Which RO?

[farmermike]

I'm trying to decide which RO system to purchase. The Waterguy's or Ray Gingerich's. Any information on them or if there is a better choice would be great!
Thanks.
Mike

[maple flats]

I chose Ray Gingerich's R.O. I did preliminary checking basically from Ray and Waterguy's and Ray was lower cost and performance looked equal. I just picked up my R.O last Saturday and I like what I see. A second benifit for me was gas powered which my or may not be a consideration. My research after liking his price better, only involved talking with 3 owners, none of which were given me by Ray. Member Daryl steered me his way as Daryl is getting Rap to re-design his homemade R.O., Daryl also gave me another name who had one. That owner gave me an additional name, all like their R.O.'s and this past Satrurday at a seminar Ray was giving, I also spoke with another owner who bought one last year, They were also happy. This does not say that Waterguy is not good, just that I now have spoken to 4 owners who really like Ray's product and like dealing with Ray. Ray's main focus is gas powered R.O.'s but he also makes electric if that is what you want. On Saturday when I picked mine up I think he had 8 others (all gas) he had ready and he had an electric one he was building but it was not finished yet.

[maplefarmer]

Mike, I am just about ready to order an ro, talked to ray and he sent me info. on his. They seem simple enough to figure out, are not over expensive, and he said they have quick connect couplers that some guys unhook them and take them inside, it looks like they are on a cart with wheels. Lastly i have a 12x16 shed with a 2x6 leader and dimensions on ray's 125 will fit perfectly in the corner of my shack. Just have to pull the trigger.

[Greenwich Maple Man]

Any thoughts as to how much the Waterguys RO'S compare to Rays as far as price?

[farmermike]

The Waterguy's told me I would need a HP5000 which is a 2 membrane machine and rated at 325 GPH. The one Ray told me about is a 250 which is a 2 membrane machine and rated at 250 GPH. The waterguys is about $1655.00 higher then Ray's.

[maplefarmer]

Are you sure you need the 250gpm, ray told me the 125 will do up to 800 taps, unless you plan on big expansion, although i think his 250 is only like $500 more than the 125 except there would be more expense for membranes when time comes to replace. I was kinda set on the 125, but maybe the 250 is a better deal.

[Father & Son]

maplefarmer,

Your 2x6 will boil more than the single membrane will produce/hr. So unless you plan on running the RO for a while before you start to boil the 2 membrane I feel would be better. The pumps on the 125 1 membrane and the 250 2 membrane machines that Ray makes are the same. The price difference is the second membrane. I have a 250 ordered from Ray and I'm having a hard time deciding which to go with, gas or electric.

Jim

[Greenwich Maple Man]

maplefarmer,

Your 2x6 will boil more than the single membrane will produce/hr. So unless you plan on running the RO for a while before you start to boil the 2 membrane I feel would be better. The pumps on the 125 1 membrane and the 250 2 membrane machines that Ray makes are the same. The price difference is the second membrane. I have a 250 ordered from Ray and I'm having a hard time deciding which to go with, gas or electric.

Jim

I'm thinking of ordering Rays 250. The 125 is going to realy work with 800 taps. I know I have said it before here bigger is better. People usualy always expand in this game. Question, does anybody know how many horse the pumps are on Ray's 250. I was speaking to a guy this week who has a Leader Hero and he said the one hp. pump was not near big enough????? Any thoughts?

[maple flats]

If a 125 from ray will work next season, go for it. Ray's 125 can be expanded to a 250, and Ray's 375 can be expanded to a 500, just by adding another membrane and a little plumbing. Otherwise the 125 and 250 are the same in every other respect, as are the 375 and 500. The difference is 1 or 2 membranes on a 125-250 and 3 or 4 on a 375-500. The engines (or electric motors) are the same. on each pair in a size class.

[wiam]

maplefarmer,

Your 2x6 will boil more than the single membrane will produce/hr. So unless you plan on running the RO for a while before you start to boil the 2 membrane I feel would be better. The pumps on the 125 1 membrane and the 250 2 membrane machines that Ray makes are the same. The price difference is the second membrane. I have a 250 ordered from Ray and I'm having a hard time deciding which to go with, gas or electric.

Jim

If I run my RO with 2 xle 4040 to keep pace with my 2x6 W F Mason I am only running about 8%. That is why I am going to add a third membrane.

I do not see how you can size an RO by tap count. RO needs to be sized to feed whatever evaporator you are running.

[Brian Ryther]

RO needs to be sized to feed whatever evaporator you are running.[/QUOTE]

Yes and no. I feel that the ro should be sized based on how much sap you process per day. Tap count is too general. High vac vs gravity. Worlds apart.
Second is how long you are able or want to boil in a day. Do you have 8 hours or do you want to be done in 2 hours.

[wiam]

RO needs to be sized to feed whatever evaporator you are running.

Yes and no. I feel that the ro should be sized based on how much sap you process per day. Tap count is too general. High vac vs gravity. Worlds apart.
Second is how long you are able or want to boil in a day. Do you have 8 hours or do you want to be done in 2 hours.[/QUOTE]

That is kind of my point. I am saying how can you have a recomended number of taps for an RO.

If you want to boil all day you could get a half pint. I want to process my sap as quickly as possible.

[Brent]

There's something not adding up here. If the 125 rig gets a second membrane and uses the same motor(s), it will not become a machine with double the capacity.You will get an incease but I don't think it can double. You may get 50% more or something like that.

I have a 1 Hp feed motor and a 3 Hp high pressure pump on a 150 GPH Airablo and the factory says that adding a 3rd membrane is a waste of time. They want me to trade it in for a 500.

I've had some email exchanges with a membrane dealer and he also would not even speculate on what I would gain.

I'd love to see the owner of one of these 125 or 250 rated rigs chime in here and tell us what they get in throughput with cold sap after the membrane has been running for an hour and starts to foul up.

What is the real Hp of the motors on the 125. ??

[Mitch Hoyt]

Hi Guys,

Some of you are on the right track with the questions your asking. The right way to go about sizing an RO is to find out how much sap your evaporator needs to be fed. With proper sizing you can build a RO system that will feed your evaporator what you need while the sap is fresh and cool. The optimum temp for feeding your RO is 70 degrees. I have heard complaints from time to time about our RO systems costing to much. The reason is that most RO manufactures build their systems around that 70 - 80 degree processing temp. That is why when you put one in and your incomming sap is at 38 -48 degrees you will not get the flow that they advertise. We have engineers who build and design our RO systems to process at that cold temperature. So when we tell you your going to get a processing rate of 125, 250, 400, 1200 or 5000 gph you will get that feed rate at the cold processing temp. Our skids will be larger than our competitions but they will do for a minimum exactly what we say. If you are warming up your sap before running through one of our RO's your processing rate will go up depending on temp and sap quality. If anyone has any questions I would be glad to get them answered for you. My name is Mitch Hoyt and I work for a company called Membrane Process and Controls. We have been around since 1992 building fluid processing systems for the Dairy and Food processing industry. We started to build specificly for the sap industry in 2006. If you are interested in a new or used RO we would be glad to build one that suits your specific needs.

Mitch Hoyt

mhoyt@membranepc.com

[Mitch Hoyt]

You are correct.

[Bucket Head]

Brent,

Your right, things don't add up, but I'm not the guy to ask as to "why". All I can tell you is what I have and what it does and then you can compare. I think we spoke earlier this year about our 160's.

Mine is a twenty year old Airablo "Lynx", and according to the previous owner, its a 160. It does not have a GPH rating on it anywhere. It has the same rated pumps as yours and has two NF270 membranes. However, and this is the strange part, it had at one time, three membranes on it. You could plainly see where the third one was installed (the frame has three separate pressure vessel mounts) and the 'manifold' was capped off at the third port and the 'excess' pressure line was coiled at the bottom of the machine. I asked a knowledgeable RO guy what he thought I had, and he said set up like that it would be a 250. Although now, I can't remember if the 250 figure was with the two current vessels or the original three?

Anyway, I did not doubt him and it does process a little over 200 gph consistently, to 8-9% on one pass. It does this at a near constant of 475 psi.

Are you getting close to my numbers? If your not, I can not explain why. Their basically the same machine- equipment wise, right? If mine came with a third membrane, either stock or as an option, why does'nt yours? Despite the same horse power ratings, are our pressure pumps radically different in outputs?

Any Airablo experts, or former employees out there? We need answers.

Steve

[Brent]

Our Airablo only hits 300 psi on the pressure. I can only speculate, but I think they decided to go with a lower pressure and higher flow rate to improve the recirculation.

Something that would take a lot of data would be to try to figure which style, your high pressure or our lower pressure, made the most gallons 8% before needing cleaning. Because the membranes, according to DOW, lose 3% per degree C drop, it could make a big difference if one of us had colder sap in a shady storage tank and another was in the sun and a going into the RO just a few degrees warmer.

I've even thought about snaking some copper tubing around inside the sugar shack, or around the smoke stack, in order to feed warmer sap.

Lots of questions and not many answers.

[Bucket Head]

I did not realize Airablo changed the working pressure of your machine. That would explain the difference in output. I don't know if that change helps with keeping things cleaner or not. How many hours can you run yours before you start to see the performance drop? How many hours of use do they reccomend for yours before you have to do a wash cycle on it?

Steve

[Brent]

The manual on this rig says you just monitor the flows rather than the clock.
With the new XKE-4040's able to give better flows at lower pressure, I think I got a real benefit from the new technology.

I'm going to have to go look at the guages again but from memory I got about
4 GPM of 8% with clean membranes for the first half hour after cleaning, then it dropped to about 1 3/4 GPM and sat there for hours. It was still pretty close to that when the day was done so they got cleaned before the lights went out.

Maybe this year we'll get at least one gangbusters day when there's too much sap and we'll see what happens 5, 6 or 7 hours into a run before we shut down to clean.

[firetech]

Can some one PM me Ray Gingerich's contact info please I mailed a letter to him using the address in the Ohio Maple producers web site but it came back undeliveable. thanks

[farmermike]

Ray Gingerich number is 440-422-3047