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

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Yes, but if want to run the watermaker via solar/wind/hydro you need to select one of the energy efficient models.

True that!

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by jmh2002

Cost needs to be thrown into that mix too though, since that is a consideration for many cruisers.

And not just the cost of the unit, but also whatever is involved in powering and running it.

In Mike's case the Spectra is ultimately 'better' for him, but at what cost?

Cheaper and simpler might actually be better for cruisers similar to Mike.

Thanks jmh, nicely put. I think a Spectra 150 would be my ideal WM, but due to its size I would have to do some significant boat renovations to install it. But more importantly, I can’t afford it. Or to be more accurate, I can’t justify the cost based on my modest needs.

I want a WM, but I don’t need one. I carry lots of water. I’ve never run out. And my usage rate is fairly modest. I can currently be off the dock for ~100 days, so have never had to go in just to fill the water tank. This also means a smaller-capacity WM would be fine.

Originally Posted by funjohnson

The energy recovery based watermakers (in the size you are looking) are powered off a pump just like your typical Shurflo/jabsco pressure water system on most boats. It sounds like when you leave a water tap open and the pressure water pump is running to keep up. The Katadyn is more of a wooshing sound with a strong mechiancial background noise of the piston working back and forth. Mounting location and the mounts used dictate the sound level for either of these units.

One of the best locations for sound and space is to mount the Katadyn to the underside of the deck suspended by soft mounts. It's out of the way in typically unused space, no vibrations through the boat, and often easy to get to. The only negative is water lift height and if you were to have a leak (not unheard of with the Katadyn).

Thanks Matt, this is very helpful. This level of noise would certainly be noticeable to me, but not intolerable (vs the benefits).

Originally Posted by funjohnson

P.S. the Katadyns are very easy to break down and rebuild, but the membrane is proprietary and stupid expensive.

Yes, I’ve seen a few service videos of the 40e. Looks easily doable. The proprietary (and expensive) membrane is not so good, but if it is long-lasting, then it might be acceptable.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

Yes, but if want to run the watermaker via solar/wind/hydro you need to select one of the energy efficient models.

And conversely, if your choice is high gph / short runtimes, therefore you'll use ICE sources, energy efficiency is less an issue.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The large capacity cheap and simple watermakers are almost all AC powered, just like 99% of gensets, and that is just fine.

Sure, but on a boat without toasters, laundry machines, blenders etc, some owners eschew inverters, and AC completely, other than maybe a charger.

> What difference does DC vs AC make? Exactly

[daletournier]

It depends on how your boat is setup ,or how you are going to set it up.

I have a friend that is a fulltime world cruiser, his boat has no solar or wind, he relies solely on a northern lights generator, runs it every morning and every night, eutetic fridge. He installed a 12v watermaker in recent years, personally I believe it's the wrong choice as he runs a big genset twice a day therefore a high volume ac unit just makes sense.

In the future I will probably go Lifepo (maybe) and increase my solar (currently 480w), a spectra or equivalent really makes sense to me with this setup.

I dont think theres a right or wrong here, it's just about matching the watermaker to the boat.

I went rainman because it is simple and a good price, I already had the generator. I do like lots of water.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Sure, but on a boat without toasters, laundry machines, blenders etc, some owners eschew inverters, and AC completely, other than maybe a charger.

> What difference does DC vs AC make? Exactly

If you have a generator, you want to have a BIG charger, and it’s prudent to have more than one charger. You want this to shorten run times any time it’s being used to charge batteries
To go big charger wise, that pretty much takes you to an inverter / charger. I don’t know why but it seems that chargers peak at 60 amps or so and if you want to go over 100 amps, that’s the inverter / chargers.
I started out trying to be DC only under the assumption of efficiency before we actually started cruising, it sounded like the way to go when sitting at my desk at work planning the upcoming Retirement and cruise.
However after beginning to live on the boat and cruise I ran into three issues with DC only. Appliances didn’t exist, or when they did exist they were of a low quality and were way overpriced for what you get, and had to be ordered online. AC ones were high quality with many to choose from, widely available and cheap.
Anytime anything is running a large amount of “free” AC power is available. Why not use it? However with a large inverter, you don’t have to crank the generator to make toast or vacuum the rug.

I mean sure, if you want to do your laundry in a bucket and do without other modern conveniences, you can do the same on land too, but there is no reason not to do without the same luxuries you had on land, on a boat, not anymore.
From purely a financial perspective, the washing machine has paid for itself a few times over, because we have never sat in a laundromat or paid to have our laundry done. I doubt the watermaker has paid for itself, but hot showers every day are worth it. Yes you can wash with an insect sprayer or baby wipes, I did that in the Army, and chose not to live like that.
It’s all about choices, none are more righteous than others.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by daletournier

It depends on how your boat is setup ,or how you are going to set it up….I dont think theres a right or wrong here, it's just about matching the watermaker to the boat.

And I would add matching the watermaker to the crew’s needs. I just don’t need big production.

Even when we’re at the dock, without access to salt water, but with easily accessible, unlimited and free water, our usage goes from 2 gallons/day to something less than 4gpd. Even if we doubled that (which I can’t understand how we would) a small capacity WM would still do the job.

a64pilot: I’m not in any way saying your choice is right or wrong or whatever. But aren’t you the one with 1000 watts solar capacity? Even with that you find you have to run the dino generator? That seems like a lot of amps.

[john61ct]

Again, we are discussing completely different use cases and lifestyle choices.

I did not say anything about the immorality of high resource consumption here, that is off-topic here.

[Pelagic]

I am in the large capacity watermaker camp because having unlimited water available to wash the decks, flush the toilets, launder twice a week, enjoy long hot showers is worth the cost and effort of maintaining a relatively simple piece of equipment.

If at a marina, we would need to top off our tank twice a week even if using a shore hose for deck washing.

Transcribe that to @ anchor , same standard and running the RO every 3 days becomes habitual.
The one key benefit of having a large capacity water maker is when you are visiting a place with a polluted harbour..... You conserve water then head out into clean open water refill your tank and can return

With a small capacity unit, that would not work

[Q Xopa]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

What difference does DC vs AC make? None at all if you have a decent inverter/charger.


The large capacity cheap and simple watermakers are almost all AC powered, just like 99% of gensets, and that is just fine.

Yes DC high powered Motors and DC gens are 'odd ball'. Buying, servicing, parts and repairing always bound to more difficult and expensive.

Power efficiency wise, I also cant see what the point is. The losses in the low voltage, thick DC cables makes losses through an Inverter a non issue.

But there's always some that like to do things differently.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Sure, but on a boat without toasters, laundry machines, blenders etc, some owners eschew inverters, and AC completely, other than maybe a charger.

> What difference does DC vs AC make? Exactly

I've never seen a boat with a watermaker, which is the most expensive and luxurious electrical gear you can have on a cruising boat, but without such modest and basic AC gear as toasters, electric kettles, and inverters, not to mention power tools. I guess that exists only in some armchair fantasy. But of course if someone actually did have such a boat then, sure, you can order them with DC motors.


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.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Q Xopa

Yes DC high powered Motors and DC gens are 'odd ball'. Buying, servicing, parts and repairing always bound to more difficult and expensive.

Power efficiency wise, I also cant see what the point is. The losses in the low voltage, thick DC cables makes losses through an Inverter a non issue.

But there's always some that like to do things differently.

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]

[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.

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I've never seen a boat with a watermaker, which is the most expensive and luxurious electrical gear you can have on a cruising boat, but without such modest and basic AC gear as toasters, electric kettles, and inverters, not to mention power tools. I guess that exists only in some armchair fantasy. But of course if someone actually did have such a boat then, sure, you can order them with DC motors.


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.

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

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

a64pilot: I’m not in any way saying your choice is right or wrong or whatever. But aren’t you the one with 1000 watts solar capacity? Even with that you find you have to run the dino generator? That seems like a lot of amps.

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.
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.

It’s not how big a Solar array you have but often it’s how much usable sunshine there is. There was a thread a couple of months ago about being fully charged by noon, busting the “myth” that you can’t be. Well what wasn’t brought up was that it was the middle of Summer and at a latitude that meant that at that time of year the day was 18+ hours long. Yes with 18+ hour days you can be fully charged by noon. Now that isn’t usable Solar hours, but I’d assume there were at least 12 usable solar hours, but in Winter when a good day often means less than 5 usable Solar hours, your running something to keep up, maybe not every day. If you cruised where you are in Winter you would find that Solar just doesn’t cut it, not by a long shot. It’s better down South of course, but even down here Winter days are short.

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?

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.
The simplest way is to dedicate a storage locker for the watermaker, but then you lose the whole locker, but you also need to find places that a leak isn’t catastrophic.
Storage space is an issue with portable water makers, they are a coupe of modules that can’t be broken up and they take up a lot of space and you have to drag them out to use them and put them up when your done.
My HP pump and membranes are in the Lazarette, the membranes attache to the hull and the HP pump hanging from the top, it actually mounts to the side of the cockpit ice box, that way I lose very little storage. My filters and low pressure pump are in the bilge, my panel was the hardest to figure out as it’s one piece that you really can’t break up. My panel is in one wall of the engine compartment and my fresh water charcoal filter is well forward in a storage locker with my fresh water pump. But by busting it up and putting things in different places I lost very little storage.
I probably took a month after getting everything planning it out and initially put the filters in the Lazarette, which was a mistake, cause changing them meant climbing into that hole, later I moved them to the bilge which makes them accessible and of course water spillage is irrelevant.