Little Wonder Village Marine Watermaker??

[geoleo]

I have a Little Wonder Village Marine Watermaker installed on my 42ft sailboat. 12 volt. Never used it as I have 200 gallons water tanks. Its been out of use for about 4-5 years and shows a cracked pressure gage and smelly water in prefilters. Motor works ok but feel previous owner did not treat it right. Question ::? Unit is old and outdated as it only puts out 48gallon in 24 hours. Is it worth rebuilding ?

[savoir]

After such a long layoff it would be a good idea to get the whole system rebuilt by a pro. Apart from the filters the membrane will need replacing and the pumps will probably need a rebuild. The lines will be ready for a good cleaning.

When working properly a little wonder should give 4 or 5 gph.

[AiniA]

Certainly change the gauge and the filters. When I bought my boat the VM water maker had been similarly neglected. I had a Village Marine tech come and check it out. I assumed I would need a new membrane. He said there was no reason not to try it out and see if it worked. He fired it up and after dealing with an air bubble somewhere in the system it worked fine. Must be a different model though since mine is 120v and gives around 7 kph.

[witzgall]

Originally Posted by savoir

After such a long layoff it would be a good idea to get the whole system rebuilt by a pro. Apart from the filters the membrane will need replacing and the pumps will probably need a rebuild. The lines will be ready for a good cleaning.

When working properly a little wonder should give 4 or 5 gph.

In my experience (I worked as the service manager for a Sea Recovery and Spectra dealer) Once watermakers reach about age 20, they are not economical to pay somebody else to return to service, and they may not be economical for a DIY owner, depending on experience and luck. Hoses, seals, fittings, motors, etc dry, wear and fail.

Chris

[akprb]

We had one, very happy with hit. If no generator a good way to go (12v)

Witzgall may be on to something though.

Pretty easy to work on. Invest a little before a lot!

[Paul L]

The HP pump rebuild kits are available online. It is a pretty simple job. I'd try the thing and see how it works.

[doublewide]

our boat came with a Little Wonder. We didn't use it the first 3-4 years. Then we turned it on and it worked fine. It has worked fine for 7 years, now, with only routine maintenance. We get about 5 gph, which is fine, because we are pretty frugal with fresh water. We run the Little Wonder for an hour or two in the morning to run our house battery down a bit so the battery can absorb the output of our solar array in the afternoon. That's the beauty of the 12V water maker. you can run it on solar power. You should seriously consider cleaning your unit and turning it on. You should change the high pressure oil and be sure your belt is OK. Those things are cheap. So are the filters. The low pressure pump is a couple of hundred dollars, but maybe yours still works. Your membrane is probably OK, too. Putting in a new membrane is pretty simple to do, if you need to. Don't discount the value of a Little Wonder just because it is small and simple. It will make excellent water.

[Sailing Hope]

We have a VM Little Wonder. It has worked quite well. When we first started it up as a new used boat owner, the output was about a gallon per hour. We spoke to a dealer and they advised we run the 2 process cleaning filter set sold by VM (Parker). It took a couple (2-3) hours to use the cleaning filters. After that our output was 8+ GPH. the unit is simple and has worked very well ever since. Give it a go and see if that helps. I think the 2 cartridge cleaning set costs less that $100.00 and simply goes into the pre-filter position.