Under the sink ro ??

[500592]

Hi I was wondering if I could use an under the sink ro with out changing anything and what might I have to change

[michiganfarmer2]

you mght have ot change your marital status if you actually use it inside the house

[red maples]

Yes those things aren't cheap I have one....but its good for about 1 GPH not worth time or energy in my opinion. And huh the one you must obey will be pissed to say the least!!!!:o

[jrgagne99]

Read the "Homemade RO" thread. It can work for the small scale producer, with say less than 100 taps. You'll need a pressure pump and be sure to take out all of the carbon pre and post filters.

[PerryW]

It would seem like a small RO machine should be developed by the manufacturers. A unit that was small, used less than 15 amps at 110 volts and was easy to use.

Even a 3 GPH unit that ran for 20 hours and removed 60 gallons of water, would really speed things up on a turkey fryer or flat pan.

[jrgagne99]

I too would've thought that Leader, CDL, etc. would've made something small-scale too, especially since these RO's are so simple. I think that one reason they don't do it is because they would have to use readily available, commercial-off-the-shelf, under-the-sink components that anyone can get at Home Depot. Their customary 500% mark-up for the "MAPLE" tag would leave them with too much egg on their face. If they can only squeeze out a 200% markup (because much more than that would be just plain embarrassing), why bother?

[GGervais]

Have u asked any of the reps. I was at CDL for open house last year and they had a small hobby size R.O. set up. I didn't ask anything about it but I know they had something for the small producer

[DrTimPerkins]

It would seem like a small RO machine should be developed by the manufacturers. A unit that was small, used less than 15 amps at 110 volts and was easy to use.

Several of the maple equipment companies now make "Hobby" size RO machines. There is not a lot of economy of scale here though. "Real" membranes for sugar separation are not cheap and only come in a limited range of sizes. You basically can't get one smaller than 4" x 40". They used to make a 60" membrance, but it was made from a 40" + half of another 40" (so 20"). Unfortunately the 20" membrane piece cost within a few % of the full 40" (you couldn't make one 40" into two 20" membranes), so it was dropped. Much the same type of pattern for all the other equipment....you can make it smaller, but the costs don't go down very fast with the size....in some cases they go up. So...while you can cobble together something for a lower price that isn't designed for sap (carbon filters not particulate filters, no automated wash, plastic tubing rather than high pressure tubing, and SLOW), it isn't likely to be a lot cheaper for the companies to produce something that is actually made to work with maple.

[Brent]

There are a lot of old post from me on my experience with a pair of GE Merlin under the counter rigs. It works. But only to a limited extent. You will only get about 1/3 of the advertised flow rate because sap is coooold. And they are not easy to rinse or wash so they lose performance quickly. You can see a significant drop in flow in just an hour. You need a variable pressure pump to get anything near optimum performance. By the time you get it all together you'll spend 1/4 the cost of a real RO and get 1/10th of the performance.

[BryanEx]

Several of the maple equipment companies now make "Hobby" size RO machines.
They may call them "hobby" RO's but I have yet to see one priced less than a brand new evaporator in an equivalent size range and if maple production truly is a hobby, price is the determining factor for most producers.

[DrTimPerkins]

They may call them "hobby" RO's but I have yet to see one priced less than a brand new evaporator in an equivalent size range and if maple production truly is a hobby, price is the determining factor for most producers.

I agree, however if they could sell enough of them, and if there were enough of a margin to make some profit on, manufacturers would make them. Making an RO for $500 or even a $1,000 that had a real maple membrane, with decent throughput, and somewhat automated operation would cost them more than they could reasonably expect to sell it to a "hobby" producer.

If someone disagrees, then maybe it is probably a good business opportunity and you should try it.

[Brent]

The wonderful thing about the capitalist system is that if anything can come close to being done profitably ... it will be.

If you add up the needed components to make even a small scale maple RO, you soon discover you can't get there from here. You just have to have certain things in a system and they add up. Automation of manufacturing will never be a factor for the small number of orders for a little maple RO and most of the benefits of scale on the bought out items, ie motors, switches, valves, membranes ... was already there years ago. I don't see any major breakthroughs in costs that will take a $5000 rig down to $ 2000. China may change that but for now, anything put together real inexpensively will be done at the expense of performance ... something has to be left out. But if you want to reduce the times on a turkey frier, you can try something like I did with the GE Merlins. They're $400 a pop and a good pump is several hundred dollars ... you'll end up at about $ 1000 and you will get a 5 gallon pail of water extracted in couple hours ... maybe 1 hour if you plug in two Merlins like I did.
The Merlins have the best performing low pressure specs out there ... they need 80 psi. You can't clean them very well and you've got to baby sit them every night so they don't freeze.

I think it may be better to spend $ 1200 on a Leader Half-Pint or something like that.

[Brent]

I wrote the above post at about the same time Dr. Tim was writing his. We're on the same page.

[Jim Brown]

I have to agree with the good Dr. and Brent . If you want a convertible you don't buy a car and cut the roof off. I also know that money drives a big part of the RO thing with small producers(like me). But a small producer I know told me at the end of this season, in which he built his own RO and it works well said he would NOT build another one for himself or any one else due to the fact of the cost of the proper pumps and the other must have items
Just our two cents

Jim

[PerryW]

thanks for the explanation. I guess I figured that the smaller membranes used for RO water purification systems would also work for maple.

[jrgagne99]

I have to disagree. I assembled my 3 GPH (permeate) sytem for a little over $300 and I think I can expand it to 8 GPH permeate for less than $400 total. Those kind of prices, (with a reasonable markup for assembly costs) are probably well in the price range of a 100-tap (or less) hobbyist. Granted, it is a very manual system (no automatic shut-off or rinse cycles), but I'm willing to bet that the 100-tap hobbyist doesn't really want all the bells and whistles anyway.

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

I have to disagree. I assembled my 3 GPH (permeate) sytem for a little over $300 and I think I can expand it to 8 GPH permeate for less than $400 total. Those kind of prices, (with a reasonable markup for assembly costs) are probably well in the price range of a 100-tap (or less) hobbyist. Granted, it is a very manual system (no automatic shut-off or rinse cycles), but I'm willing to bet that the 100-tap hobbyist doesn't really want all the bells and whistles anyway.

I am hopeing this set up could be improved for 250 taps on vac