Home built RO

[Dennis H.]

This was my BIG build for the coming season.
I built a 2 membrane RO.
I used XLE-4040 membranes. The feed pump is a 1HP pump that I got off ebay. The high pressure pump is a Procon series 5 SS vane pump driven by a 1.5HP motor.
I am using a PID controller to monitor the sap temp and have a low pressure switch to shut it down when I run out of sap or the filter clogs. I have a high pressure switch to protect it if something goes wrong and the pressure goes high.

I made a wash tank out of half of a dairy sink. I put a 3000W heating element in it to warm up the water and it is controlled by a PID and temp probe.

I made a valve panel with 1/2" ss 3 way ball valves so that I can divert where the concentrate and permeate goes.
10083

[Dennis H.]

Here are a few more of the build

10084 10085 10086 10087 10088

[n8hutch]

Very Nice Work, what are you hoping to get for gph with this? Looks like you spent a lot of time on it, Let everyone know how it works for you.

[wishlist]

Looks good Dennis. I'll be pestering you for some flow numbers this coming season with those 2 membranes. I have a new vessel and membrane on the shelf for mine if I ever decide to add it. :)

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

LALALA merry christmas

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

very very nice, i plan on building a control box, the one i got quote for was 300 just for the weatherproof box with hinges and latch.

Did you put a 5A or so fuse in when you brought you control power into box so you could run smaller wire? Thats what I am planning to do so I can run like 16AWG around control box

[nymapleguy607]

By the look of the control box you must be an electrician. Awesome job it should perform well.

[Dennis H.]

I have a 5A, 10A and a 15A breaker inline right after the main power disconnect.
The 5A is for the control circuit, PID controller, small relays, lamps, stuff like that.
The 10A is for the 1hp feed pump and the 15A is for the 1.5hp high pressure pump.

[Romeo]

Very nice job Marty

[roads-end]

How many taps are you planning on?

[Dennis H.]

This past season I had about 240 taps.
With cold sap and recirculating back to my raw sap tank I was removing about 2.5-3 gals/min of water. This was running the high pressure around 225 psi. A little higher if I was right there watching it.

My sugar content is very low, it was about 1.5% at the beginning of the season and by the end I was starting out with .9% sugar content. I would run it up to about 6-7% before I would send it over to my concentrate tank ready to be boiled.

Just from the amount of wood that I saved it was well worth the cost of building it. Then there was the amount of time that I cut out also, it was a HUGE time saver.
a full load of sap was 275 gallons and that would take me about 11 hrs to get thru raw, concentrated I could do all that in under 4 hrs. Huge time saver.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

This past season I had about 240 taps.
With cold sap and recirculating back to my raw sap tank I was removing about 2.5-3 gals/min of water. This was running the high pressure around 225 psi. A little higher if I was right there watching it.

.
what was your total GPH? IF your doing 3 GPM permeate must be doing 1.5/2 GPM concentrate?
or is the 2.5/3 total between the two so your would be doing 180GPH?

[rjoly]

Dennis

Great job on building your own RO. I build my own ro also I have one 4x40 with a feed pump and a high pressure pump. I get 320 lbs high pressure and 5% out off 1.5% sap. Im looking at adding a second filter. Question did you go in parrell or series when you pied yours up? and where did you get your stainless flex lines.



thanks



Ray

[Dennis H.]

Total flow was about 6.5 gpm. Right at the start up on raw sap I would get the 2.5-3 gpm on permeate and about 3-4 on the concentrate. As the sap sugar level increased and high pressure climbed I had to adjust the high pressure to keep it below 250 psi so the permeate flow would go down and the concentrate would increase but it always stayed at about 6.5 gpm total.


I have the membranes in parallel. I was not sure which would work the best for me so I just a guess and put them in parallel. I do wonder how the performance would change if I would put the membranes in series.
As for the SS hoses I got those thru Zoro Tools. The only thing I did not like about them was that the ends do not swivel, they are fixed and are MPT. SO it takes a little planning when it comes to putting it together. I want to change the hose arrangement some.
My thinking right now with how I have it is that it may tend to flow thru one membrane more than the other. I would like to feed the high pressure pump into a manifold then have two hoses the same length to feed each membrane then do the same for the outlet of the membranes.

See it is the evil side of having more free time while running the RO, you start to think of ways to improve it.

[rjoly]

Thanks for the information. That's sound about right for 2 filters I get 1.5 gallons off permeate and 1. 25 gallons off concentrate on one filter. so if you have 2 it should be doubled on 2 filters. I looked at 2 RO units at Bascom 2 weeks ago and they where in Series that's why I am stuck on deciding on how to set my new filters up. Parallel or series. Good point on the hoses I will look for swivel ends.

What kind off vacuum pump are you using? we have 2 Guzzler pumps after some pain in figuring out how to find leaks we have it figured out really good. This year we ran between 21- 25 inches off vacuum.

I build a lot off stuff for the sugar shack I am a pretty good welder so I am always looking at improving things. This year redo RO and we are adding a new Field off taps about 175 on 3/16" tubing into a guzzler pump.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Thanks for the information. That's sound about right for 2 filters I get 1.5 gallons off permeate and 1. 25 gallons off concentrate on one filter. so if you have 2 it should be doubled on 2 filters. I looked at 2 RO units at Bascom 2 weeks ago and they where in Series that's why I am stuck on deciding on how to set my new filters up. Parallel or series. Good point on the hoses I will look for swivel ends.

What kind off vacuum pump are you using? we have 2 Guzzler pumps after some pain in figuring out how to find leaks we have it figured out really good. This year we ran between 21- 25 inches off vacuum.

I build a lot off stuff for the sugar shack I am a pretty good welder so I am always looking at improving things. This year redo RO and we are adding a new Field off taps about 175 on 3/16" tubing into a guzzler pump.
my opinion,You will get a higher concentrate out of series buy less GPH or parallel will do more GPH less concentrate. Im far from a ro expert but many people say you need the flow across the membranes so they dont foul so if in series I would say you need a decent pump to get that flow.
I noticed how ro acted differently when I got the correct flow across my membranes.

[tyrod2]

I bought some flex line with swivel ends and I could not get them tight so they would not leak.I hooked 3 of them together and put a plug on one end and the other end to a garden hose and it leaked like a sprinkler.I could not get them tight enough.What a waste of $200 dollars.

[Dennis H.]

I am actually thinking about adding tri-clover style connections on mine.
I used a few unions when built my RO and I found that they can be a pain to get leak free in the tight locations that I had to put them.
With tri-clover you need no tools.

I can get them cheap from a few places that I bought from before.

[rjoly]

Can you share where you got the tri clover fittings cheap?

[Dennis H.]

Sure can.

http://www.brewershardware.com/Sanitary-Fittings/

Good pricing and lots to choose from.

Here is another place I dealt with but not for tri-clover fittings. Not as good of a selection as brewershardware.

http://store.proflowdynamics.com/modules/store/Tri-Clover-Fittings_C38705.cfm

[rjoly]

Thanks a bunch I will be ordering some for my upgrade this summer.