water intake in case this happens, so you can shut it off and still use your pressure water while you clean the valve. The installer for the system on this boat did not include that.