plumbing RO

[maple flats]

Having ordered my first RO (a gas powered 250 GPH unit) I am trying to design the plumbing. I want to try to design it to handle all possibilities.
sap in
concentrate out
concentrate to RO in pump again
conc to evaportor
permeate to perm tank
What have I missed? I want the simplest design I can come up with rather than having lines and valves all over the place. Ideas please. Pictures are good i8f you can.
Also, how much permeate storage is suggested for a 250 size? I also want to use permeate for my water in the sugarhouse for cleaning everything, not just to clean the RO.
Is it OK to have a conc tank rather small and start and stop the RO if needed (For example, I have a 250 gal SS tank I'd like to use for concentrate. My evaporator runs best at about 65 gph so that would give me about 3.5 hrs reserve. I think I would RO 60-90 minutes and then start the evaporator. With my evap rate and drawoff rate with 8% concentrate I should use 70 maybe a little more or less. Depending on sap temp I think I will get about 50+/- gph concentrate depending on sap temperature. It should be a good match. Anyone see any holes in my thoughts?
Thanks

[mapleack]

Dave,
You'll also need to feed permeate back to the RO to flush.
You'll need to be able to get permeate in a wash tank.
The more permeate storage the better, I have a 400 gal tank
All you need for concentrate is your current head tank, the best method is to send concentrate back out to your raw sap tank, recirculating until just before boiling, then you turn it over to the headtank wait until there's 30 gal or so in it and fire up, matching RO output to boiling rate while maintaining that 20 or 30 gal surplus.
I'm far from an RO expert but last season was quite a learning experience and I'll be glad to help as much as possible!
-Andy


Having ordered my first RO (a gas powered 250 GPH unit) I am trying to design the plumbing. I want to try to design it to handle all possibilities.
sap in
concentrate out
concentrate to RO in pump again
conc to evaportor
permeate to perm tank
What have I missed? I want the simplest design I can come up with rather than having lines and valves all over the place. Ideas please. Pictures are good i8f you can.
Also, how much permeate storage is suggested for a 250 size? I also want to use permeate for my water in the sugarhouse for cleaning everything, not just to clean the RO.
Is it OK to have a conc tank rather small and start and stop the RO if needed (For example, I have a 250 gal SS tank I'd like to use for concentrate. My evaporator runs best at about 65 gph so that would give me about 3.5 hrs reserve. I think I would RO 60-90 minutes and then start the evaporator. With my evap rate and drawoff rate with 8% concentrate I should use 70 maybe a little more or less. Depending on sap temp I think I will get about 50+/- gph concentrate depending on sap temperature. It should be a good match. Anyone see any holes in my thoughts?
Thanks

[Bucket Head]

Dave,

I would save as much permeate as you can. Get some inexpensive plastic tanks if you can. I have one bulk tank and two IBC tanks (cage tanks) dedicated to permeate storage. Proper RO cleaning and rinsing uses a lot of water and if your cleaning everything else with it, better to have more holding capacity than not enough. You'll be in a bind if sometime you don't have enough permeate on hand to do an RO wash and rinse.

I also like the idea of having more storage capacity for concentrate too. I'm always thinking of "worse case scenario's" when I plan out something. There may be times where you'll need to RO all the sap, without recirculating, so you can free up the tank(s) for more incoming sap. Big runs, or those times where your called away from boiling for some reason and you fall behind, your going to want a concentrate tank that can hold all that you might have to put in it.

Congrats on the RO purchase! Once you use it and you see what it does for you, your going to think "how did I get along before without one of these?!" I know I did! Good luck with it.

Steve

[wiam]

My 225gph puts out about 45 at 10% right after cleaning. This goes down slowly as the day goes on. I had 500 gallons of permeate storage and want more. I would like to be able to save all of it. I have a pressure washer hooked to permeate tank that I wash concentrate and raw tank every night. My concentrate tank is 350 gallons and this year I never had it over half full with 1000 taps. Last year never over 3/4, but with older nf 90's and now I have xle's so higher % at same rate.

William

[nymapleguy607]

Dave

Does your RO have a circulation pump on it? Could you also pass along the contact information from where you bought yours. I've been thinking about the feasability of RO and this system sounded interesting. Thanks

[Thad Blaisdell]

My suggestion on the plumbing is to wait until you have it put in. And dont be afraid to use a couple of quick disconnect unions so that you can take it apart (separate the RO from plumbing). Bring the plumbing into the room but dont do much more than that until the machine is in place then it will all come together the way it needs to.

[maple flats]

I can give you my source but no other info until after Sept. 10 when I go pick it up and attend a training seminar by the mfgr. I bought it from Ray Gingerich, of Orwell Ohio. 440-422-3047. He is an Amishman and he makes primarily gas powered RO's. He offers 125-250-375-500 and 1000 GPH units. My 250 with a Honda engine and a high and low pressure cut off was $3200. Member Daryl gave me his name. Give Ray a call and he will send you some lit. He also installs tubing and he told me he was almost maxed out on RO's for this year when I ordered in early July. He has a phone in his shop and seems to be there 6 long days, not on Sunday.
I go to pick mine up in 8 days, leaving at 4:00 am to be there in time for his seminar.
I will find out more about this unit next weekend.
Bucket Head, I will be saving at least 550 gal permeate. I have a 415 gal concentrate tank and thought that might be better to hold more raw sap. My thinking was that I can store raw sap a couple of days if needed but I shouldn't store concentrate that long. Thus I was thinking a 125-250 gal concentrate tank would be better. I will have enough other tanks so I could concentrate to maybe 4 or 5% into a sap tank and then when ready to the concentrate tank concentrate to 10 or 12%. I like running my current rig at 60-65 gph. I will replace the pans in a year or 2 and should then be able to boil 75-90. My current pans have a bad dent where the first owner threw wood in and damaged the leading edge of the flue pan. That spot boils so violently that I have a hard time keeping the geysers from jumping out and running between the pan and the hood and running down the side of the arch. I think when I order new pans I will get a 3x3 syrup and 3x5 flue pan rather than a 3x2 and 3x6. The short syrup pan seems to make the back pan leading edge geysers jump over 2' high. I even added a deflector like the ones Leader has on some of their pans at the leading edge. This helped but did not eliminate the problem.
I plan to route permeate to the ro in and out valves. This unit has a built in SS wash tank. I also plan to plumb it to send concentrates to several different tanks, but the final concentrate will always be my head tank (unless I am concentrating for hire). I also plan to try to buy sap if I can. The 250 won't do fantastically but in a year or 2 I will buy more capacity as needed.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

We plumbed the permeate line into the bottom of the holding tank drain with three T's and three valves:
1) One side of the first T goes to a pipe that runs up the outside of the tank and exits out the wall just before it reaches the top of the tank. This acts as a high level overflow in case the tank is full and I'm not there.
2) The second T comes off the other side of the first and goes to the bottom of the tank (there is a valve there so I can shut off the feed to the tank if the tank is full -- everything goes outside at that point). The other side goes to the third T.
3) The first outlet of the third T goes to a drain (with a valve and a quick disconnect) while the other goes back to the RO (with a valve) to rinse with.

I'd also second the comment on quick couplers -- can't have too many. They give you a lot of options and are easy to undo so things don't freeze.

Good Luck!

Brian

[Bucket Head]

Hi Dave,

Like I said before, I feel you can never have too much storage capability. You never know what Mother Nature might throw at us, lol. I saved all my permeate each time and used every gallon of it for rinsing after or washing and rinsing. Theres no such thing as too clean either.

You might even want to refigure your capacities or number of tanks now if you might buy sap and/or hire out your RO too. Although, I would'nt advertise 'for hire' just yet. See how you do with your sap first. If we have another decent year, I'm thinking your machine is going to be pretty busy with just your sap.

Let me know when its availiable for viewing- I'd like to take a peek at it. Post some pics too. I'm sure quite a few folks on here would like to see it too!

Steve

[Haynes Forest Products]

Sandy Rock I reading with interest because I just committed to a 600GPH CDL. I have a 800 gallon SS bulk tank that I plan on using for sap storage and will get Pallet tanks for rinse water. I have a 400 round bottom tank I used for bulk storage that fed the head tank. Its set in place and wonder if I should just run a line the 40 Ft from the RO to it and make that the concentrate storage.
Could you give me a simple calculation on sap reduction to consentrate with only 1 pass. If I have the 800 gallon bulk sap tank full what can I reduce it down to.
I was told I will reduce the amout of water by 75% OK thats easy 800 take away 600 and I end up with 200 gallons concentrate.

[Rhino]

Going to make the leap also and get a r.o. After "shopping" around meeting with Joel Stencil from Membrane Process and Controls, we are going with his 600 gph machine. Talking with 2 other producers who have the same unit as we are getting, they can get 900 gph out of it consistently. Comes with a 8" Mark 1 membrane. The day i met with Joel he had 2 commercial units there that needed repair so it was nice to compare his demo unit to those 2 other brands. This unit comes with a 7.5 horse high pressure pump so expansion (if needed will be available. The big selling point was the company is only 40 minutes away from our sugar shack. Never ran a r.o before so this spring will be a learning experience. After the unit is made Joel will have a 2 hour in house demo of the machine useing water to teach us how to operate it and also one on site visit during maple season to "tweek" it useing the real stuff.

[Bucket Head]

Having RO tech support that close to you is great. After you boil ROed sap your going to ask yourself, "Why did'nt I get one of these sooner!?" I know I asked myself that- repeatedly! Good luck with it this season.

Steve

[maple flats]

I attended a seminar by Ray Gingerich, along with maybe 60-80 others. Then I picked up my purchase, got a vac pump from another Trader and returned home. These units come with quick disconnects on all hoses so it can be moved around and thinks can be switched up. I can set up to recirculate. In fact he encourages it. His suggestion is to run the lines from supply to concentrate and then keep recirculating from concentrate while you check the woods. Then boil 10-15% sap after that is done.

[Mitch Hoyt]

Maple Flats

Can you let me know where you got your 250 GPH gas powered RO. I am just wondering if some other company is building them? We build two different models here. The Graber 250 and the Graber 450. I thought we were the only ones building them at this time. We started building them for some Amish customers. We have ended up building some for some people who just do not have electricity to their sugar shack. They are portable on a trailer so the horses can pull them into the woods. If you don't mind letting me know where your getting yours from. I do work for Joel Stencil at Membrane Process & Controls and really just curious.

Thanks,

Mitch Hoyt

[maple flats]

My unit was made by an Amishman in Orwell, Ohio by the name of Ray Gingerich. He has been making them for 3-4 years from what I understand. He offers 125-250-375-500-1000 GPH units. He does most in gas using Honda engines but also offers diesel and electric, all in those sizes.
What is your price for a 250 GPH and can you email me any literature?
He offered a seminar on Saturday Sept. 10. That is when I picked mine up along with about 8 others. The units being picked up ranged from 250, 375 and 500 GPM, no 125 or 1000 when I was there. He said he had orders for 9 more to build. He was also hosting a maple equipment auction and it looked like about 50% were Amish, the rest not. At his seminar he had far more attendees than those who were picking up an RO, about 60-75 were in there for the seminar and demo.