RO advice

[Mike Czok]

I am considering an RO for this year. I have 1000 taps, 850 on vaccumn. My evaporator is a leader 3x10 with revolution pans with a pre heater. I converted to a 705 carlin oil burner last year and quickly realized an RO is in order to make it efficient. I have read and researched but there's nothing like experienced advice so that is what I would appreciate. Thanks

[PerryFamily]

I ran 1000-1100 on a 2x6 wood with a used 600gph waterloo/small RO
Best money I have spent.
First thing I found was keeping it warm cost a lot of money in electricity so plan a nice insulated area first. Mine is 8 x 12 but could go much smaller.
Also filtering will need to be much faster. I went from flat filters with no RO to a 7" short to a 10" short to keep up. I love the 10", 30+ gallons before paper changes.
Also plumbing it up you can never have enough valves and drains.

I bought mine used, its a 2001 and paid $5800 for it. I used the spanked membrane in it for 1 year, got another used ( but way better ) last year and now I will get a new one from MES. I love it and you will ask yourself how you got along without it first time you use it!!

[wiam]

You will never ask why you bought one. And you will get to see your pillow more.

[Maplewalnut]

You will only ask why I didn't get one sooner

[JoeJ]

What is your evaporation rate now that your arch is oil fired? My 3 x 10 is oil fired rated at 85 gph evaporation, but I also have a steamaway that adds 60 gph of evaporation for 145 total. I had a
600 gph RO with 984 taps in 2013 and even on the best days with 1800 -1900 gallons of sap, it only took 3 1/2 hours to boil off 8 % concentrate.

[BreezyHill]

An RO is the work horse of the sugar house.
There is no other piece of equipment that is more productive for removing water as an RO. My unit has a 10 sq Ft foot print and removes around 200 g/h and will be getting 2 more membranes to reach just under 400 G/H for next season.
I use mine to pump sap from the collection tank to a RO tank in which I concentrate the sap further. When I need to fill the evap tank I change 2 valves and the RO fills it. My unit has several safety shutdown circuits, low pressure, high pressure and leak. After the unit is set to run for the day it takes care of its self; except to check it every hour or so to see if it has had an issue or if I need to flush the membranes due to low flow. This procedure takes about 2-3 minutes and then it is back concentrating again.

As Wiam said...it is nice to get more than a few hours sleep a night during sugar season. The wood pile/oil tanks last longer and the amount of kw used is not so bad. To remove 200 G of water takes me about 4 kw...at my rate that is just over $1.00.

Getting an extra 4 hours of sleep a night....priceless!

Ben

[maple flats]

An RO is your best investment by far. With a 3x10 a 250 will be too small unless you start running the RO well ahead. To match the evaporator for continuous running at 75% water removal you will need a 300+ GPH RO. That said, I run a Ray Gingerich 250 RO with a 3x8 evaporator and about 1250 taps all on vacuum.
I have mine set up to run then recirculate as needed. I run the RO thru and to my head tank and fill the head tank, then I switch 2 valves and I reconcentrate until the 200 gal head tank is at about 50% full, I then switch to running sap to concentrate again. I will have fired the arch as the head tank first got to between 50-75% full. If I have not gone thru all my sap when the evaporator catches up with the RO, I lower the RO pressure which puts slightly lower % concentrate in the head tank but gives me more GPH of concentrate. With proper valving these changes only take a few seconds to do. Since getting my RO I have gotten about 5x as many gal of syrup/cord of wood.

[Mike Czok]

Thanks for all the info so far. Keep it coming. Seems getting one is a must. So now-what brand, new or used, best deal, best place to get one.

[Walling's Maple Syrup]

All the maple companies make reliable, efficient machines, each with pros and cons. The big question is do you plan on expanding your operation in the near future and if so, to how many taps. You need to size your ro accordingly with # of taps and concentrate output/hr. Do you want your ro to match your evaporator or are you going to concentrate ahead of time? What brix are you going to conc. to? Do you plan on recirculating or are you going to send the sap through in one pass straight to your evaporator feed tank. These are all questions that need to be answered to determine the correct size ro to purchase.
Neil