shout out to therobucket

[Chickenman]

Just have to say if your a back-yarder, hobbyist, whatever and looking for an RO system, check out Carl's RO Bucket. I purchased the 15 kit and mounted on a 2' x 2' piece of 3/4" ply. I did have a slight issue with running it but a quick email to him had the problem was corrected quickly.

He responds quickly and stands behind his product.

It was well worth the investment. I only wish I would have had it when I first started a few years ago.

[maple flats]

Another happy RO customer.

[dblact38]

You guys are right bought the RO5 last year it worked fantastic compact and easy to maintain great product and Carl is a pleasure to deal with answers questions right away hes very helpful I upgraded to an RO10 this year cant wait to use it iam very pleased

[to100]

Ditto for me about Carl and I have also upgraded to a 10 not sure number of tap increase.

[Skeller001]

I am brand new in to this, buying my supplies now. The RO looked like an awesome upgrade. May need to look in to that next year unless I find a used one out there.

[Chickenman]

Having mine on a board, I was able to cut all the plug ends off the electrical, wire in a single pole double throw toggle switch so I can prime the system, adjust it to where it needs to be then flip the switch the other direction and walk away and let the low pressure switch do its thing. It will shut down when out of sap.

[MDR Maple]

The RO Bucket saved me many hours of boiling last year. 2018 was a huge jump for me from just a few buckets over an open fire to 1,600' of 3/16 tubing, 30 some taps, fabricating collection tanks, pumping systems, haul tanks, storage tanks and the biggest project of all, fabricating a barrel evaporator. This is a family hobby for me. I work 9-5 M-F.

I purchased the RB-10 at a time when I had no other available time to research and fabricate my own system. It performed very well overall last season. My initial startup of the RO, of course, was on a Friday afternoon, when many of us are gearing up for a weekend of sugaring. Being new to all this, I had a clunky time getting the RO started up, it didn't seem to be making much concentrate, so I emailed Carl. He replied immediately with some guidance and even followed up by phone around 8:30 that evening to make sure it was working. After making a few adjustments that Carl suggested, it was performing well.

I'm adding a 3rd membrane this year to try and reduce my overall sugaring time, and I'll be moving all of the components from the bucket to a board mount (like the RB-15 Kit).

If I had more time I may have tried to fabricate my own system based on the various sources available online, but looking back I just didn't have the time.

Last year we made about 3.5 gallons of syrup and the evaporator was making about 5 gph steam on average. The RO Bucket typically turned 2% to 4% sugar for me and saved me about 25 hours of boiling and firewood last season.

If I was doing it all over again, I would definitely choose to use the RO Bucket.

[Skeller001]

So I am new to all of this. I don’t have a good way this year to boil down, turkey fryer. So I bought an RO5 from Carl. I had some trees that are coming down this week so I tapped them early. I got 5 gallons of sap and just ran the RO5 on it. I ran it through 2 times and got a little over a gallon to boil down.

But here is the cool part... I had a problem getting the RO5 running to start so I sent a Facebook message to Carl. I then figured out what I was doing wrong. At that same time I got a call from Carl. He looked up my phone number from my order and called me. It had to be less than 10 minutes from the time I sent the message. Where do you get customer service like that these days???

[sg5054]

Well I’m in. Purchased a RB15 kit, pressure gauge and switch yesterday. Moved 2 years ago to a new place with 37 acres. Not all maples though. I’ll get about 60 - 70 running down hill to a new shack I had built last year. Another 30 or so wil have to run to collection tanks. Looking forward to this season. It’s been hard being out of it for 2 years.
Got a question. Is the freeze point of concentrate different than raw sap? I set up a 50 amp 220 service backed up by the houses 16 k generator so the cabinet that will house the ro will be
protected with a heater. I’m try to sort out where the concentrate tank will reside.

[minehart gap]

The freeze point of concentrate is dependent on how concentrated the sap is. Dr. Tim has made comments that at Proctor the freezing point is 23 degrees if my memory serves me. But they are concentrating to a high level, probably 35 brix. I'm not sure of the equation but perhaps Dr. Tim could chime in.

[carls47807]

Sugars aren't very effective in lowering the freezing point of water. A 4% solution would probably only freeze 2 or 3 degrees F below pure water.

Carl