Cdl hobby 250

[butler]

Thinking on purchasing cdl 250 horizontal RO... looking for opinions and set up tips... how to you prime pump if it sits on top of tank and sap can’t gravity feed to pump? Let me know what you guys think of these units? How much sap do I require to start it up?

[boondocker]

I just bought one the other day and I am hard plumbing it in to my tanks. Mine will be mounted in a box on the wall not on a tank. From what I have read and been told, these units will self prime and depending on how far away the tank is they will prime very well. Around 300+ gallons is required to run so you will have enough perm water to run your flush / cleaning cycle. I have been doing a lot of reading over the years and have needed a R/O for 4 plus years but never wanted to spend the money on one. This year I decided to pull the trigger and get one and out of all the manufacturers out there and all the different options I had I went with the CDL. Everything else I have is CDL but from what I have read and hear, there little 250 works very well and is priced right. This unit for me is temporary just to get my feet wet in the R/O world and to speed thing up a bit. I will be moving to a 600 in a year or so but for now I feel this was the right move for my operation. Good luck to you.

[butler]

Awesome, thanks... I am in the exact same situation. Been needing an ro for a couple years and I am going to bite the bullet and get my feet wet on the the cdl 250... hoping it’s a decent unit

[fred]

as he said those will self prime. you will be satisfies with it. until the bug gets worse and you out grow it. lol

[Super Sapper]

Depending on the type of pump you may need to initially prime it with sap. Most of the booster pumps used need to have the volute filled with liquid first or else you will burn up the seals real quick. Once it is primed it should be good until you drain the pump volute.

[maple flats]

I just bought one the other day and I am hard plumbing it in to my tanks. Mine will be mounted in a box on the wall not on a tank. From what I have read and been told, these units will self prime and depending on how far away the tank is they will prime very well. Around 300+ gallons is required to run so you will have enough perm water to run your flush / cleaning cycle. I have been doing a lot of reading over the years and have needed a R/O for 4 plus years but never wanted to spend the money on one. This year I decided to pull the trigger and get one and out of all the manufacturers out there and all the different options I had I went with the CDL. Everything else I have is CDL but from what I have read and hear, there little 250 works very well and is priced right. This unit for me is temporary just to get my feet wet in the R/O world and to speed thing up a bit. I will be moving to a 600 in a year or so but for now I feel this was the right move for my operation. Good luck to you.
Unless you add a lot more taps you will do fine with a 250. I did 1320 on vacuum one year on my 250 and at the same time bought sap from 4 other producers. My biggest day I had 2500 gal of sap to process, and I reduced it down to 400 gal (in 12 hrs) (2 passes on most) with a boil time of 5 hrs. Of that all but 400 gal was mine. The RO can run while you do other things, when I do that I back off the pressure a little. If you back off on the pressure it will do more than 250 GPH but will not remove as much water.
On mine to get from 2% sap to 8% concentrate I run at 275-280 PSI, but to reduce the fastest I go at about 250-255 PSI, it removes a little less water but increases my total flow to over 275 GPH, then I repeat to get to 10-12% concentrate.
That being said, if 2500 gal a day was normal for me, I'd have a bigger RO. That ws an exceptional day, not the norm. Most days I got about 1300-1500 gal when I had the 1320 taps.

[fred]

so to stay on topic. the ro you are looking at will self prime and it does 50% per pass. it is made to do no more than 2 passes or 8% because it has a pressure pump not a recirculation pump

[maple flats]

My RO can do multiple passes, but it does poorly if the concentrate exceeds 15%. I once got busy with something else and had my RO running on recirculate. When I returned to the sugarhouse the RO had shut off on high pressure. I backed it off and tried again, but it quit shortly after. I discovered the membranes were plugged on the surface. I had to run a 5 minute permeate rinse and it was ready again. I had no hydrometer to test the concentrate, so I did it by math. I started with 2% as I recall and the volume remaining calculated to make it 18%.
My RO has no recirculation pump but I do recirculate in 2 ways. First, I can and do open a needle valve that runs some of the concentrate out of the membranes back to the HP pump inlet. Second, I recirculate thru my head tank, drawing from the feed line to the evaporator , thru the RO and back to the opposite end of the head tank.
My RO is very basic but it serves me well.
I am not familiar with the CDL hobby 250, but it likely is similar to my 250.

[butler]

Should I be looking at an RO with a recirculating pump rather than a pressure pump? I think that’s what the lapierre turbo’s use...

[fred]

its all relative to the speed you want to process. there is an adjustment on the 250. but if it gets cranked down too much youll just blow out the membranes

[n8hutch]

Should I be looking at an RO with a recirculating pump rather than a pressure pump? I think that’s what the lapierre turbo’s use...

It is all up to you and your Budget, I bought a 600 Gph CDL last year with a 3 or maybe its 3.5 Hp pump, anyway with good sap it easily does 2 to 10% at probably closer to 500gph. It's an awesome rig, and to me it was a much better deal price wise.

[fred]

as I keep stressing the 250's are not the 600's or bigger. they are only designed to do 50%

[butler]

I’m definately not ready to go bigger than 250.. also want to make sure I will have enough sap each time to run it.. I’m assuming I will need 4-500 gals to start it up...can the cdl 250 be stored without a heated room?

[boondocker]

Yes it can be stored in a unheated room but needs to be 100% drained. I am not taking any chances with mine, I am building a shelf on the wall about 4' to 5' off the floor and enclosing it with a small heater inside just to be sure nothing freezes.

[S.S.S]

them 250gph cdl rigs are way over priced in my book!

[VT_K9]

1924219243We have a CDL 250 RO. We are upgrading to a 600 gph CDL unit this year. The 250 was a great unit and concentrated quite a bit of sap and saved a lot of wood. They say drain it and you don't need to keep it in a heated room. Early in the ownership we found this to be true. The last two years were different...keep a heat lamp on it. Yes... a simple heat lamp it made all the difference for us and is becoming the recommendation.

Ours was mounted on top of a CDL 160 gallon tank. This sat next to a CDL 260 gallon tank for three years and then a 800 gallon tank last year. We pumped from the 260 (or 800) to the 160 removing half the water. The next pass was pumping from the 160 to a 100 gallon feed tank. Sometimes we recirculated the concentrate to get it close to 4% if it did not make it there on the first pass.

All in all we could fire up the RO at about 6:45am, the 2x6 at about 8:30 am. Then boil and RO until we finished approximately 3:00pm. This was about a 700 gallon run and resulted in about 13 gallons of syrup and sweet in the pan.

You made a good choice and will have great results...keep a heat lamp focused in the middle of the unit when temps drop.

Mike

[butler]

Thanks so much for all the great info...it has given me the confidence to purchase a nice used one I found