New CDL RO Problems

[markcasper]

HELP!!!!

I tried filling my new RO with water to let it soak a day. The feed pump will not pump anything. I took all the fittings apart on the feed pump, re-teflon taped them, checked all hose clamps. There seems to be no place where air would be getting in.

I filled the wash tank with water, I hit the start button and it runs, but quits as soon as you release it and the green light does not come on. What am I doing wrong? There does appear to be a piddle of a stream in the short hose between the prefilter outfeed and the turbine pump infeed when hitting the start button.

I called Garth, but noone answered at 2AM. I have an electrician here today, so if its electrical, he would come in handy. Please Help.

I have sap to gather and more trees to tap and sure don't need this.

[802maple]

When you are holding your button on what is the pressure on your feed pressure gauge. Do you bleed your prefilter of air? Are there any places in your feed line before your pump that could have a air bubble. Have you concentrated any sap with the prefilter and is it used up. If it will not hold 20 PSI it will automatically shutdown. I will bet against any electrical problem.

[802maple]

I also have to ask as I have done this a few times. Are all of your feed valves on?

[Russell Lampron]

Another question Mark, is your prefilter clogged?

[Homestead Maple]

Ya, I would say the lines or prefilter is air bound.

[markcasper]

Here is another thing I dreamed about while sleeping. The prefilter had a paper like skin over it. I wonder if maybe that skin is to be taken off before inserting into cartridge. The pressure gauge barely bounces when I hold the button, its back to zero almost immediatly.

802maple: It is completely bran new, it has seen no sap yet, the filters bran new.
I hope that is the problem! I am dumb.....but to a newbie, there really should be instructions stating to remove the protective paper before using.

I'll try it out and report back later. Thanks for your input guys!

Mark

[802maple]

If you are talking about the loose fitting paper wrapper, that does have to come off. You seem to be another customer that your dealer took your money and ran with it. When I used to sell equipment I couldn't look someone in the face if I sold to a newbie and dropped it off and said here you go, good luck. I would be all over your dealer like flies on crap if this were to happen to me.

[MERIDIAN MAPLES]

Did you try calling Pete? I'm a newby to the RO this year also, and you have to possible burp the air in your feed line by opening the black valve just a little bit on the lower right side of the RO. Also you have to hold the green button in for 45 seconds before it will stay on. Don't push in both green buttons, only the left one. We've used ours three times now, and we're just getting comfortable. I've called Pete on his cell about 8 times, and he was real helpfull.

[ennismaple]

Sounds like you're air locked. First thing I do is loosen the pre-filter while holding the left green button to get all the air out of it, then re-tighten. Then I loosen the cartridge filter slightly until the air's out of it, while holding the button down. That's worked for me every time so far. Did you open the valve on the top of the membrane tower when you filled the membrane with liquid to bleed the air out of it? Since the pump runs I'd rule out an electrical problem.

[Jim Brown]

Sounds like an air lock to me,If I don;t hold the air release button in on our Lappierre when were change pre filters the thing will not pick up the sap or the rinse water either one .Press the button until about 1/2 teaspoon of water comes out and we are good to go!
My two cents
Jim

[markcasper]

I called Roths yesterday to ask about using "elastics" to hold the liner over the filter. Pete said it will stay there by itself. Then why does the book say to use elastics. What is an elastic? A rubber band? then it should say rubber band!
Pete said nothing about taking a paper cover off the filter. I am a little teed, I spent 3 hours taking fittings apart for nothing, my brother wasted a half hour and he couldn't figure it out either. Hopefully things go better today.

BTW....I left a message on Garth Althertons cell at 2AM and have not recieved a call back yet, 10 hours later.

[MERIDIAN MAPLES]

Our bag of liners came with rubber bands. We put them at the top and bottom of the filter cartridge. Are you using the instructions that came with the RO, or did you print off the instructions on CDL's Website? The ones on the website are much, much better. Actually the instructions on the machine itself are less confussing I thought.

[Jim Brown]

We us the wraps on our pre filters .Went we talked to Lappierre they told us that the package would contain 6 pre wraps and a package of rubber bands to hold them on with.. Very helpful group of folks!!

Jim

[markcasper]

Still no call from Garth. I did fill it! The liner around the filter prevented the flow.

Question: What happens if I were to use the RO late tonight with not having it full of water 24 hours? I filled it at noon and will probably be midnight before I am ready to cook. I'm going out to gather now, and will check back here later to see.

I really don't want to wait til tomorrow b/c I have to work tomorrow night. If I can't use it, then I will just cook raw sap later tonight, but really would like the luxury of only cooking 2 hours instead of 6. Mark

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

If you are waiting to hear from Garth, he will get back to you by 2010 or 2011 if you are lucky. Don't hold your breath waiting for any response from Garth, been there, done that and won't deal with him again.

[Russell Lampron]

Mark if it is ready to go start concentrating. You do have to take the prefilter out of the paper wrapper. When trying to get the machine to prime open the valve on the top of the membrane housing. There may also be a bleeder that you can press on the prefilter housing. It does take a while for the air to bleed out. Good luck you did choose a nice RO and will love it once you get it figured out.

[markcasper]

Russel, Thanks for the comments. The RO is ready to go, sap gathered, unfortunately I don't have the evaporator completely ready. I have to work tonight and plans of concentrating this morning are gone. This first sap is gonna make dark syrup anyway, so will wait til Sat. morning after work.
My first sap came in at 2.9%, 3.0% and 3.2%. By the way, still no call from Garth.

Another BTW.....being that the colum is full of water, shouldn't the air already be out of it?

[ennismaple]

There will still be air in it. Crack the valve on top of the membrane tower a bit as you push the left green button. Once it stops spitting close the valve and then make sure your two pre-filters aren't ari-locked and you're good to go.

You'll get comfortable with the machine quickly. I barely operated ours before I had to set it up and get it running this year. After a couple days operating it and finding ways to fix the misc problems that pop up I can now call myself an expert! Good luck.

[maplecrest]

ok i have read enough. lets go thru from start to finish in english. step 1 shut wash tank valve, fill wash tank with water. 15 gallons per membrane. 2 open valve on top of mem vessel. 3 put filter in blue canister. remove paper wrapper. if so wanted place precleaner sleave over filter with rubber bands. if found they are a pain and do not use.3 put canister on machine.open wash tank valve. 4 push on red button on top of blue canister until no air and a stream of water. 5 push start button hold until green light comes on. let machine run until water comes out of top of vessel. 6 shut valve on toip of vessel. 7 shut off machine. let set 24 hours. 8 drain. 9 get 200 gallons of water. 10 rinse machine with 200 gallons of water. read rinse cycle instructions.put water in your perm tank turn valves to wash drain and turn on perm valve .shut sap valve, shut wash valve, open drain valve and start machine. let run until out of water. will shut it self off. now you are ready to make concentrate. 10 shut perm valve open sap valve, turn both front valves to basin.make sure wash vave is closed. when you have sap bleed all air out thru red button on top of filter. or open wash valve and let run down drain for a few seconds. make sure drain valve is open. then start machine. if not a start repeat bleeding. hold button until green light comes on. adjust pressuer to 400 and the percent of sap you want.

[markcasper]

So now your saying I have to drain the water OUT of the column before running sap? Pete Roth said the opposite. He said to just start running sap through, though the membrane is full of water.

[MERIDIAN MAPLES]

You can start running sap through the membrane right away if you've ran 2-300 gallons of water through on the rinse cycle. You want to run a rinse cycle of 200-300 gallons of water through the machine, follow the rinse instructions on the machine. After that you can concentrate, just follow the concentration instructions. To get the machine to prime you will probably will have to burp the feed line each time by opening the black valve on the lower right of the machine. After running sap through it then follow the wash instructions on the machine. Check ph, and read the instructions very carefully on the machine in full.

[Jeff E]

Just checked in and sorry you are having trouble with the RO Mark.

I soaked my membrane for 2 days, being sure to bleed off air from the top of the column. I then followed the instructions on the front of the machine for RINSE and let it run through 300 gallons.

I then was able to concentrate. No problems. I set my pressure to about 410 and you concentrate flow to 1.5gmp. This took my 1.8 sap to about 10.

I ran if again, and had to bleed air off of the prefilter, as I had the sap valve under my tank closed when I tried to start up. Sucked air. Once the prefilter had the air out it started no problem.

After that batch, I ran a wash cycle. I had no indication I need to, but I am hoping to wash before I get into trouble. I will watch the flow and pressures to decide when to wash again.

[MERIDIAN MAPLES]

You should wash every time you run sap through it.

[Jeff E]

After every cycle? Lets say a 2 hour process, I should run a wash and rinse?

[MERIDIAN MAPLES]

If your not going to concentrate sap until the next day, yes you should run a wash. If you are going to concentrate in the next hour or two no. You should maybe run a rinse though.

[markcasper]

The machine is new! Never ran sap before. So now I have to run 300 gallons of plain water through prior to sap. It says in the book not to run straight water through, thus voiding the warranty??????????????????????????

[Jeff E]

The manual says not to concentrate with tap water. It is ok to use water to rinse. You need to do this to remove any fibers/dust from manufacture of the membrane.

Then you should be good to go, and concentrate that sap!
I hope we get some to work with :rolleyes:

[markcasper]

The new RO works good! It has me really thinking why I didn't do this years ago. I do have a few basic questions and probably should know.

I had the pressure around 375 the other night with concentrate flow of 1.5-1.75GPM. I was not getting anywhere close to 600 GPH though. The concentrate was coming out around 11%. The raw sap was around 2.8%.

The premate flow was around 4 GPM. Am I doing something wrong? I have not washed with acid yet as I have only used it twice. I did give it a long wash both times. From what I hear your not suppossed to use acid everytime, maybe only a few times a week. Is this proper?

The first night the pressure was probably 410, but decided for the lower due to no need to hurry. I figured she was only doing 375 GPH of sap. Is this normal or what.?

Another thing: Do you only turn the turbine pump on when actually concentrating, or do you use that for washing and rinsing to?? I have only pushed the high pressure button when actually concentrating for fear of wrecking something and not knowing what I am doing. I know not to concentrate tap water, but will premate hurt it?

[mountainvan]

You should wash and rinse at low pressure. If you're concentrating to 11% in one pass the gals/hr will be lower. I started doing the recirc. thing this year, only to 8%, and I get rid of 150 gals of permeate an hr with 2 40" membranes.

[Russell Lampron]

Mark I tried to tell you years ago that you needed an RO. Now that you've got one you can see what I knew you would like.

You should wash with RO soap, not acid after every use. Do flushes and rinses with permeate every 4 hours while you are concentrating.

Turn the concentrate flow valve out so that it is equal to or more than the permeate flow and you will get higher flow rates for longer periods of time before the membrane gets clogged. When I was at Therons and we were running his we were getting well over 600gph at 400psi by doing this.

I have been playing with the flow rates and recirculating my sap this year. I can get 4gpm on the concentrate side and 2.5gpm on the permeate side out of my 150gph RO at 300psi. That's a total flow of 390gpm. As the concentrate gets sweeter those numbers start to drop off fairly quickly but still balance out at a combined flow of 210gph or higher. When I am only working with 600 gallons of sap to start with I am removing alot of water in a short time.

Only turn on the high pressure pump when you are concentrating. The low pressure feed pump is the only one that you need when washing and rinsing. The circulation pump on the membrane housing should turn on automatically once the feed pump is up to pressure.

[maplecrest]

my guess is you have mach one membranes. they are very slow. i bought a brand new 1800 cdl this year. weather 8 or 12 percent the out put is the same 1140 per hour. last year my 1200 with nf 270 membranes was doing 1600 gals per hour at 10 percent. when you wash it still slows down. do not need to acid wash. get ph up to 11% in wash tank when you wash with soap and will be ok

[markcasper]

On your last batch through, do you run all your permeate back through or not? I gave it a good normal wash. Since it won't be used any more I was wondering.

On another note, the sap I did this morning had quite a smell, the permeate also carried that smell, though not as strong. Can someone explain this one?

Thats why I am questionong running that particular permeate through.

[Russell Lampron]

Mark check the sugar content of the permeate. My guess is that your membrane passed some sugar. I wouldn't use it to rinse the membrane for the final time of the season if it passed more than a trace.

[markcasper]

Russ, I double recalibrated my refractometer (a new Misco) I was getting negative, -0.2 on the permeate. Anyway, I checked after recalibrating and it shows 0.0%.

So what do I do?

[Russell Lampron]

Mark it looks like there isn't any sugar in the permeate so run all of it through. Rinse the membrane well when you put it back in next season and you shouldn't have any problems.

The permeate is purified water like Dasani or Aquafina without the added minerals when it comes out of the membrane. I don't know why you are getting am odor from it because the water molecules are about the only thing that fit through the membrane.

[markcasper]

Russ, I might add that in the book someplace it says there could be a minute trace of sugar. May that very well be where the smell comes from.

It seemed when I checked the permeate yesterday morning the smell had lessened (I did not use the RO on my last batch.)

I tried calling my dealer yesterday, found out they are out of town til Monday.
I do plan on getting it sent away to CDL, its included in the price.

It also says something of doing a performance test after 20 hours (never happened). Can I do it now? The book says to run half the permeate through and then record the data. I still do not know the answer to this question:::::::::::::??????Can you hit the green turbine concentrating button with permeate, or just sap?? I know not to do it with tap water.

When reading the stupid manual, I assume you are to be "pretend concentrating" with permeate, otherwise, how would you be able to do this efficiency test? Garth himself told me not to worry about doing an efficiency tests as the results will be recorded at CDL the first time. But we are talking about a man that has failed to return my phone calls as well.

[Russell Lampron]

The reason for doing the efficiency test after 20 hours is to see if the output of the RO is the same as it was when it was new. I wouldn't worry about it now especially where you are sending the membrane out to be cleaned.

On the first use next season set a bench mark by concentrating sap at 200psi and recording what you set the concentrate flow at and what you get for permeate flow. After 20 hours of use do the same thing again. If the membrane is getting clogged the permeate flow will be lower than what it was when you set the bench mark. I don't know about doing it with permeate. I was told to do it with sap.

[markcasper]

Russ, Thanks for all of your assistance! I have the book and will quote the following paragraph which leads me to believe you are to concentrate with permeate to do the efficiency test. You can think on it and compare with what I think:

"How to calculate membrane performance"

Step 1

"After the first 20 hours of concentrating with your new RO you can now do an accurate performance calculation of you membrane. This result will be 100% of your membrane. After completing a wash simply begin the rinse cycle let the rinse cycle run normally until you have used about half of your permeate. At this point you can simply start the pressure pump and adjust the concentrate flow meter reading to 3 gpm and set the system pressure at 250 psi. Now you will need to record the permeate flow reading and the temperature."

I am pretty dumb, but reading this seems to suggest using the high pressure pumps, otherwise how would you get to 250 psi with only the feed pump operating? The other giveaway is doing it after the wash cycle and after "you have used half of your permeate."

[Russell Lampron]

Mark that sounds like a good method to use. I will have to dig out my Lapierre manual and see if it says the same thing. The Lapierre manual is so hard to understand that I haven't looked at it in years.