New Turbo 120

[backyardsugarer]

I purchased a Lapierre Turbo 120 and just started using it last week. It's great, I had a waterguys 2500 for a few years and I should have just spent the money right off the bat on this unit. I can adjust the rate to create concentrate at the rate I am boiling, it can concentrate sap as high as 11% on one pass without pushing it too hard, I can leave a tank full of sap concentrating and walk away (shuts down on it's own). Same thing with rinsing and washing, get it set up and go to bed. The waterguys RO did remove water from the sap but it had to be recirculated through numerous times to get to 7 or 8 percent, Plus you had to baby sit it when rinsing or washing as there were no automatic shut downs.

Only 1 regret, I wish I would have gone for the turbo 250 with the extra membrane tower in case I expand in the future. Oh well, I guess they can add it on when that happens. good luck to everyone that has tapped with the warm up coming this week and next weekend.

Chris

[unc23win]

Congrats Chris glad you are happy with that RO. Good luck the rest of the seaon looks to be a good weekend for a lot of people.

[Dennis H.]

With the 125 how long did it take to go thru the sap you had.
I mean the number of gals of sap and the number of hours it took to concentrate up to 11%?

[backyardsugarer]

The biggest run that I got was about 1,000 gallons last week. The permeate was running about 1.25 gallons per minute and .25 gpm on the concentrate. That means I was going through sap at about 1.5 gallons per minute or 90 gallons per hour. Around 11 hours. However, I was able to come home at lunch, turn on the RO and by the time I go home at 4:00 I had concentrate to boil and the RO was still running strong. I was in bed by around 11 and all cleaned up rather than being up all night. Plus I was able to rinse the RO and put it on a wash cycle so it was ready to go for the next run.

Chris

[Russell Lampron]

I purchased a Lapierre Turbo 120 and just started using it last week. It's great, I had a waterguys 2500 for a few years and I should have just spent the money right off the bat on this unit. I can adjust the rate to create concentrate at the rate I am boiling, it can concentrate sap as high as 11% on one pass without pushing it too hard, I can leave a tank full of sap concentrating and walk away (shuts down on it's own). Same thing with rinsing and washing, get it set up and go to bed. The waterguys RO did remove water from the sap but it had to be recirculated through numerous times to get to 7 or 8 percent, Plus you had to baby sit it when rinsing or washing as there were no automatic shut downs.

Only 1 regret, I wish I would have gone for the turbo 250 with the extra membrane tower in case I expand in the future. Oh well, I guess they can add it on when that happens. good luck to everyone that has tapped with the warm up coming this week and next weekend.

Chris

Good info here for the guys that are thinking about getting a Waterguys RO. The Lapierre is light years ahead as far as being designed for maple sap is concerned. I regularly punish mine and have been since 2005. No problems with it other than a split high pressure control valve. It takes most of a day of recirculating to get the concentrate up to 18% when I have 1000 gals of sap to process. Drawing 7 gallons of syrup off of my 2x6 in an hour sure is fun.

[huskyxp]

Russel
Just wondering how many gallons of concentrate u got after taking 1000 gal. of sap to 18%?

[Teuchtar]

Russ, Chris
Can you please share with us, on the first pass whats your concentrate/permeate gpm's and what concentration you take the raw sap to ?
Then to get 18%, whats your membrane pressure ?
I'd like to compare to my own DIY system.
Thanks

[Amber Gold]

I think, and could be wrong, but any machine can get there, it's just a matter of time. To get that high, you recirc. to gradually get there. It's recommended to only remove 75% of the water in a single pass. Russ and I recirc. at a 50/50 split because it's easier on the membrane(s) (lower pressures) and doesn't heat the sap up as much.

[backyardsugarer]

I was running around 480 on the pressure gauge. .25 gallons of concentrate and 1.25 of permeate. I do not run it through for a second pass yet. Raw sap to between 10 and 11 percent on one pass. I may in the future recirculate if my wood starts to dwindle or if I ever get tired of boiilng (not likely)

Chris

[Mathieu]

Russel
Just wondering how many gallons of concentrate u got after taking 1000 gal. of sap to 18%?

If your sap is at 2% you will get 110 gallons at 18%

[huskyxp]

If your sap is at 2% you will get 110 gallons at 18%
Is there a formula u used to figure that out?

[Russell Lampron]

Russ, Chris
Can you please share with us, on the first pass whats your concentrate/permeate gpm's and what concentration you take the raw sap to ?
Then to get 18%, whats your membrane pressure ?
I'd like to compare to my own DIY system.
Thanks


If your sap is at 2% you will get 110 gallons at 18%

I actually recirc back into my storage tank and have no Idea how many times it goes through the RO on it's way to 18%. I run my pressure at 250psi and adjust the concentrate flow to 2gpm. At that setting I will be getting about 1.5gpm of permeate or 90 gallons per hour. That is with an XLE membrane. My RO will maintain those flow rates at that pressure until the concentrate gets above 8% then it starts to slow down. When it is close to 18% the concentrate flow is down to about 1gpm and there is about .25gpm of permeate flow.

Mathieu is right, I usually have about 100 gallons of concentrate when I am at 18%. I can run that through my evaporator in about 2.5 hours from lighting the fire to shut down and draw off a lot of syrup.

[Mathieu]

Is there a formula u used to figure that out?

1000 gallons x 2(%) = 2000
2000 / 18(%) = 111 gallons