Very small water-maker oder Big one for very fast refilling?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by john61ct

I see some sort of watermaker as a much higher priority than a clothes drier, blender or microwave.

Even more so on land in fact.

Only a very few years of my adult life have been spent with those sort of appliances, well under 10%, and only then because my wife wanted them.

Originally Posted by Training Wheels

Guess you’ve never seen our boat![emoji3]

OK, then apologies to both of you.


It's important for everyone, I guess, to remember that "I haven't seen it" is not necessarily equal to "it does not exist"


In any case, very different from my boat, which has toaster, blender, electric kettle, Nespresso machine, built-in microwave, induction cooker, power tools, heat gun, soldering irons, AC powered AV gear, and even a washing machine and dryer. And God knows what else. The next boat will even have a dishwasher if I have any choice about it.

[mvmojo]

I agree with the modularity concept if you're the do it yourself type of cruiser. In our 42' sailboat we had an engine driven water maker pump so the pump was mounted to the engine with a bracket I designed and had built by a welder. The membrane was mounted under a cabinet on a bulkhead in the aft head - essentially otherwise unusable space. Even the controls were modular rather than being lumped together on a panel. This allowed flexibility as to where to install the pressure valve and gauge, where to put the Y-valve for switching from test to tank, the flow meter, etc. Having it in the head allowed me to route the test water to the sink. We did the same on our current trawler, with the boost and high pressure pumps mounted below engine room floor boards, membranes and meters and valves mounted on the bulkhead in the work shop. It not only gives flexibility, it also allows you to easily troubleshoot the system, swap out components, tighten fittings, and so forth.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Well we are an AC watermaker so Solar is irrelevant, but I’d need to run the generator even if we had 10,000 W of Solar because it’s predicated on two things, first it’s the middle of Winter and days are the shortest of the year, and second I’m an AGM bank and determined to get to an honest full charge daily, and if that means a 30 min gen run, why not. That is about a quart of fuel I think, perhaps less.

Makes sense. So this must vary quite a bit as you move into the longer-day months. I just remember being absolutely amazed & impressed that you had such a large panel array. I would love to have more than my 400 watts.

BTW, this is not a competition, but we often see less than 200 watts. I never see 400, even in the peak of summer. And it definitely gets harder to fully charge our batteries as the season moves into the Fall up here. I couldn’t do it in winter.

One other thing to consider; I’ve prioritized low-power for our boat. Much like thinking about going with the smallest boat you need, I approach power needs from the side of minimizing. Again, please don’t interpret this as meaning we’re living in austerity. We have all the electrical devices we need, and many that we want. It’s just that when we prioritize low-amps. To pick on the current simple examples, our vacuum is 12volt, and our bread toaster is via propane stove.

Originally Posted by a64pilot

The larger your array is, the longer the usable Solar day becomes because when I’m only at 20% output, it’s still 200W.
We cruise in Winter, you do in Summer, and that is a big difference, the reason of course is climate. I wouldn’t stay on a boat up there in Winter either.

Nope … couldn’t cruise up here in the winter. Not unless you’re a polar bear (or want to see one up close ).

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I think Pelagic’s answer sums it up pretty well, once you have a nearly unlimited supply of water you may chose to do things like rinse the deck or the anchor chain, or shower more often wash clothes more often etc.
However I feel pretty sure that a lot of your water use is because of where you are, in much warmer weather where your swimming a lot etc, your water use will be much higher.

Water is a lot like money, if you could choose to double your income, why wouldn’t you?

Maybe … I can’t say b/c I’ve never cruised down your way. I have lived at the dock where we have unlimited water, and I have quantified our additional usage. We almost double our usage, which puts it just shy of 4 gallons/day. Like I said, I could envision doubling that again, but I’m not sure how — maybe washing down the deck I suppose.

But it’s not really in my nature. I find it hard to be extravagant with water usage anywhere I am. Probably due to the way I’ve lived, even before moving onto the boat. Lest anyone get the wrong impression though, we’re not water paranoid. We use the water we want to while on board. But we’re just water conscious. The composting head probably helps as well.

We take basic steps to use water thoughtfully and efficiently. Maybe this is my camping experience coming through (where water is manually filtered, so actually difficult to get). Or maybe it’s because our last land house required us to be water-aware as well (we were on our own well, with limited grey/black water septic tank). I dunno. It’s just not in my nature to waste.

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Size wise, get a modular watermaker, one that you can scatter the parts around. The hardest thing about my install was deciding on where to put everything without losing storage space, but I was able to do it, but it took separating the parts and putting them in different places. You can separate them by quite a lot of distance and connect with plumbing of course.

Good advice. This would make it easier for sure. I really haven’t thought out how to install one.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

As Noelex commented, you might want a small one on a boat without diesel generation of one type or another (like his boat), and in that case then efficiency becomes suddenly more important, so you might want a small efficient Clark pump one with DC motor which doesn't require the inverter to be switched on, but I would hate listening to a watermaker running all day long, personally. If it were me, I would in any case, even if I had a primarily solar powered boat like Noelex's, do watermaking in maximum short time at highest practical rate, running the main engine if necessary, but YMMV.

If you want a high output as well as a high efficiency watermaker, that is no problem. The high efficiency watermakers are available in all output sizes.

If you have enough solar/wind/hydro there is no need to have a watermaker that requires the generator or main engine to be run no matter how short you want the watermaker run time. The total power consumption will not vary much. However, high efficiency watermakers are generally considerably quieter than normal watermakers so with some care with installation a longer run time (say a couple of hours every second day) is not normally an issue.

[s/v Jedi]

About a DC motor on a big watermaker: I don’t get that. Sure, you can run it off the house bank but at 70-100A that ain’t fun for any time long.

Then I read while motorsailing to charge the house bank while running the DC watermaker.

In both cases you can simply use an AC driven watermaker using the inverter.

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

OK, then apologies to both of you.


It's important for everyone, I guess, to remember that "I haven't seen it" is not necessarily equal to "it does not exist"


In any case, very different from my boat, which has toaster, blender, electric kettle, Nespresso machine, built-in microwave, induction cooker, power tools, heat gun, soldering irons, AC powered AV gear, and even a washing machine and dryer. And God knows what else. The next boat will even have a dishwasher if I have any choice about it.

Thanks. A watermaker is an advantage on a light, performance boat, as it means we don’t have to carry near as much water. Where we cruise, for 7 months we’re not in a slip, and there is no rain during the cruising season.

[FlyingScot]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

About a DC motor on a big watermaker: I don’t get that. Sure, you can run it off the house bank but at 70-100A that ain’t fun for any time long.

Then I read while motorsailing to charge the house bank while running the DC watermaker.

In both cases you can simply use an AC driven watermaker using the inverter.

True, but most have limited inverter capacity. In our case 2000watts, so an AC watermaker would prevent us from using an Instapot, microwave, flat griddle, toaster, water heater, etc.

These decisions are best based upon what works best for each case. Our current one is a 39 amp (12vdc) 50 liters per hour unit. We mostly run from solar.

For us, I still dream of a 4-5 amp DC watermaker that I could leave running for weeks or months at a time. No more shut down or startup hassles.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

About a DC motor on a big watermaker: I don’t get that. Sure, you can run it off the house bank but at 70-100A that ain’t fun for any time long.



Then I read while motorsailing to charge the house bank while running the DC watermaker.



In both cases you can simply use an AC driven watermaker using the inverter.

I don’t get it either, but I saw a factory install on a Super Maramu, it had two motors and belt driven, with overrunning clutches, so whichever motor was running turned the pump and the other one sat idle.
One was DC, the other AC. I didn’t understand the point, maybe it was before inverters were so common?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Makes sense. So this must vary quite a bit as you move into the longer-day months. I just remember being absolutely amazed & impressed that you had such a large panel array. I would love to have more than my 400 watts.

BTW, this is not a competition, but we often see less than 200 watts. I never see 400, even in the peak of summer. And it definitely gets harder to fully charge our batteries as the season moves into the Fall up here. I couldn’t do it in winter.

We never see full rated power either, maybe close, but what happens is as we get close to max Solar, battery acceptance is down so we never see the power.
Towards Summer we could easily fully charge each day, easy. But that is Hurricane season for us and it’s usually Africa hot, so we end up hiding for Summer, do our Dr’s appts, get our teeth cleaned, fulfill family obligations etc. a least that is what we have done so far
How I ended up with so much Solar was I bought unused extra panels from a Solar installer for I think .50c a Watt. The mounting I knocked out of scrap aircraft extrusions, 2024 I think, which is not the type of aluminum you want to use near salt water, but it’s hanging in there.
I had extra 2 ga wire so I used that and bought an outback 80.
As a guess I don’t think I have more than $1,000 in my array, so it can be done on the cheap. I have actually two more panels in storage that I don’t know what to do with.
Anyone with a 10’ dinghy in davits can have 750W of panels, more if they go to the newer high output ones. Three standard panels with a frame are 10’ if mounted side by side.


It’s just a sun shade for the dinghy, panels are 10’ wide, dinghy is 10’6”

[Q Xopa]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I'm one of those who went with a DC motor to run the HP pump.on the large capacity Water maker.
My primary reason is that I am not dependant on the Northern Lights Gen or using up all my inverter capacity to run the RO.

By utilizing the House Bank and anticipating that at some point I will be quietly motor sailing, this allows for my preference to make water underway without the need for the Gen.
If it has been a salty trip, with full tank overflowing, decks are rinsed down just prior to arrival. That makes it far nicer, already having a clean cockpit for that sundowner!

I think the key message I'm trying to make is that with a large capacity water maker..... You can actually "waste" water..... [emoji33] (and I don't feel guilty about it [emoji57]

Sounds like a nice setup.

[john61ct]

Yes if AC is largely unused, inverters are not wanted, but high gph / short runs are, and

large direct DC power is available,

it would IMO be pretty silly to buy a huge inverter just because that's what most people do

[Q Xopa]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Yes if AC is largely unused, inverters are not wanted, but high gph / short runs are, and

large direct DC power is available,

it would IMO be pretty silly to buy a huge inverter just because that's what most people do

I assume most people buy an Inverter to have the use of AC appliances that are cheap, easily available, and mostly efficient compared to DC appliances.

That was certainly my reasoning.

So to me that is not silly. But you obviously do, which is fine by me if you dont want one.

Also what everyone else does didnt enter into my buying decision. It sounds like this factors into your decisions.

Perhaps they are so popular because they are so useful?

But thanks for your opinion.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Q Xopa

I assume most people buy an Inverter to have the use of AC appliances that are cheap, easily available, and mostly efficient compared to DC appliances. . . .

Indeed. It's convenient to have AC power available on board and once you are set up with it then you can use different AC powered devices. It's rarely a case of installing an inverter just to power a single device, whether it's a watermaker or anything else.



But hey, if someone needs a watermaker but for some reason doesn't need anything else to be in AC, then why not. Everyone's use case is different, as Training Wheels has demonstrated.


On larger vessels AC power is so prevalent that they even run windlasses and bow thrusters off it sometimes. 230v AC is an awfully convenient and efficient way to transport electrical power compared to 24v DC or certainly 12v DC. I have something like 12 sockets all around the boat on a ring main, so 12 amps or 2.7kW available on any one of them or 16 amps or 3.6kW available on all of them at one time -- pretty hard to do with low voltage DC power but a cinch with 230v AC. Plus a number of hard-wired AC devices on their own circuits.



And with a good charger/inverter the conversion between DC and AC or back is so painless and so efficient, that you don't really care much -- you can use whatever device you need without thinking too much what type of power it requires.



On my boat, the inverter runs pretty much 24/7/365 whenever there is no shore power available. But YMMV.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

About a DC motor on a big watermaker: I don’t get that. Sure, you can run it off the house bank but at 70-100A that ain’t fun for any time long.

Then I read while motorsailing to charge the house bank while running the DC watermaker.

In both cases you can simply use an AC driven watermaker using the inverter.

Hi Nick,
I hear what your saying and Rich did try to talk me out of going with the DC motor when I ordered his water maker.

Here is my reasonings for the Tropics and Asian Harbours

1. I have 1040 Ah house bank @24v

2. 1673 watts solar peaking @ 57 amps @ 24v

3. The induction stove runs fine off my 3000W inverter, but not both and I don't want to piss off the cook [emoji26] So the Galley gets Inverter priority

4. In Asia, Raw sewage generally flows into populated harbours, so I won't make water there if we're stuck for a few days and local shore water may not be safe. Like my experience with Superyschts. ....Water Makeup is underway.

5. My 10kw Gen, is mounted high and tight on Stbd side, with not that deep an oil sump, so I am wary of running it underway if heeled much. With my Solar capacity, the Gen is a backup now and used only for Air Cons if needed, or rainy season.

6. My boat needs 12-15 knots of usable wind to get over 5 knots, so I do motor sail a lot at low rpm with a Mark Grainger Alternator putting out 70 amps/24V at idle

IF I lost the Gen, with an AC driven motor, it would put pressure on the invertor and the cook. My DC solution avoids that.

Lastly, I'm considering a 2nd Multiplus in parallel at which time, switching to an AC pump motor is not a big deal

[tomfl]

Ran across this. Anyone know about them or have one they have used. Price is way lower than anything else;$US1695.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SYHVs-uZE0