Which Watermaker To Choose

[colemj]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

A couple of reasons, but the main one being ease of fresh water flushing and pickling. With the 12v boost pump you can do a quick fresh water flush or pickle without having to start your AC generator. For folks with the honda this saves them the work of pullling out their Honda just for a 2 minute fresh water flush. Of course with an inverter you could also do a quick fresh water flush using an AC pump powered through the inverter. If you are using the Honda 2000 to run the water maker, you can also charge the batteries at the same time as making water....so yes you are using DC 12v power, but you are also putting more back into the battery bank than you are taking out.

Another reason comes down to ease of installation with a self-priming boost pump. The AC boost pumps are centrifugal and are not self priming so they need to be mounted below the water line. The 12v impeller pump we use is self priming so the mounting can be above the water line, which we have found makes the installation much easier for a lot of DIY installations. We do have a 5A DC centrifugal pump we can use for those who can get it below the water line, but that is just hard for lots of folks.

Then you have the issue of cost. We can supply a unit with a 120V AC boost pump, but it adds $175 to cover our increased cost of the pump or more depending on your pump selection.

The No 1 problem or issue people have with high output water makers is getting enough flow rate (min of 2 GPM) pushed through their prefilters and into the Hp pump. It's often where a lot of DIY water maker projects fail because if you read the pump manufacturers data...well I don't want to say they LIE, but as soon as you get any head pressure or suction on a boost pump, most of them fail to come anywhere close to their sales job specs. We literally have piles of boost pumps that on paper should have worked, but once installed and tested couldn't deliver the needed 2.0GPM to the Hp pump. And when you starve a Hp piston pump for sea water flow, you cause cavitation and either Membrane DEATH or long term pump death.

On my boat, where maybe "cost" isn't as big an issue since I own the company and can just grab one off the shelf without my business partner seeing () I have and like the 12v pump just for the easy of doing a quick fresh water flush if I'm not going to run the water maker for more than 7 days. I know Mark on SV Reach doesn't like the 12v boost pump and would rather have those 13.5A DC going into the battery bank when running his generator to make power and he makes a damn compelling argument as to why we should supply the unit with a AC boost pump rather than our 12v DC unit. Which is why we have the AC unit as option and he went that way with his installation.

As a note to this, I use the house pressure pump for fresh water flushing. Just a simple valve to make that change. I would need to use the AC boost pump for pickling, but that is rarely done.

Mark

[Schaumburg]

Originally Posted by carstenb

Rich - thanks for this. I've spent the better part of year researching water makers and I reached the same conclusion. The key to a 12V system is "how many amps do you use to produce 1 liter (gallon) of water. Including boost pumps, which are necessary on virtually any modern production boat because they have a flat bottom. you simply can't mount the high pressure pump under the water line.

Spectra is low usage, so are some others.

Undoubtedly, power consumption is one of the key factors in choosing a suitable watermaker but not at all the only. Simplicity in operation, service and repair is what makes the big difference in the everyday cruisers life.

A good example is the ECHOTec 260-DML-1, one of the most energy efficient watermakers without recovery devise. It draws 39 amps at 12 Volt including feed pump for a generous production of 13 GPH.

For a couples freshwater need on a mid size boat, only one inexpensive additional solar panel is needed to compensate for the difference in power consumption, when comparing with the most energy efficient recovery watermaker.

There are many opinions about which watermaker to choose but advanced conventional watermakers have definitely their place with long distance cruisers.

[magicsailor1]

Someone on Cruisers Forum has written a book/manual on the Survivor 35/40 watermakers. Can someone help me to connect/find this book? danbmagic@yahoo.com

[CAELESTIS]

Originally Posted by magicsailor1

Someone on Cruisers Forum has written a book/manual on the Survivor 35/40 watermakers. Can someone help me to connect/find this book? danbmagic@yahoo.com

Not a book. . Gear Review: Estrellita’s Watermaker Saga ~ SV Estrellita 5.10b

[jostalli]

Originally Posted by CAELESTIS

Not a book. . Gear Review: Estrellita’s Watermaker Saga ~ SV Estrellita 5.10b

No I think the request was for this: Katadyn and PUR Watermakers: Installation, Maintenance and Troubleshooting

[katsumi]

Researching watermakers, does anyone have any experience with an eco sistems splash25?

[Fix]

Originally Posted by magicsailor1

Someone on Cruisers Forum has written a book/manual on the Survivor 35/40 watermakers. Can someone help me to connect/find this book? danbmagic@yahoo.com

We do have this book
Quite well done,interesting,helpfull
I need to find it again,scan and send it
I'll try to do that in the near future.
I let you know
Fix
Nantes
France

[MickBeth50]

FYI

Spectra has been acquired by Katadyn.

The Katadyn Group acquires the assets of U.S. company Spectra Watermakers, Inc. - Katadyn Products Inc.

[NorthPacific]

We have a KAt-PS 40. SO far works well. We only use it When we are generating power. Maybe 2 hours a day. This gives us our daily ration into a separate day tank. Our main tanks are switched off for use if and when the water maker fails.

So far so good. We are dependant on Solar and wind for power. No gen set. So drinking and cooking only. Salt for everything else. Our biggest draw on our batteries is the computer. Never thought about that in the equationhttp://www.cruisersforum.com/images/smilies/whistling.gif

[carstenb]

I'm going to update this thread. It has been almost 4 years since I asked the question and since we are now at sea and using our watermaker I can tell you what we ended up with and why

We bought a spectra ventura 200T (tropical use). I installed this myself and beyond needing to be as supple as an olympic contortionist to fit everything is small spaces (not spectras fault), the installation was relatively easy.

We chose the spectra because 30 liters per hour seemed about right (we use 35-45 liters per day for everything including showering saltwater off us on the bathing platform so we run the unit every third day when we switch tanks (we have 2 x 150 liter tanks).
We run everything off solar and do not use the engine for charging so low energy usage was a critical factor. 8 amps for 30 liters is good so we use about 30 amps every 3rd day.

We really don't think about using it, turn it on, measure the impurities content, taste the water, switch to filling tanks. 3-4 hours later, flush and forget it.

So far - 3 months of usage, we've had no difficulties and we've not run out of water or even come close.
I expect we will use more water when we get to the tropics but that means we'll run the unit every other day instead of every 3 rd day

Looking back over this thread, i can only agree that you should be very sure of the amount of water you use and then purchase capacity based on that usage - and best to add an extra margin.

For those that think our usage is very low - we're europeans and use much less water than most americans, also we are water conscious although we do nothing drastic about limiting it.

we do have electric pumped water throughout the boat so it is not because we use foot pumps or the like.

We do most of our own cooking so it is also not because we eat out all the time.